Kansas basketball: Udoka Azubuike shows amazing promise
Udoka Azubuike is a man child. We already knew that from what we saw last year. The seven footer with a 280 pound frame dominates the paint like few others from memory. He is one big reason Kansas fans are in for a fun season of hoops.
Before the wrist injury derailed his freshman season, ‘Dok’ was an important player for KU. Playing 11 games, he averaged 5 points, 4.4 rebounds and 1.6 blocks in less than 13 minutes a game, per sports-reference.com. To say it simply, he was dominant.
That is not to say he was flawless. His game had chinks and most pronounced was his fouling rate. He accumulated 2.8 fouls in the limited minutes he was on the court. That stat translates to 8.7 fouls if he were to play full forty minutes. Moreover, his turnover rate at 4.2 per 40 minutes also needed improvement.
He has done exactly that even though his minutes have increased to 29 per game. When he is on the court, Dok is accumulating 14.3 points and 2 blocked shots per game. Per 40 minutes, his foul rate has decreased to 3.2 while his turnovers stand at 1.8. But the most interesting stat early into the season is his scoring efficiency.
Udoka Azubuike is efficient and dominant
Udoka Azubuike has made 19 of the 21 shots he has taken across the first three games of the season. His FG% stands at an otherworldly 0.905! Although three games are too early to gauge any player’s improvements, but Dok has shown a dominance that is hardly seen, even in such small sample sizes. His FG% will likely take a hit as the season progresses and oppositions start to double team him regularly. But I do not see it come down significantly as long as Dok does not force his shots.
But then he is so big, that even when he forces the issue, the chances are he will run through the opposition defense and still be able to score- or go to the free throw line. This is where the chinks in his game show up.
Free throw and Rebounding rate need improvements
This season he has only made 5 of the 12 free throws he has attempted. Although this is an improvement from last year(!), he will need to be more consistent than this.
If he can hit the free throws at a high rate, he will become the goto guy for Bill Self to score points whenever the game is very close. On the contrary, if he does not improve this stat, he will likely not get the ball in his hands during end game situations- unless Self is confident that he will score through contact, thus rendering his free throw shooting not a necessity but an added bonus.
Beyond the free throw shooting, Udoka Azubuike needs to be more active on the glass. I expected that he should be getting at least 10 rebounds per 40 minutes given his enormous size. But in reality he is only grabbing 7.4 rebounds. It is way too low for a center who is as dominant as him. Maybe some of this is because he gets help from the players at the 4 position or the long backcourt guys that Kansas has (read Svi and Vick). Nevertheless, there is a major room for improvement here.
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NCAA championship is possible
The bottom line is that even with these two major chinks in his armor, Dok is one of the most dominant bigs to be playing at the center position. As he gets better, he can turn the Jayhawks into an unstoppable force on the court. Without his major improvements, the Kansas backcourt is so loaded that Kansas is already a Final Four candidate. If he can get better at rebounding and free throws, Dok will propel the Kansas Jayhawks into the NCAA championship talk. Dok’s continued growth will be key to what Kansas can achieve this season.
Note: All data is from sports-reference.com unless otherwise mentioned.