The Papacy Begins: transfer point guard Jordan Pope commits to Texas MBB
Oregon State's leading scorer in 2023-24 picked the Longhorns over future SEC rival Texas A&M.
Primer.
OUT OF OVER 5,000 players in NCAA basketball last season, just 102 of them averaged more points per game than incoming guard transfer Jordan Pope did last year for the Oregon State Beavers.
Pope, a native of Oakley, California, put up a blistering 17.6 points per game in his sophomore year in Corvallis, doing so on a very efficient 37.1% three-point percentage and 45.1% overall from the field. Additionally, he dished 3.4 dimes per game, meaning that, while he’s a shoot-first point guard, he can still facilitate as well.
Though the Beavs had a less-than-stellar year, Jordan Pope built on what was already a very impressive freshman season. He started 63 of the 64 games he played for Wayne Tinkle at OSU over two years, and from his first year to his second year, increased his points per game by five, from 12.6 to 17.6.
He also increased his per-game assist numbers (2.3 to 3.4) and, despite getting a bump in usage rate from 21.1% to 26.8%, barely had an increase in turnover percentage (11.1% to 12.7%).
For a guard, he has a solid player efficiency rating as well with an 18.3 PER – typically, those with the highest PER ratings are bigs, because overall it’s an efficiency metric, and bigs are by and large getting easier looks due to simple proximity to the basket. In this sense, PER doesn’t tell the whole story.
A better stat to represent his offensive prowess would be his effective field goal percentage (52.5% eFG), but an even more expository metric would be true-shooting percentage, as it takes into account not just the value of the three-point shot, but also free-throw attempts and makes. 56.6% is the TS% number, which is very good for his position.
His ability to get to the line on top of his scoring from the field factors into his overall efficiency numbers, making him one of the most consistent scorers in D-1 basketball last season.
Offensive Game.
First and foremost, Jordan Pope is a scoring point guard, a lead ball-handler that focuses on shooting off of the bounce as opposed to being a “pure” or “pass-first” player. Luckily for Texas, Pope is an efficient scorer when considering the volume on which he shoots.
In 2023-24, he averaged 13.9 field goal attempts per game, including 5.6 three-point attempts per game, of which he connected on 37.1%, as previously mentioned. His 17.6 points per game was good for fifth place in the Pac-12 Conference, trailing Keion Brooks (21.1 points, Washington), KJ Simpson (19.6 points, Colorado). Jaylon Tyson (19.6 points California), and Caleb Love (18.1 points, Arizona).
As mentioned above, Pope gets a good amount of his points from beyond the arc, hitting, on average, a little over two a game. Watch the move below where he takes advantage of a quick screen to square up and drain the three-point shot on the move.
He’s not simply a shooter, though; his all-around ability to score pops off the screen. Pope has excellent handles and the ability to get around in the half-court with a live dribble, which allows him to attack the basket. The level of ball control he has combined with his speed and quickness makes him a very difficult ask for most defenders, especially considering his ability to hit from all over the floor.
Watch below how he navigates the defense before drawing the foul and finishing the circus shot through contact.
Another thing at which Pope excels on the offensive end is using screens to his advantage to create space. He is a decent pick-and-roll passer, but really thrives getting shots off of ball screens, as he does below.
He uses a hesitation crossover to draw the defender into the screen, and once the contact is made and his defender is cleared out of the way, takes an additional dribble before pulling up, getting the shot off before another Cal defender can contest effectively.
As described earlier, his ability to score also lends itself to facilitation, as defenders are typically assuming that Pope is going to try to put up a shot instead of passing it off. This leaves situations where he can avoid more difficult takes off the dribble by using teammates’ positioning to his advantage, as well as surveying the floor to find the optimal passing option.
Watch the clip below – his vision and anticipation are like that of a quarterback’s. He leads his defender into the paint before hitting the spin move and passing it off to an open Oregon State player, who drains the three.
His step-back three-point shot is extremely effective also, as he creates so much separation with the slide-back motion on the shot that he can get an open look at will (given it’s a difficult attempt, regardless of whether it’s contested).
He’s shifty and uses his quickness to his advantage, causing the defender to bite on the fake right before a behind-the-back dribble, step-back, and three. Pope has some highlight-reel moves in his repertoire.
Watch below how he once again uses the hesitation crossover to his advantage, even after fumbling the initial pass.
Once the defender is off-balance, he uses his straight-line speed to slash into the lane, dishing it cross-court in mid-air to a wide-open three-point shooter.
I describe Jordan Pope as similar to Max Abmas of last year’s Texas team, another shoot-first sniper point guard. They even had similar percentages and points per game last year, but the difference is that Jordan Pope is not a one-year rental like Abmas was.
He can be a legitimate building block going forward if they can keep him around for more than one year. Hopefully for their sake, they can.
Defensive Game.
As effective as he is on the offensive end of the floor, Pope has had his struggles on defense. Part of that is related to his size limitations, as he stands at just 6-foot-2.
A quick look at his advanced defensive stats paints a not-so-bright picture of Pope’s ability to lock down opponents. As always, defensive statistics are very much an inexact science and need to be taken with a grain of salt, as so many other factors affect a singular player’s defensive stats.
However, looking strictly from this angle, Pope had a very questionable defensive box plus/minus of -1.7 BPM. As good as his OBPM was, 5.0, his defense actually drags his average down to a net box plus/minus of 3.3 BPM.
As a team, Oregon State struggled across the board – they finished just 13-19 on the season and finished 300th in points per game (68.9) and 206th in points allowed (72.7). Pope has an offensive rating of 112.4, and a defensive rating of 114.7, both of which are probably about expected for a player with Pope’s statistical profile.
In the clip below, Pope’s size disadvantage is put on display as he’s knocked off the ball on defense by a high screen. The ball handler then crosses over and easily gets to the rim. While others made mistakes here as well, Pope is responsible for trying to slow down the ball handler on his way to the lane, but when screened out by a player that is much bigger, his ability to navigate on the defensive end is affected.
Here’s another example of his trouble with getting through screens. He’s chasing KJ Simpson of Colorado around the perimeter here, who uses another high screen to get free for just a second, long enough to create space to hit an open shot on the move.
In another example here, he’s blown by in transition. While he’s put in a tough spot from the jump, he is still unable to regain his footing after taking a bad angle to defend the ball handler, resulting in two for Cal.
While he has his troubles being super consistent, he can occasionally make plays on defense as well. His career steals average is just under one per game, so he can affect opposing guards, assuming there isn’t a major size disadvantage.
While his offense more than makes up for his deficiencies on the defensive end, he still will need to be given a lot of help on defense, especially in one-on-one scenarios. It will be a team effort to lock people down when Pope is playing big minutes, but then again, he’s not out there to play defense – he’s out there to get buckets, mane.
Overall Fit.
For a back court piece, more than anything, Texas needed a scorer to replace Max Abmas, who averaged 16.1 points per game for the Longhorns last year.
But to speak candidly – Jordan Pope is a better player than Abmas was, though he will not put up the same gaudy scoring numbers he did at Oregon State due to sharing the ball with five-star McDonald’s All-American Tre Johnson and Arkansas wing transfer Tramon Mark. Both of these guys will want theirs, so Pope will not be able to do what he typically does and jack 14 shots per game.
His role will be scaled down in a way in that he’s not the only option to score on the team at guard, which it felt like at times with Max Abmas last year do to Tyrese Hunter’s inconsistency. They had Dylan Disu of course as well, but he was a front court piece, and therefore didn’t naturally have the ball in his hands all the time.
The key to being successful with Pope on the floor is to make sure there are (a) big and (b) lengthy defenders around him, because when he’s caught off by a screen and is unable to chase the opposing player, it will require closing out on the behalf of his teammates.
Still, beyond any of the criticisms, Jordan Pope is an absolutely killer pickup, and will be a blast to watch alongside Tre and Tramon next season.
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