I chose to use offensive rebounding percentage instead of just each player's total offensive rebounds from the season because it adjusts for the fact that not every player has the same opportunity to get offensive boards. You'll notice that many players on this list didn't play starter's minutes, nor did they rack up a ton of total offensive rebounds. However, they took advantage of the time that they were given and dominated on the offensive glass when given the chance. I got both the offensive rebounding percentage and offensive rating data from Fox Sports.
The following graph includes the top 22 (there was a three-way tie at 20) players in terms of offensive rebounding percentage and compares their offensive rebounding percentage to their season-long offensive rating:
As always, here's the full list of players and their schools:
Oscar Tshiebwe - West Virginia
Jordan Minor - Merrimack
Ed Croswell- La Salle
Kevin Marfo - Quinnipiac
Trevion Williams - Purdue
Austin Wiley - Auburn
Scottie James - Liberty
Tyrique Jones - Xavier
Cletrell Pope - Bethune-Cookman
Patrick Harding - Bryant
Chris Harris - Houston
Freddie Gillespie - Baylor
Myles Johnson - Rutgers
Loudon Love - Wright State
Austin Phyfe - Northern Iowa
Mubarak Muhammed - Louisiana Tech
Omer Yurtseven - Georgetown
Mahamadou Diawara - Stetson
Udoka Azubuike - Kansas
Josh Mballa - Buffalo
Brison Gresham - Houston
Nate Watson - Providence
At first glance, the graph seems very scattered and doesn't seem to tell us very much. After all, there's no clear trend such as the players with the highest offensive rebounding percentage also having the highest offensive ratings. However, if we look at the extremes (i.e. the corners), we can extract some useful information.
For instance, the bottom right corner includes the players with some of the highest offensive rebounding percentages in this elite group, while also having some of the lowest offensive ratings. This suggests that these are players who struggle a bit in other areas of their offensive game, and their superb offensive rebounding abilities are inflating their O Rating a bit. For instance, Jordan Minor of Merrimack falls within this region. Minor, a freshman, wasn't a big part of the Warriors' strong first season in Division I having only played around 16 minutes per game off the bench. He only averaged 6.2 points and 4.4 boards per game, but his prowess on the offensive glass in the minutes that he was given helped drive his O Rating.
La Salle's Croswell also finds himself in this corner. The sophomore averaged more points (10.0) and shot a little better (60.2% eFG%) than Minor, albeit with more experience and minutes. With excellent offensive rebounding serving as a foundation, Croswell's shooting efficiency indicates that he might warrant an expanded offensive role. However, it won't be up to La Salle to provide such role anymore, as Croswell is heading to the Big East where he'll sit out a year and then suit up for Providence. This could be a really good get for the Friars.
There's not really any players distinctly in the top right, so we'll move on to the bottom left. Of course, this is the area on the graph that you normally wouldn't want to be as it indicates the lowest offensive rebounding percentage and the lowest offensive rating. However, all of these players are the cream of the crop in offensive rebounding, and even the players in this corner have barely below a 105 O Rating which is still very solid. The two players that we'll focus on from this not so unfortunate after all section are Stetson's Mahamadou Diawara and Wright State's Loudon Love.
Diawara, a three star recruit, chose Stetson over offers from UMass, Rhode Island, Saint Joe's and Penn State per 247Sports. The choice seems to have paid off as he started the vast majority of the Hatters' games as a freshman and already has found himself on this elite list of offensive rebounders. The aspects that appear to be bringing down his O Rating are turnovers (3.0 per game), fouls (3.2 per game), and assists (0.7 per game). The influence of the turnovers and fouls is magnified a bit by the fact that he only played 26 minutes per game, but they should go down as he gains more experience. Getting assists up will be a little more tricky, but hopefully the coaching staff works with Diawara in getting him more involved with this aspect of the offense.
Love's inclusion in this area surprised me a bit because he was the Horizon League Player of the Year this season. However, his O Rating was a little on the low side (at least in comparison to the rest of this group) partially because Love had his lowest eFG% (48.8%) in his career thus far. This can be explained by the fact that his usage rate was also the highest it's ever been at 31.9% as he was relied upon a ton to get the Raiders to a first place conference finish. His slight decline in shooting efficiency was countered by a nice jump in offensive rebounding percentage to help solidify himself on this list. Look for Love to be back on this list next year as he tries to end his senior season by doing the double again of being Player of the Year and winning the league.
Lastly, we move up to the top right. Austin Phyfe and Brison Gresham are the standouts here. This area suggests that these are players who are excellent offensive rebounders, but who also have many other offensive skills that have supported such high offensive ratings.
Phyfe had himself a tremendous season for Northern Iowa this year after coming back from a redshirt season due to a medical issue. He successfully made the transition from efficient sporadic starter in his freshman season to being a big piece on a great mid-major team this season. His offensive rating was 129.9 this season, good for 16th in the nation. This incredible O Rating was helped by an awesome 69.4% eFG% and Phyfe looks to be heading towards two more exciting seasons with the Panthers.
Unlike Phyfe, Houston's Gresham didn't play a huge role on his team and only averaged 2.9 points per game. Yet the former UMass transfer made a key impact in his 15 minutes per game mostly off the bench with his offensive rebounding and blocking ability. Gresham's 1.2 blocks per game translates to 3.2 blocks per 40 minutes, which would've put him among the blocking elites this season. Aside from blocking on the defensive end, his 64.3% eFG% helped him also have such a high O Rating despite limited scoring. Teammate Chris Harris (also on this list of top offensive rebounders) is graduating and Nate Hinton, a guard lauded for his rebounding ability, is going pro which leaves the Cougars needing someone to step up. I think Gresham could be that guy.
Overall, this graph showcased a lot of guys who I think have potential to be given a greater offensive role or who will continue to shine. I thought it was interesting too that each corner had its distinct identity of offensive player. As for my original question about what the impact of offensive rebounding percentage on O Rating is, I think its pretty clear that offensive rebounding percentage can be a big factor as all of these players excelled in this skill and none had an O Rating below 103. We saw with players like Phyfe and Gresham that a high offensive rebounding percentage provides a sort of minimum O Rating that then can be brought up to truly impressive levels with efficient shooting.
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