The Wildcats only played one game this week, a close loss at Butler. It was yet another game that followed a similar script, although offense was the problem in this one sans Martinelli, rather than the defensive
issues that have plagued the ‘Cats all year. But like Virginia, Oklahoma State and Ohio State before, the ‘Cats hung around with decent teams but struggled to execute down the stretch, resulting in their fourth loss of five or fewer points (déjà vu, anyone?).
Unfortunately, for somewhat complicated reasons that aren’t worth explaining, there are no clips available from this game. So instead of trying to explain without film how the offense struggled down the stretch, I am going to fulfill my promise from last week and do a deep dive into the guy who’s been my favorite player to watch since his insertion into the starting lineup: Jordan Clayton.
Clayton won’t make the same high-flying blocks as Arrinten Page or turn steals into slams like Justin Mullins, but he has been far and away the most impactful defensive player on the roster this year (and especially since returning from his stint out of the rotation and entering the starting lineup). A lot of what he does is harder to spot with the naked eye, with just a 28th percentile steal rate per 40 minutes, he won’t jump off the stat sheet, but this is the perfect place to break down his impact and give you something to watch going forward.
Clayton essentially singlehandedly ruins Jackson State’s offensive possession here. The Tigers are trying to get into a Spain action, where the man set up at the free throw line sets a down screen in the paint and the man in the paint immediately sprints up to set a ball screen at the top of the key. It’s an effective action against a switching defense like Northwestern’s because it puts three guys in the action instead of two and forces multiple switches in quick succession. Clayton recognizes the intent early and stands his ground, blowing up the first screen. Deandre Ruffin, who was awesome in the first half, rejects the screen and drives downhill, completely dusting Jayden Reid (who has been quite bad defensively; more on that later). But Clayton steps across the lane and leaps into one of the best shot contests you’ll ever see from a 6-foot-2 guard.
Clayton flashes his range in this clip. He starts off the ball in the corner, tied tight to his man on the strong side. The skip pass goes across the court and Clayton immediately heads for the paint. Notice how early he’s moving: By the time the ball gets to where it’s going, Clayton has already gone from the three-point line to a step outside the paint, making him on time for when Martinelli gets beat and providing baseline help, which is the hardest place to do so. Despite jumping out of bounds under the hoop, he recovers to his man in time to prevent a shot. Clayton then not only closes out extremely fundamentally, but anticipates the driving direction of his man to completely stymie the drive and force a kick out for a long trey.
Clayton isn’t just doing this against the Jackson States of the world, either. Here he is picking up Ohio State’s Bruce Thornton full court and slowing the All-Big Ten guard down all the way up the court. He gets a little bit of aid from Page on the pick and roll but does a very good job of jumping back into the play and allowing Page to re-engage with Christoph Tilly. It’s been a concerning trend from Reid and KJ Windham of getting screened and then taking themselves out of the mix defensively instead of working hard to fight through the pick and reconnect to the defense. Clayton, by contrast, is the hardest working defender on the team (by a considerable amount) and refuses to give up on a play.
To see just how impactful Clayton was in this game, I looked at CBB Analytics’ breakdown of his on-off splits against Ohio State. The results are staggering.
With Clayton on the floor for 21 minutes, Northwestern was a +12; by contrast, it was a -16 in his 19 minutes on the bench. The defensive rating was just okay with Clayton on the court, but when he was off the floor, it was an appalling 139.6, 32 points worse and at zeroth percentile, good for the worst defense in the country if at a full season rate. The net rating is an astounding eighty points better with Clayton on the floor compared to off. By far the most glaring statistic here is the opponent offensive rebound percentage. When Clayton sat, Northwestern gave up offensive rebounds at nearly three times the rate, going from the best rebounding rate in the country to one of the worst. As a team, it should ring major alarm bells if your entire rebounding success relies on the effort of a 6-foot-2, not particularly athletic guard; but that’s been a story all season and was especially one in this game.
Clayton’s offensive impact isn’t a topic of discussion in this column, but if you are one of the people who doesn’t think Clayton does enough on offense to warrant being a starter, do me a favor and take a gander at the on-off splits offensively for the team, which were even more glaring in this game than the defensive ones.
Jayden Reid has been fairly disappointing in his Northwestern tenure thus far, with a major decline from the three-point line and a tendency for bad turnovers and unwarranted shots in crunch time. Easily the most frustrating part the Reid experiment is watching him try to defend. Clayton doesn’t stay in front of guards despite having a quickness advantage over pretty much everyone he defends. His steal percentage, a major strength last year, is in deep regression this season. He also constantly gets bowled over for rebounds and allows an excruciating amount of extra opportunities.
Looking at this chart of on-off splits of Clayton and Reid, we can glean that they essentially cancel each other out to create an above average defense. When they’re both on or off the court, the Wildcats are defending as a top 80 or so team in the country. With only Clayton, the defense is off-the-charts good, albeit with a smaller sample size. Unfortunately for Northwestern, its largest subset of this combination is with Reid on the floor and Clayton off, where the defense sits around the 250 range. Certainly, it is helpful to have Reid’s passing and transition offense on the floor, but he has struggled so much defensively that it wouldn’t be shocking to see Clayton’s minutes continue to rise while Reid’s begin to fall.
(For those wondering, the offensive splits over the whole season show a negligible difference no matter what combination of Reid and Clayton are on the floor. If you filter for high major games, the offense skyrockets in efficiency with Clayton on and Reid off, which may not be what you’d expect but reflects Reid’s struggles to get going against bigger defenses.)
