Wisconsin Basketball: What's Up With Bronson Koenig?

Wisconsin basketball point guard Bronson Koenig will shape the Badgers finish

I’ve been talking a good bit about Bronson Koenig in my articles, lately, but there is a good reason for that. He holds the keys to the Badgers making the post-season. So far, he has under-performed expectations (with the exception of the Michigan State game), so there is a reasonable chance that he could improve as we move forward.

You could say the same about Nigel Hayes, and I’ll probably take a look at him, too, but it seems pretty clear that he broke his shot, which is not something you fix during the season.

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We all seem to have this intuitive sense that Koenig is under-performing, but it’s difficult to articulate why. That’s where stats can really help.

Below, is a chart of Koenig’s advanced stats for last season and this season with the percentage change shown in the black bars (click to enlarge). Basically, each of these stats is the percentage chance of that thing occurring on a possession involving Koenig. For example, he gets an assist on 15.3% of the possessions that he uses.

Koenig analysis - 1-20-16 /

The chart shows that Koenig’s offense is falling short on offense in three main areas. First, his turnover rate has increased by 30%. Koenig doesn’t turn the ball over much, even so, so this aspect only costs about half a point per game. Second, Koenig is not getting to the line like last season, lowering his free throw attempts per field goal attempt by 15%. The net impact of this is about another half point. Finally, Koenig is shooting more poorly from three. This is only a 6% decrease, but it still adds up to another half point decrease/game.

That is a total of 1.5 points/game that 2016 Bronson Koenig has lost. The improved shooting from the free throw line and two-point range adds less than 2/10th of a point, which is about the same as the amount that his regressed offensive rebounding has cost. You can see this in the True Shooting Percentage, which takes all shooting into account – Koenig just isn’t as good, this year.

Koenig has never been a great defender, but he’s fallen on that side of the ball as well. His steals and blocks are up quite a bit, but they still each only occur on under 1% of possessions, so the change doesn’t add much value. He’s being called for more fouls, this season, which causes more damage than his blocks and steals have added.

Defensive rebounds are up, so you could call this all a wash, but let’s take a look at Defensive Rating from RealGM, which includes a team component to the player’s defensive stats. By Defensive Rating, Koenig has to 105.2 from last season’s 103.4. This change results in a roughly .36 points/game increase in opponent scoring.

Taken together, you are looking about a loss of about 2 points/game with this year’s version of Bronson Koenig compared to last year’s The Badgers have lost 5 games this season by 3 points or less, so those 2 points would have come in handy, possibly turning 2 of those games into wins, and tying 2 more.

Come back, 2014-2015 Bronson, Badgers fans miss you.

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Wisconsin Basketball: What’s Up With Bronson Koenig?

By Josh Blakely | Jan 21, 2016

Wisconsin basketball point guard Bronson Koenig will shape the Badgers finish