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Topic:  The Late Season Emergence of Javan Simmons

Topic:  The Late Season Emergence of Javan Simmons
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QuantCat
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Member Since: 7/15/2025
Post Count: 12

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  Message Not Read  The Late Season Emergence of Javan Simmons
   Posted: 3/10/2026 3:17:37 PM 
The last 12 months have been a bit of a rollercoaster with Javan, starting with elation that we were able to grab an All-MAC caliber player from a rival. Since Dwight finished his eligibility, the team has lacked a true dominant post presence, and Simmons presented as a person who could fill that role and play perfectly in pick-and-roll situations with Pav.

That excitement wore off very quickly as I watched the Wright State exhibition game. From that game through the first month or so, he didn’t look actively bad, but he certainly didn’t live up to what I thought he would be. Then came February.

Somewhere around the middle of January and into February, he really flipped a switch and started to play with an intensity that resulted in him single-handedly keeping the team in games. Until recently, an off night from Pav meant virtually no hope of a win. This led me to dig into some data to see if there is any real merit to the thought that Javan Simmons has turned into a completely different player.

A Quick Note on the Data (EvanMiya vs. Torvik)

I originally wanted to use EvanMiya's data for this. EvanMiya is essentially the gold standard because it uses actual play-by-play, possession-level data to calculate a "true" plus-minus (meaning it measures exactly how the team performs when a player is actually on the floor versus on the bench). The EM data is also much better at accounting for matchups and who is on the floor on both sides. Unfortunately, the site doesn't allow you to filter performance by specific date ranges.

Because of that, I had to use Bart Torvik. Torvik’s Box Plus-Minus (BPM) doesn't use that granular on/off-court data. Instead, it looks at traditional box score stats (points, rebounds, efficiency, etc.) and runs them through a formula to estimate a player's impact. While it’s more of an estimate than EvanMiya's true plus-minus, seeing a player's box score impact jump this drastically still paints a crystal clear picture.

Metric Definitions:

PRPG! (Offensive Value): Think of this as how many extra points a player creates for the offense compared to a typical bench player. The best part about this stat is that it adjusts for "usage," meaning it rewards guys like Javan who can score efficiently even when the opposing defense knows he's getting the ball.

BPM or Box Plus-Minus (Overall Impact): This is a single number that estimates a player’s total value (both offense and defense) compared to an average Division I college basketball player. A 0.0 means the player is exactly average.

Simmons Metrics for 3 Periods During the Season
(Format: Metric Name: Value (Rank in Conference))

11/1/25 - 12/31/25
PRPG!: 1.7 (35th)
BPM: -1.2 (61st)

1/1/26 - 2/7/26
PRPG!: 3.0 (14th)
BPM: 0.6 (36th)

2/8/26 - 3/8/26
PRPG!: 5.0 (2nd)
BPM: 8.4 (1st)

The data out of Torvik directly aligns with what I’ve thought I’ve been watching. Simmons struggled out of the gate, got better once MAC play started, and has been dominant in the last month of the season, ranking as the best in the conference in BPM and 2nd in PRPG! only trailing his buddy at Toledo, Sonny Wilson.

There was a stretch earlier in the year where my kneejerk reaction was that we would be better off moving on from him after the season. It’s flipped so drastically that I think he is a critical piece to turning the ship around next season and also giving us any hope of wining games in Cleveland this week.

Also, for those curious, I’ve been a long-time lurker on the board and only very recently contributed some stuff like these kinds of data-based breakdowns. I work in data for a living and have grown up around college basketball, so I merged the two things together a few years ago to build algorithms that I use to bet on a select few games throughout the college season (college basketball has a perfect mix of lots of sample size and a ton of teams that nobody really pays attention to). This has led me to spend entirely too much time on places like KenPom, EvanMiya, and Torvik analyzing the Bobcats. This type of stuff then felt like it might be worth sharing on this board.
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Bobcat Love's Sense of Shame
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  Message Not Read  RE: The Late Season Emergence of Javan Simmons
   Posted: 3/10/2026 4:20:45 PM 
That BPM data is crazy. I knew Simmons has been good lately; I didn't realize just how good.

Early in the season, a lot of Simmons' (relative) struggles were about free throw shooting. He is elite at drawing fouls. Between he and Pavs, we have two remarkably efficient scorers -- but Simmons wasn't making foul shots at the same clip as he did at Toledo until fairly recently.

In that stretch you cited, he's shooting 73% from the line. And on the season, he averages .64 free throws per FGA. That's elite -- a good rate is .30 or so. SGA -- who a lot of people think is ruining basketball because he draws fouls too well -- is at ~.40.

He's a very, very good player. It's kind of shocking to me how unpopular he is on this board.
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Bob Haldeman
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Location: Parkersburg, WV
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  Message Not Read  RE: The Late Season Emergence of Javan Simmons
   Posted: 3/10/2026 4:51:49 PM 
This adds value, obvs. Kudos.

Without doing much other work, are there any surprises in the Top 5/10 down the stretch in MAC in the two stats? Who passes both the eye and the quant tests?

And, who else has a severe positive trend first or second derivative move going like JS as the season is ending?

I usually only operate with KP to keep it simple, but like the ways one can move the EM stuff to pull more esoteric stuff.
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GoCats105
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Location: Seattle, WA
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  Message Not Read  RE: The Late Season Emergence of Javan Simmons
   Posted: 3/10/2026 5:15:53 PM 
His PER is a full 4 points better than the next guy on the team, Pav, while playing ~270 less minutes across the season. Really the only knock to that being he can't stay on the floor long enough, averaging a little over 4 fouls per 40 min played. It also could have just been a product of conditioning early on in the season. His MPG went way up after the first of the year.
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OhioCatFan
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  Message Not Read  RE: The Late Season Emergence of Javan Simmons
   Posted: 3/10/2026 8:07:03 PM 
Excellent info QuantCat. Thanks for posting. It certainly squares with what I witnessed. It's nice when actual data aligns with your seat-of-the-pants observation. If it hadn't, of course, I would have dismissed it! ;-)

The only BLSS Certified Hypocrite on BA

"It is better to be an optimist and be proven a fool than to be a pessimist and be proven right."

Note: My avatar is the national colors of the 78th Ohio Veteran Volunteer Infantry, which are now preserved in a climate controlled vault at the Ohio History Connection. Learn more about the old 78th at: http://www.78ohio.org

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QuantCat
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Member Since: 7/15/2025
Post Count: 12

Status: Offline
  Message Not Read  RE: The Late Season Emergence of Javan Simmons
   Posted: 3/10/2026 8:07:38 PM 
Bob Haldeman wrote:

Without doing much other work, are there any surprises in the Top 5/10 down the stretch in MAC in the two stats? Who passes both the eye and the quant tests?

And, who else has a severe positive trend first or second derivative move going like JS as the season is ending?


The season long data tends to matchup to what you would expect. There are 6 guys in the MAC in the top 10 in each category ( > 3.5 BPM and > 3 PRPG!). Those 6 are Tavari Johnson (Akron and likely POY), Javontae Campbell (BG), Amani Lyles (Akron), Peter Suder (Miami), Daniel Freitag (Buffalo), and Leroy Blyden Jr (Toledo). So pretty much all of those guys that have performed at a high level the entire year will be on an all MAC team and you are pretty much looking at the first team.

As far as the other players who have been trending up as the season ended, it also kind of passes the eye tests. Outside of Simmons, the other guys who have ended the season playing at a really high level are Sonny Wilson (Toledo), Leroy Blyden Jr (Toledo - FR), Quinn Woidke (Kent - FR), and Leonardo Bettiol (UMass). Pretty much all of the names in the season long data are still at or towards the top outside of Freitag who has been hurt. Also noting that I called out Blyden Jr again because he moved even further up the ranks in the last month. I've watched the end of a lot of random Toledo games this year and that kid is special. Nobody had as drastic a turnaround as Simmons, but it makes sense that some of the other risers were Freshman and also included both Toledo guards.

Mentioned it the other day but Toledo is playing incredibly well to wrap up the season and it might be a good thing that OU drew the 6 seed. Kent is obviously a very good team that will and should be favored, but they have been on a slightly downward trajectory vs. a Toledo team that is red hot.
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