Tracking a Transfer: TJ Power

Welcome to Part 2 of 2024’s Tracking a Transfer! Part 1 was a deep-dive into all things Jalen Warley. This section will be on likely our most high-profile addition, both because of the program from which he came, and due his high school recruiting profile; TJ Power. Coming out of high school, Power was a 6’8″ (now listed at 6’9″) SF/PF combo forward known first and foremost for his shooting ability. A well-documented fan of both Duke and UVa growing up, we identified and offered Power prior to him really catching fire and blowing up. He eventually rose from a consensus 4-star recruit to a 5-star recruit (by both Rivals and 247) late in the 2023 recruiting cycle and Duke swooped in, as they’ve been wont to do recently, to play the blocker to our… moving… on the recruiting trail… so to speak.

Had we landed Power out of high school, he would have been the highest pedigree recruit that CTB has had during his entire tenure, which is a big reason for the excitement. But, even more, Power specifically transferring away from Duke after not receiving much playing time (6.7 mpg over 26 games) and being recruited over with the incoming high school/transfer class will make for a very interesting case study. There have been quite a few high-profile recruits over the years who we have built relationships with on the recruiting trail over long periods of time only to have Duke eventually make a push for them after their profile increases enough. Just recently Power was one, but Kon Knueppel is another from the incoming class of 2024 (and there have been several prior). If Power has success here after struggling to see the court there, it could make a strong case in favor of our player development, coach, and system for guys in a similar boat. So, that’ll be the narrative undercurrent throughout the TJ Power experience that I’ll be keeping an eye on (and that raises the stakes even more). So, let’s focus on the player himself and who we’re getting to join the program.

The tricky thing about this evaluation compared to any of the other three that I’ll be doing this offseason is the limited role that Power had with Duke both in total minutes but also in what he was asked to do. The other incoming transfers spent their entire 2023-2024 either starting or playing big minutes off of the bench. Offensively, they almost exclusively either put the 6’9″ sharpshooter in the corner, or used him in actions that rolled him through the lane and returned him back out to the point. Power is an absolute sniper off of the catch and shoot. If you just looked at his 36% shooting on under 2 attempts per game, that wouldn’t necessarily jump out at you; but he was never really afforded the ability to get into much prolonged rhythm. Aside from not playing much, Duke initiators like Jeremy Roach or Kyle Filipowski out of the post often called their own number rather than distributing, even when the opportunities were there. That being said, Power was out there for Duke to basically do one thing, and that was convert three-point opportunities. His long frame allowed him to get shots up over contests, he had a quick and willing release, and most of his misses off of the catch-and-shoot were close, inside rim action. That element of his game always looked pure and dangerous, and the opposition played him accordingly, which also created great spacing for Duke.

That being said, the rest of his game was inconsistent and a work in progress – which needed more opportunity to work in order to progress. Of the 10 Duke players with at least 250 possessions played, he rated out the worst in Evanmiya’s BPR (still 2.85 which would have been good for third on our entire team last year, though). He looked capable but uncomfortable putting the ball on the floor, struggled as a finisher around the rim and off of the pull-up and, likely the main reason he saw less time (and the main way that CTB can help his improvement) his defensive quality was also highly variable in both the physical and mental aspect of the game. This was a player with fluid movement, clear ball skill, great length, who played with decent strength (all things considered for a Freshman); but who also struggled with his change of direction, foot speed, and verticality. I’m not worried about him being passive at times on the offensive end – I think that’s what he was asked to do and what came naturally given Duke’s established scorers and talent-level. At UVa, I think he’ll have the green light often and that will benefit his game greatly. But, I do think we should temper our expectations if we’re looking for him to be a source of offense who initiates on his own or who we expect to come in and be a plus defender immediately. More likely, our positive scenarios for this coming season involve him being a sizeable presence at the 3 or (more likely) 4 who is a quality conversion point for opportunities outside, who is active and plays with energy, and who still has the ability to grow quite a bit/improve as a player.

In a way, this will be the most simplistic and straight-forward of these that I’ve done; but it also leaves the most room for interpretation and speculation. I’ve had quite a few folks tell me that they think I should pull some high school clips for this; but I still don’t think that janky footage against bad competition is a good substitute (at all) for seeing him play against Division I competition. He did get some significant run against good competition in meaningful minutes – especially earlier in the season where he was in toward the end of close games. Unlike my typical approach, I won’t be able to just limit this to four “showcase” games, though. Instead, I’ve pulled from 6 contests throughout the year – 13 minutes @Arkansas in the ACC/SEC challenge, 16mins @Georgia Tech, 8 mins vs. Syracuse, 15 vs. Louisville, 13mins against UVa, and 10 mins @NC State in the second to last game of the season. It’s a solid sample size of (mostly) non-garbage time against major conference competition and, to be completely honest, each of those contests were remarkably consistent in what they showed about Power and the story that they told. As an aside, this is also the first time I’ve showcased a player in one of these games against us. Okay, let’s get into it, but…

First A Word About Duke

I’m sure we all have more than a few words about Duke… but I mean this with regard to how they played and utilized Power last season. Duke played Power at both the SF and PF, but more often as a big SF alongside of Kyle Filipowski or Ryan Young at Center and another PF like Marck Mitchell or even Sean Stewart. On offense, it was very straight-forward. They would play two men in each corner for spacing, and then either run a three-man game with ball screens for players like Roach/Proctor with post-ups for Kyle Filipowski, or they’d run a two-man game, setting a pick and roll and putting the third man stationary on the wing (in a formation that looked very similar to our stationary version of Flow). Power was almost always one of the two men stationary in the corner (or occasionally on the wing) with his purpose being to punish help-side defenders on the kick out for the three-pointer. Occasionally, Duke would run a set where Power would cut through the lane from the wing, a ball-handler would drive the lane, and Power would circle back out to the point, again looking for another kick-out to the spot where the play had just vacated. Very rarely (almost never) was he the primary ball screener, so we didn’t see him on many pick-and-pop actions, which we can assume we’ll see more of here. His role was, basically, to be ready to catch and shoot and then to crash the offensive glass, when appropriate. The problem for TJ was that Duke had so many higher offensive priorities that he didn’t often get those looks. Jeremy Roach, and Kyle Filipowski were usually looking to score when they initiated the offense, Jared McCain was a higher priority kick-out option, and all of Mark Mitchell, Ryan Young, Sean Stewart made a much bigger impact around the rim.

Defensively, it wasn’t quite as straight-forward, and it often appeared that Duke felt forced to alter what they were doing on defense to account for Power being on the floor. For example, when they played against Arkansas, they had been in man-to-man for the first 13 minutes of the game and shifted to a 2-3 zone as soon as Power entered. When they played N.C. State, they took to putting him on PG Michael O’Connell, ostensibly because he wasn’t the threat to drive that the other N.C. State guards were, and they didn’t want to have him defending DJ Burns in the post. Consistently, it seemed as though Duke was attempting to hide him on that side of the ball while he was in. Sometimes they were successful, others they weren’t, and sometimes you saw why that was their goal, and sometimes Power’s potential flashed. So, let’s take a closer look at these things now, and then I’ll tie it all together with what I think we can expect this coming season.

Offense

As I mentioned, Power was mostly utilized as a static conversion point, charged with punctuating opportunities created by others. Whether he was confined to a set location or running misdirection to get to another, he was always looking for his shot; one that he could get off quickly and that has a nice, high, release point coming off of his 6’9″ frame. This put a lot of pressure on teams to be able to stay attached to him, as closing out effectively was difficult, and he provided the double-pronged benefit of either being able to take the three OR forcing good spacing for Duke’s driving/post ups. He shot 35.7% from deep on 42 attempts, which is solid, but likely undersells his capability. The vast majority of his misses on those catch and shoots were over quality contests and caught a lot of inside rim; down-and-out kind of situations. He only took 7 free throws on the season (illustrating his lack of attack or threat around the rim), but made 6. As I mentioned earlier, the shot always looked threatening, and he was a very willing shooter despite the fact that the volume wasn’t often there. When he got the opportunity, he wasn’t shy.

He was distinctively not a threat off of the bounce; regularly passing the ball as soon as he received it or taking a dribble or two that didn’t go anywhere only to move the ball along. On the rare occasions he did attack the rim, it was almost always after some kind of advantage had been created for him within the offense (often punctuated by a shot fake from him which was a significant weapon), and he wasn’t a quality finisher – going just 2-9 over the entire season on shots inside of the arc. Not only was he not looking to score from shorter range, he often looked uncomfortable attempting to do so; either getting jostled by the physicality of players in the paint, missing pull up jump shots off of the bounce badly, or simply ignoring opportunities that he could have attempted. This was a little discouraging because, if you do watch his high school tape, he wasn’t a one-dimensional player; showing the ability to put the ball on the floor and finish in a number of ways around the rim or in the midrange. This is an area you’d both like to see him grow and expect that he’ll have the ability to with more reps… but isn’t something he’s shown at the collegiate level yet and isn’t something that’s likely to change over night. That being said, he was sound with the ball when he did put it on the floor, and wasn’t a turnover risk/didn’t seem overly sped up by the game. In fact, Duke would often use him as their inbounder on set pieces or to break the press; comfortable with his decision making and ball security.

I always got the sense when watching that he was capable of more, but that he was reluctant to play outside of his role, was still adjusting to the feel of the game at the collegiate level, and that he didn’t have the repetition to be comfortable outside of what he was being asked to do. It makes sense given his team dynamic on one of the most high-profile programs in the country, surrounded by a sea of high recruits and alpha scorers, that this was the case. That being said, he also didn’t jump off of the screen as someone who was holding back or who was ready to do much more than he was doing. There’s plenty of room for growth here.

Shooting

The headliner. Power had good range and, if he caught the ball with any amount of decent space around the arc, had the green light to let it rip. He did this within the core offense, as we’ll shortly see, but he also did this in transition when applicable; hunting his shot whenever it was there.

This first example, below, is from the Arkansas game. With the game tied 24-24 and just over 5 minutes left in the first half, Power runs to the corner in transition, Caleb Foster (#1) pushes the ball into the lane against a somewhat set defense, but draws both defenders and kicks the ball out to Power in the corner for the three:

A few things about that clip that I find impressive. For one, that’s Power’s very first touch of the basketball for the entire game. He’d just been subbed in after sitting on the bench for almost 14 minutes of game time, hadn’t felt the ball yet, and immediately caught and launched on the opportunity. Secondly, that’s 6’10” Trevon Brazile (#2) flying out to contest his shot (and it’s a good contest). So, this is a great example of how little space Power needs. Foster held both defenders on his drive briefly, and Brazile was able to start recovering on the pass, but Power was still able to catch and make the bucket. That’s a good/confident shooter.

Here he is from the same game, spotting up on the wing this time on the secondary break, filling space and readying for the ball to get to him.

This time it’s a guard closing out on him but, at 6’6″, Jeremiah Davenport (#24) is no slouch for length. My favorite part about that clip is that Davenport isn’t really very far out of position on the secondary break. He’s just a little slow to recognize Power as a shooting threat, torn between staying sagged into the lane to pass of Mark Mitchell (#25), and getting out. You can see that there’s a moment where he sees the eyes of Jeremy Roach (#3) with the ball in the corner, and starts to close out on Power, but just under-estimates the speed and urgency with which he needs to do so in order to bother the shot. So, we’re starting to see, it’s not just that Power is a good shooter, it’s that it’s difficult to close out on him – you’ve got to be very close to him, even with length like the athletic Razorbacks possess.

This next clip, below, I wish we had a better producer on the CW instead of getting reaction shots from the GT bench after this dunk but, in a way, that also illustrates the point of this clip, too. This is off of a make. GT just dunked it and most of their team was back on defense. While they’re celebrating, Power runs ahead to the top side wing, Duke inbounds the ball, outlet passes it twice up to Power, who drains the three with most of his teammates still around half court and prior to the defense getting set/coordinated.

You just always have to account for him. This is nothing more than him being more open than you think and taking advantage of a defense when it momentarily falls asleep.

Let’s take a few quick looks in the half court. Here he is against us, collecting the ball on the wing, passing it out to the point, and then standing in the opposite corner with Rohde guarding him on help side. He just lurks out there, watching the play develop, and when the drive comes from the off-side, he slides up toward the wing to improve the passing angle/visibility. We know that Rohde wasn’t good at closing out on shooters this past season, but he’s actually not in bad position recovery-wise here, he just breaks down a little too early, coming to a stop flat-footed before he’s close enough to effectively contest the shot.

This is, once again, someone under-estimating the space Power needs to get his shot off and him being open without really being open. Not a lot of wings are going to shoot this one with a 6’6″ defender having closed out to that point (many would use his momentum against him and drive by, but that’s a tangent we’ll cover).

Same game against us, below, once again this isn’t Rohde failing to get there on a close out because of his closing speed; this is, once again, Rohde failing to assess the depth and space Power needs to shoot it. Power collects the ball on the wing and passes it into Ryan Young (#15) in the post. From there, he clears out to the wing to let Young go to work on Jake Groves in peace. Rohde doesn’t want to let Young just back down Groves here, so he drops off of Power to be there on the dribble just enough. But, to his credit, Rohde doesn’t get sucked down, collapse on the dribble, and concede the kick out. Rather, he fakes the dive, baits the pass, and has already started to recover in advance of it. What he doesn’t account for is the fact that Power has spotted up, not at the three-point line, but several feet beyond the line, with his left foot almost even with the “Coach K Court” on the catch. It’s enough that, even though Rohde has likely executed this exactly as he intended – forcing the pass out of the post without committing to it and still keeping track of his man – he’s miscalculated Power’s range, willingness to shoot, and that release point.

Hopefully as you’re watching these, you’re starting to see a pattern of the pressure Power puts on a defense without having to actually do much of anything with the ball in his hands. You’ve got to be aware of where he is always, and you need to be much closer to him than you expect… or want to have to be.

Here he is @N.C. State just lurking in that corner/wing throughout the entire possession as he was wont to do. Duke takes a pretty bad-quality midrange shot but is active on the glass and collects the rebound. Knowing where to find him, they punish the collapse that comes with crashing the glass with a cross-court pass to the corner for the Power three.

Here against Louisville, below, he misses the shot, but you can see what I mean about the quality of his misses. This is a rare look with him in mind. He sets a cross screen for Filipowski in the post and then motions as if he’s going to set a back screen from the point, fakes the action, takes the pass and shoots the three that just rims out. Filipowski cleans up the shot and puts it back in.

That action, just above, while designed, is very similar to the kind of look he could expect to get from our Inside Triangle (should we run that back again this year). And, I’m going to be a broken record on this, but notice again how open he is without being open. It’s not like he got a screen that freed him dramatically, and it’s not like he ran away from his man… he simply faked a ball screen and his man didn’t recognize how tight he was going to need to play in order to keep the shot from going up (in this case, missed).

And finally, just to illustrate this concept, he’s certainly a great piece to have on the floor against a zone. This is just standard zone-buster stuff with Power playing the SF on the wing alongside two other guards, PF Stewart (#13), and C Filipowski. Filipowski can shoot it from outside but this is much more in the vein of a traditional two-big lineup with Duke playing a little high-low in the post and the three guards spread around the arc. When Louisville has to collapse on the ball, the kick out to Power creates an easy look; once again illustrating the pressure that he puts on a close out, just this time through a zone rotation.

Okay, I think we get the point from here. He can really shoot it, gets his shot off quickly, and isn’t impacted by the same range of contests that might bother other shooters. Oh, and his range goes back quite a few feet beyond the arc. As such, let’s touch briefly on…

Spacing

This goes hand-in-hand with good shooting but, even more so, with a player like Power who puts so much pressure on a close out. It’s easy to draw a distinction from the spacing that he provides over a non-shooter on the perimeter like Ryan Dunn or Jalen Warley. We’ve discussed those issues at length in the past, most recently in my last piece on Jalen Warley. What’s also pretty obvious is that when you have a high-quality shooter at the stretch 4 on the floor, like Sam Hauser or Jake Groves (who actually shot 4% better from deep than Sam in their respective lone Senior seasons for UVa), that can keep some of your lengthier defenders out of the paint and create more room for drivers or post players. Power’s shot actually looks a little bit harder to get to than either of those. He’s more open when he’s not than either. Furthermore, whether he will at all for UVa remains to be seen, but he also played SF at Duke. By comparison to us, you’ll get quality shooting from Taine Murray, but it’s much easier to close out on Taine Murray than TJ Power. So, whether he’s stretching the defense from the four or in the possibility that he’s playing on the wing, he provides enhanced spacing either way.

Here are a couple of looks at how this helped Duke. In this first clip, below, Duke is down 5 against Arkansas with just over 20 seconds left. Filipowski gets the ball at the point with Power on the nearside wing. Power is being guarded by 6’4″ Davonte Davis. Normally, you’d expect a player in that position against a slowly developing drive try to help on the driving land and bother the dribble against the much taller player. But, given the game situation and the fact that he needs to be plastered to Power, Davis lets Filipowski go and he’s able to get to the rim and draw foul shots with a stopped clock.

This next play, below, against Georgia Tech, is a very similar set to our stationary Flow, with two men in the corner, one on the wing, and then a ball screen represented for the PG, in this case Jeremy Roach. Roach rejects the ball screen, though, and beats his man into the lane, getting past the strong side sag from the wing and leaving the only help side defender as Power’s man, the 6’3″ Kyle Sturdivant (#1). You can see that Roach starts his drive on the near side wing and finishes with his right hand, having crossed diagonally across the lane in his path to get to the opposite side of the rim. Now, this a pretty poor hustle play from Sturdivant as you’d like to see him try to sprint and contest the shot once Roach is clearly committed to taking the drive all the way, but you can see that he has eyes on the drive the entire way and is reluctant to peel from Power.

Not good defense, but still a gaping chasm where help defense should be as a result of TJ Power being stationed in the weak side corner.

And here’s one more look, this time out of the strong corner, where Ty-Laur Johnson (#4) sees the Roach drive developing but isn’t able to recover from his depth (he was giving up 9 inches) to cut off the driving lane.

Not going to focus too much more on spacing because this idea is pretty straight-forward, but the piece that I’d really want to make sure is emphasized is that he’s going to demand less distance off-ball between he and his defender than most players we’ve had on the roster in recent memory.

“I’m Open!”

One thing that I think will really benefit Power from coming here, aside from just likely getting significantly more playing time, is that our guys are always looking to pass – too much so, recently, if we’re being candid. Duke had quite a few times when Power was in that he was wide-open (especially for him) off of a defensive rotation but one of Duke’s bulk scorers would force a bad shot anyway.

Plays like this one against Arkansas, where Proctor gets the ball going downhill at the rim and Power’s man has to help. Power does well to relocate to the wing for what would have been a wide-open look, but Proctor gets tunnel vision on the rim and tries to finish on the other side of the rim despite the presence of the shot-blocker, rather than keeping his eyes alert for the kick out. The shot gets blocked and the Razorbacks are out and running the other way.

Or here in this clip, below, against Georgia Tech, where Power runs to the corner in transition and has all of the space in the world for Jeremy Roach to hit him with a kick out at almost any point on his drive, but instead he jams the ball into traffic and misses a contested layup.

I don’t think we need many more clips of this to illustrate (but there were a lot I could have pulled) Duke players passing up an open Power look to call their own number. But, just from watching what he was capable of on that front and then watching how the team played with him – it’s an area where selfless basketball should not only allow him more opportunity to make an impact, but improving the quality of his looks should also see an uptick in his shooting %. There’s also an element of trust and reliance at play here. Power was a Freshman on a team full of established scorers and/or equally talented Freshmen. He was basically an afterthought. That almost certainly won’t be the case here as we’ll need his scoring output and will likely be seeking it out as one of our primary options. That should, hopefully, build a confidence loop where he gets more rhythm and where his teammates are looking for him as he does.

It’s for all of these reasons in this section (and the two above it) that, when we’re projecting output onto a larger sample size for our team, it’s my bet that we’ll see an improvement in the quality of his output. It’s actually strikingly similar to how Oklahoma utilized and prioritized Jake Groves in his last season there – and we saw almost an 8% jump in shooting percentage from deep from his final season there to his only season here: the highest mark of his career.

Off The Bounce

This was not a good aspect of his game last year. He was too quick to pick up his dribble and wasn’t quick enough or aggressive enough with his physicality to make much of an impact off of the bounce and sometimes it felt as though his drives lacked purpose. Often when an advantage would be created, when he’d put the ball on the floor it would be lost or nullified. If we keep our offensive systems similar to how they have been, this is probably the biggest area that will keep us from utilizing Power as a SF. Of course, sample size and how Duke utilized him could certainly impact his assertiveness here, but there was enough that I will be surprised if this is an area of strength for him this coming season.

Here’s a look against Georgia Tech where he takes a pass on the wing and is able to get his man in the air on the close out through the pump fake. On the drive, though, Naithan George (#2) is able to switch off of Caleb Foster for Duke (#1), negate the drive for Power entirely, and then recover back to Foster on the return pass before he can do anything threatening with the ball. As a result, Foster has to play isolation basketball and misses a difficult shot at the end of the shot clock.

Now, that was good defensive communication and awareness by George there, but Power shutting down the dribble as soon as George stepped up and then not having a good way to maintain the advantage he created with his shot fake is what allowed GT to recover on defense. It’s a bit of a plodding drive that he shuts down when near a guard, too far away from the basket to reliably use his size advantage and without any clear ideas – then he just has to reset.

This kind of timidly probing drive that wasn’t threatening was on display against us. In this next clip, below, he’s got Taine Murray on him, our worst wing defender last season. At about 22:36, Murray is full-on in the center of the lane helping to defend the threat of a roll off of our hard hedge. Duke swings the ball to the wing and then into Power in the corner, with Murray having to tilt at a full sprint out to recover to Power as the shooter. Murray starts to break down as he gets close, but his momentum is going right at Power, who gives a small shot fake and starts his drive. Murray even has his right foot as the farthest extended on his close out so when Power attacks that side of him, he has to pivot and open his body entirely when recovering. Most players at the DI level are going to be able to beat Murray to the rim here, given all of these circumstances, and at about 22:38/22:39 you can see that Power has an angle to get into the paint and closer toward the rim if he presses his advantage and keeps his dribble a little longer. Instead, he flattens out his drive and comes to a jump stop in the lane, allowing Taine to gain parity (and actually do a good job here of getting into Power’s body to push him off of his track). When power finishes his dribble, he’s not even looking at the rim, instead searching for a pass back out and struggling to keep his pivot foot. The ball goes back out to Jeremy Roach and Duke has to reset, losing their advantage entirely.

This clip, above, is one of those small examples that might not look like much but is pretty bad, especially if we’re hoping he will run the 3 some on offense. Murray plays with some physicality at the SF but is a pretty slow-footed defender, so him being able to get back in that play and stonewall Power speaks to his tendency to pick his dribble up early. And, even though his driving lane was cut off, he still got to the middle of the lane against a player 4 inches shorter than him and looked like he had no thoughts about trying to make a move or get a shot up.

Not as glaring, but a similar look from the same game, this time with Andrew Rohde on him (who we saw Power shoot over a couple of times earlier). In a rarity, we see Power run a pick and pop. Rohde has to sag decently far back, and Power catches the return pass with some space and with Rohde in decent position but still a little off balance. Power could probably get Rohde on his right hip here and drive the ball into the lane with his left hand, but instead he just takes a couple of non-threatening dribbles and kicks the ball back out to Proctor who has to play hero ball (and does).

All three of these plays just lacked a combination of willingness/ability/ideas to press the ball into the lane and benefit from an advantage created either through the flow of the offense or, more, from the threat of Power shooting the ball.

But it wasn’t just that he was bypassing opportunities, he also struggled to finish after putting the ball on the floor. Here he is in the clip, below, against Syracuse running the action I mentioned earlier where he breaks through the lane and circles back to the point for the return pass. The play works but he bobbles the catch so rather than the catch and shoot, he dribbles the ball to the elbow and takes a pull up jumper. Clearly, he doesn’t get his legs under him well-enough and his balance/feel is off, because he airballs badly despite the look being good.

This next one, below, is very similar, against N.C. State. This time he catches the ball on the wing and is able to lose the aggressive close out again, this time with a little shoulder fake to the right, which causes O’Connell (#12) to react and open up a driving lane. Power takes a dribble to his left, inside of the arc, and pulls up but is once again very badly short for another airball.

In this next clip, below, against Louisville, it’s a very similar look to the one against Taine above. This time, when he goes to the corner in transition and switches with a teammate, Louisville miscommunicates a switch and has two men drawn to the wing, leaving him alone in the corner. Upon taking the pass, Power is able to give another shot fake and drive with the left hand toward the center of the lane. Mike James (#0) is similarly able to catch up and cut off Power’s driving angle, but this time Power keeps his dribble longer and gets in deeper. He comes to a jump stop just outside of the restricted area, pivots toward the basket, but is jostled by James’s body on the way up and misses the shot pretty badly off of the front rim.

That clip is better off of the bounce (although it came from the game prior to the Virginia game so this isn’t progress throughout the season) in terms of his depth against a quicker player, but you’d still want him to go up strong and finish that over the much smaller player around the hoop like that.

Here’s one against N.C. State, below, where he rotates around to the point to take a kick out from Ryan Young (#15). At only 6’3″ as his primary defender, Casey Morsell (#14) has to close out hard, which allows Power to put the ball on the deck to his right, this time getting all the way to the rim with Young shielding off DJ Burns. Power short arms and misses the layup, though, a shot that, while around some congestion, he really should finish.

It’s worth noting again that none of these clips stem from Power taking his man off of the dribble at parity. They’re all the result of the ball coming to him, his man scrambling to close out, and then having to defend the drive. But, that being said, it should also be called out that the threat of his shot as we mentioned earlier is causing some of these aggressive close outs, which he can take advantage of if he improves in this area.

Here’s one against N.C. State, below, where he gets his man full in the air on the pump fake, takes a couple of dribbles down the baseline, and shovels a pass over to Sean Stewart (#13) for the runner in the lane.

Better. More control on the drive and keeping his eyes up with more intention on the dish rather than getting bogged down when approached by the defender.

So, yeah. I think we can safely say that TJ Power isn’t going to be a triple threat from the outside next season. I don’t expect him to be putting the ball on the floor much or trying to get by his primary defender. BUT, he will surely get a lot of players trying to run him off of the three-point line and being over-aggressive on their close outs; so if he can just improve his purpose with his drives a little bit and work on his finishing, that will go a long way. Speaking of…

Finishing

I don’t have a ton more to add for this section because, as I mentioned, he only took 9 shots from inside the arc and we’ve already seen four of those, above, illustrating his struggles to convert from two. But it wasn’t just that he struggled to finish, it was that he seemed to get nervous/tighten up when given the opportunity and sometimes he wouldn’t even look to score. We could probably speak about that just with how often he had small guards as his primary defender (like Morsell or O’Connell) and the game plan for Duke was never to have him post those guys up and go to work inside. But, here he is on a backdoor cut and he just kind of loses the ball on the way up.

His body language, the jump, the way he lost the ball… it all reads like he didn’t have a ton of confidence that he was going to be able to finish this play.

This one even more so, below. He’s a little surprised by this nice Ryan Young pass as he’s cutting baseline, but he glances at DJ Burns there and doesn’t even look at the rim or make any attempt to make a play, instead continuing to dribble the ball through the baseline to reset the possession. He does do a good job of crashing the glass and keeping possession for his team on the deflection out of bounds at the end, but not even glancing at the basket after catching it on the move toward the hoop is a concern.

Offensive Rebounding

Power, especially when playing at SF, was valuable on the offensive glass. He’d often crash down from the outside (especially from the corner) and be relevant in the play, if not securing the ball himself, keeping it alive for others. We saw an example of it in the clip above – he’s got the significant size advantage based on his position so he can get his hands on the ball.

Here’s another similar example against Louisville, below. This is a set where McCain (#0) is running off of a bunch of pin down screens and eventually takes the three, but misses. Power surges hard down the lane, really pushing Louisville’s Curtis Williams (#1), who is 6’5″ down the paint so that his momentum is far too much when he catches the rebound. He has to save the ball while falling out of bounds, which Duke collects.

Power never touches the ball on this rebound, but he’s the one who makes this play by crashing the glass so hard and by being a tough box out for a much smaller wing.

One more look, this time against N.C. State and that’s 6’1″ DJ Horne (#0) guarding him in the corner. When the shot goes up, Power does a good job of getting some momentum going toward the rim, then jumping up and getting his hands on the ball over Horne without drawing contact or fouling. He keeps the ball alive and it goes to Mark Mitchell (who gets blocked).

A lot of these clips are due to Power being a pretty huge SF at 6’9″ and the opposition trying to find ways to guard him while also managing the rest of Duke’s lineup. While we didn’t see him post up smaller players, this was the way he’d make his impact felt with the size mismatches and was also the area (crashing the offensive glass) that he seemed to play with the most attack. Now, again, this is going to depend in large-part to how we use him. If he’s coming from around the elbow or is being guarded by an opposing team’s PF, we’re not going to see the same returns with his activity on the offensive glass. But, if we area playing him as a mismatch on the perimeter and send him on shots, he will be a challenging box out.

Putting It All Together

All-in-all, I think this clip, below, best represents what we’re most likely to get from Power on the offensive end next season:

He starts the possession by making himself available for a kickout on a drive around the wing, keeps his eyes on and responds to/collecting the long rebound, quickly keeps the ball moving by swinging it over to a teammate, and then fills the vacated spot behind the driver for the return pass and a quality three with range. Of course, ideally he’ll make that shot (this one was in and out as well), but it’s a good example of his constant threat to shoot throughout the possession, alertness on the glass, keeping the ball moving on the perimeter (connecting the offense), and then intuitively gravitating toward the right spot to fill for his shot. Meanwhile, all of the scrambling and pressure this has put on the defense allows a Duke guard to gather the offensive rebound and put the ball back for some third-chance points on the possession.

No matter what he’s working through inside of the arc (and, by my estimation, he still has quite a bit to work through to get comfortable in there), he’s going to know where to be to be outside of it in order to put great pressure on a defense to stay attached to him. He’s going to be active in attacking the glass, will be alert and prioritize keeping his teammates involved in the play, and he’s going to be unafraid to launch bombs if he gets even a little space. These are all things that should be valuable for our roster next season and should be the floor of the baseline. His upside over the next three years will be determined by how much he improves his ability to attack off of the bounce when given the advantage, and how much he can improve at utilizing his size/strength/confidence to be able to finish around the basket.

Defense

I expect Power to have a significantly positive impact on the offensive end, even if he is an incomplete player. He’ll be able to play within his limitations and what he does bring (shooting, spacing, size, headiness) should be valuable regardless of how quickly he progresses across those other areas of development.

But it’s his defensive game that will likely determine how much he plays and will be the biggest variable with regard to the total value he provides the team next season. I mentioned that Duke would often play him at SF, but they didn’t seem to trust him defending either in the post or on the perimeter. Their defensive strategy when Power was on the floor appeared to be trying to keep him away from the action or minimizing his impact to the best of their ability. Generally speaking, he was an active and alert defender who was able to use his size effectively at times, though he wasn’t ideally situated to be a point of contact interior defender. He struggled against quickness and was often slow to change direction, which primarily showed up with his rotations off of the ball. As a result, the farther away from the hoop he got, typically the less effective he was on the defensive side. Let’s take a look at the different elements of that side of his game.

Zone

The first thing I’ll call out is that in the earliest timeline game of these six, @Arkansas, Duke was man-to-man for the first 13+ minutes of the contest, but switched to zone the first possession that Power checked into the game. While not conclusive itself, it’s never encouraging when the team changes its entire defensive philosophy to support you being on the floor. Duke played their 2-3 zone with fairly extended wings, and this was the first possession, with Power on the near-side.

It’s not bad. Power plays extended and up on the wing by design, and he responds well and quicker than I’d expected toward the initial dribble attempt toward his side. He does keep his back to the play too often and isn’t aware of the man creeping behind him to get into rebounding position, but the shot at the rim is blocked and stays on the other side so he doesn’t have to fight for the board.

Arkansas got wise to the zone, though, and started to attack with regularity through Power’s side. In this next clip, below, Power does a pretty nice job initially of shading the pass away from the corner by standing well into the passing lane, but Arkansas rotates the ball and forces him to retreat, only to come right back to that wing side. We can see the challenge to his change of direction as he is forced to close out to the wing and then try to reverse to recover to the corner. Arkansas misses the shot, but it’s WIDE open.

In this next one, below, he just loses track of a man behind him in transition and gives up the lob pass behind him far too easily, over preoccupied with his responsibility to cover the wing.

On this next clip, below, we see that Duke has moved Power to the opposite side of the floor now, still guarding the wing. He does well initially to step in and stop the drive, staying vertical and retreating so as not to foul, but then on the kick out to the corner he’s incredibly slow at changing his momentum and getting back out there to contest the shot.

It’s really that stop/start once he gets his momentum going one way that’s causing issues. It’s hard for him to stop and quickly get up to speed going another direction.

One last look at this, below, again responding pretty well to the initial drive but then really struggling to recover to his corner responsibility on the kick out. Fortunately for Power, Khalif Battle (#0) misses this look BADLY, but it was still a very clean opportunity. Also, although they get the ball back, not a ton of lift from Power trying to regain his balance and jump up for this wild rebound.

It’s not that we’ll ask Power to play zone, we won’t; but Duke also rarely ran zone. They typically only went to it when something wasn’t working defensively. That they started out dusting it off in direct correlation to Power stepping on the floor for the first time in a close game vs. a quality opponent is notable (although this wasn’t a trend they continued in future games for TJ). But, these clips were also good opportunities to see some of his struggles moving in space.

Off Ball Man-To-Man

Much more relevant to what we’ll be doing with him, this next clip comes later in the second half of the same game, now with Duke trailing by a bigger margin. Duke has abandoned the zone and this time Power is playing the PF, along with three guards and Filipowski. I expect this is closer to how we’ll play and the types of players we’ll surround him on the defensive side. He starts with his man in the high post and then drops down level with the Arkansas drive while communicating with Jared McCain (#0) to stay and help on the ball. While he’s not quite able to cut out the pass baseline to the corner, he does read it well and is in good position to defend. Unfortunately, Caleb Foster (#1) has also reacted but dropping down from the wing to the corner, forcing Power to recover all the way back to the wing, which he can’t do in time.

I don’t know all of Duke’s rotational responsibilities but, on appearance, Power and McCain communicated and Foster over-rotated. Power wasn’t expecting him to be there, and so then he had to try to scramble back to help. While I do think that it once again highlights his lack of recovery speed, I was encouraged that man-to-man recognition, communication, and rotational support seemed to come more naturally to him than his coverage in zone did. If Foster had stayed home, Power would have been in good position to defend the corner.

This next one, below, is pretty rough, though. Duke is down 9 with around 2:30 left to go in the game. They’re extending pressure away from the basket and sending two men to trap the ball handler. Power starts on the ball, but Arkansas brings a PG around to collect the ball with Power’s man retreating away from the play. Power leaves with him while Duke sends Tyrese Proctor (#5) to double the ball handler. If you pause the video at 55:30, you’ll see Power in really good position where he can deny the pass to Layden Blocker (#6) while still being able to potentially jump a pass (or at least recover to) Trevon Brazile (#2). But, from here, Power leaves Blocker and jumps into no man’s land. It’s really unclear where he’s going or what he’s doing. It’s possible that he’s trying to get even more into the passing lane for a pass to Battle, but he’s not even in good position for that, and he takes himself out of position from the closest man to the ball, so when El Ellis (#3) has to make a difficult pass while falling down, Power should be there. Instead, Blocker is able to catch the pass and Proctor recovers back to him with Power starting to recover to his original man in Brazile, staying in the passing lane to him. There are about 4 seconds left on the shot clock at this point and, rather than recovering all the way and forcing Arkansas to take a difficult shot, likely over a contest, he fakes retreating back to Brazile and lunges back toward Blocker with the goal of trapping again. Blocker is able to pretty easily split the attempted double team and make a pass back to Brazile, Power’s initial man, for the open three.

It’s a bad clip altogether in terms of awareness in space on the perimeter, understanding where to be and how to play angles out there, and also situational awareness with regard to the shot clock. These are mistakes that you expect Freshmen to make and, no doubt, he’ll learn… but there were three mental mistakes crammed into this one end game situation.

Here, he’s guarding GT’s 6’9″ PF Baye Ndongo (#11) this time with Ryan Young on the floor guarding the Center and Mark Mitchell still defending the SF. Ndongo averaged taking a three-point shot about once every two games and made 33% of them, so Power is correctly not overly concerned with contesting him out there. He plays the majority of the possession with two feet inside of the paint despite the fact that Ndongo is outside of the three-point line. Later in the possession, Ndongo slides up to the wing and takes the pass from the point and Power does not close out hard. In fact, he cautiously approaches, still not overly worried about the shot, ostensibly more worried about the drive. But, even though he’s closing out well-under control (moving considerably slower than he’s able), when Ndongo shows the ball as if he’s about to go into a shooting motion, Power increases his urgency on the close. It’s at that point that Ndongo drives right by him and draws the foul at the rim.

I want to acknowledge Power for being aware of his scouting report here and positioning himself such that he would be in very relevant position help side off of a player who wasn’t a big shooting threat. The problem was with the physical execution because, despite playing Ndongo as if he wasn’t a shooting threat, he still got sucked into the shot fake, giving up any advantage/cushion he had such that he wasn’t able to react to the drive. When you’re playing with quickness limitations, it’s that mental side of the game that has to stay sharp, but that’s no doubt something he will improve on while here (the mental element, not necessarily the quickness).

In this next clip, below, against Louisville, he’s defending around the elbow on the weak side and, when the ball gets passed up to the point, that’s just a really slow switch/rotation/close out from him that doesn’t bother the three-point attempt.

And this next clip below is one of a few sequences but, when they were playing N.C. State, they actually put Power on Michael O’Connell (#12), their Point Guard. Ostensibly, this was because O’Connell was the least athletic of N.C. State’s guards and not as much of a driving threat as a player like Morsell or Horne would have been. To Duke’s credit, they got away with the creativity in the matchup and O’Connell didn’t really do anything against Power; but you can see here, in the clip below, that even though the Blue Devils had the added size on the floor of all of Sean Stewart, Mark Mitchell, and Power, they weren’t able to use that effectively to slow down DJ Burns. Power, stationed at the elbow to be in the passing lane for a kick out to O’Connell makes no effort to collapse down on the post and DJ Burns gets an easy bucket.

That last clip above is probably more scheme-related than anything else. They’d made the decision to try to let Stewart defend Burns straight up (which was clearly a mistake as he was neither strong nor long enough), but the biggest benefit of running a bit lineup like with Power at the SF should be the ability to send long bodies into the lane and clog things up. If you’re not as confident in Power’s mobility to collapse and then recover to the shooter, as we’ve seen in some struggles above, then that limits some of that benefit.

And then, here, against Georgia Tech, below, the game is tied 60-60 with 4 minutes left to play (Duke would go on to lose this game). This is crunch-time and Duke needs a big stop. Power is playing weak side defense with his man, Dallan Coleman (#3) in the corner. GT throws a skip pass to Coleman and Power has to recover, running out to him. It’s a really awkward close out/break down from Power as he nears Coleman, and Coleman blows by him, gets separation, and hits a nice step back jumper at the elbow.

It’s actually not a terrible contest from Power and it’s a good vantage point to see how badly he was beaten but how much his reach can cover some ground to try to get back into the play, but it’s still a great example (in a big moment, too) of his struggle closing the gap in that space with his foot speed and then having to react/change direction to the drive of a quicker player.

To this point, we’ve mostly seen Power struggle out in space trying to change direction and cover ground away from the hoop; but he was a much better positional defender when his sphere of rotation tightened and he could play closer to the basket.

This next clip is against Georgia Tech (different camera angle), but this time Power is stationed under the hoop, playing center field. It’s interesting because Duke still has both Mark Mitchell and Kyle Filipowski on the floor, but they’re playing Mitchell on the wing and letting Power stay home while Filipowski defends the pick and roll. I thought that Power did a good job as a deterrent in this clip, responding to three different occasions where a ball screener looked to have had an advantage breaking toward the hoop. He was aware of the cutters and shaded to them without losing the ability to recover to his man or make a pass seem enticing throughout the possession, with GT neglecting to pass it inside on any of those cuts and eventually stumbling and turning the ball over.

This was a much different ask than having to change direction and cover a lot of ground on the wing, and I thought that Power was well-suited for it as he was alert and imposing without having to be quick. So, this is another piece of evidence pointing us toward Power being best suited to defend at the 4; potentially with a player like Elijah Saunders in the Mark Mitchell role with the clip above (but I’m jumping ahead of myself on previews here).

Here’s a different look from the same game with him helping off of the corner again, this time less aggressively, well outside of the lane which makes sense because his cover is the 6’6″ Dallan Coleman (#3) who took almost 3.5 threes per game at 34% last season. While not a big percentage improvement, a much more willing shooter from deep than Ndongo. Meanwhile, GT runs a screen action with three men at the point that frees their PG on a drive down the opposite side of the lane from Power. Power does a good job spotting and reacting to the drive, but actually over-rotates, his momentum carrying him a little bit farther than the path of the ball handler. Even still, his presence and length affect the driver, forcing him to shift over to his left hand and trying to make a quasi-reverse back on the side of the rim from which Power came; ultimately missing the layup.

While there are definitely some things to clean up from this clip in how he positions himself, that’s good weakside help/alertness/size from a SF.

I really like this next clip against Louisville, below. The Cardinals are out in transition and so Power has to pick up their Center, Brandon Huntley-Hatfield (#5), who runs 6’10” 240. Power is playing the SF and he’s their Center, but Power is only giving up an inch and roughly 20 lbs. H-H tries to post him in the lane and they jostle, but Power does well to hold up to his strength and keep him from getting good position and the ball. From there, he sees and responds to a drive, helping and cutting it off baseline. The pass goes back to H-H who Kyle Filipowski has slid over to take, and Power identifies that and crosses the lane to defend the 6’9″ Emmanuel Okorafor (#34) going up into his shot. The foul is called on Power here which was probably fair as he did reach over a little with his right arm and make contact through the body – but that foul could just as easily not have been called and the contest WAS intrusive/strong.

A very slight change to his technique and going more vertical on the contest, which is something he can easily adjust with experience, and that’s an effective defensive possession. He held up to a quality Center in the lane, responded to and got in good position on a drive to the baseline, read the passes/rotations and crossed the lane in time to position himself between the offensive player and the rim, and made a very impactful contest on an athletic player his same size. There are the tools here for some quality defense in the Pack Line around the rim.

And here’s a look, below, that’s another work in progress but you can see the value/potential here. Against N.C. State he’s again matched up against O’Connell, shading him in the lane in the corner. O’Connell (#12) and Morsell (#14) switch spots, and Power and Proctor (#5) hand them off, but this causes Power not to be alert on the back end and be too slow to the pass to Greg Gantt Jr. (#11). Sean Stewart for Duke makes a very impressive block on the shot, but then Power faces a one-on-one with Morsell on the baseline. He withstands a couple of ball fakes and does well to cut of his drive on the baseline, using his size and leaning on him to deter any potential shot opportunity. Stewart has come over to help as well, and when Morsell passes to his man, Power is quick to release and, along with Ryan Young dropping down, would be there to contest any shot. In this case, Young forces the travel.

It’s still a work in progress because Power doesn’t recognize the back side cutter and can’t react quickly enough to stop the pass in, but his movement and rotations around the basket after that are all good and help to solidify the inside.

So, positionally, Power is much better and more effective around the rim – but he isn’t a vertical player in the sense that you’d want a rim protector to be. We saw that a bit earlier when he was attempting to jump for that long rebound, but it means that he has to use his size and length to affect and bother things on the inside rather that being able to go up and get you a block around the rim often. This was on display most frequently when he was around Maliq Brown from Syracuse (#1), now a Duke player through the transfer portal. In this first clip below, Brown takes a baseline inbound pass over his primary defender, Mark Mitchell, catching the ball with one hand. It’s congested in there but Power is right there on Brown’s right side. He has both basically jump flat-footed (Brown has a little more momentum but he’s still had to gather and collect himself), but Power isn’t able to get to or bother Brown’s dunk.

And here’s a look in transition where Power is guarding a man out in the corner, but he recognizes Brown cutting through the lane. He turns to recover and has a running start, but can’t get up enough with his contest/cover enough ground to get to Brown’s layup.

He’s not going to have the range/verticality to get to those kinds of plays and you’re going to want to pair him with someone who can block shots/be a more formidable inside presence most of the time. I have a feeling that there are going to be plenty of discussions (and we’ll see it on the floor some) of the benefits of Power as a Small Ball 5; but he’s much better suited as a support player who can help inside. If he’s your most imposing defender in any given lineup, those groupings are going to struggle to defend the paint.

On Ball

Power wasn’t on ball in isolation very often; it was normally through playing defense on the pick and roll, as we’ll shortly see, but given some of his struggles that we’ve shown with mobility, change of direction, and closing speed, I was pretty impressed and pleasantly surprised with how often he held up well at the point of attack. The best and my favorite example of this was the clip, below, against Judah Mintz of Syracuse. This is a player who, two seasons ago, was one of the few ACC guards who gave Reece Beekman troubles on defense and who participated in the NBA combine that year. Power’s playing the PF in this clip with Mark Mitchell at the 5, covering Maliq Brown. Syracuse is playing small, and Power is matched up against Justin Taylor (#5) initially prior to switching onto Mintz (#3) really without anything Syracuse did dictating the switch had to happen. Now with Power in isolation, Mintz attempts to take him off of the dribble, but Power opens his hips, rides him and stays level with his slide (nice use of the inside hand to control his body) and then stays tall, swatting his shot out of bounds with his right hand.

I mean… this is really good defense on a talented player with the ball in his hands!

Here he is against Louisville’s Mike James (#0), another potential quickness mismatch. But, on the dribble, Power gives a solid buffer (which he can do because of his length/ability to contest a jumper), stays in solid position on driving angles, and James bobbles the ball trying to change direction on him. Power draws a foul here diving on the ball on the floor, but I love this aggressiveness and hustle and, while this is the only time I’ll show it in this piece, Power was absolutely quick to dive on loose balls collectively and give up his body to do so. He had a very good motor in that sense.

In this next clip, below, we see him against us, initially matching up on Andrew Rohde. Dante Harris’s man leaves him to try to steal the Isaac McKneely dribble. McKneely passes it out to Harris and Power reads the play; quickly leaving Rohde to pick up Harris in good defensive position. Now, we know that Harris struggled on the offensive end this past season, but we also know that he’s lightning quick and hard for many defenders to stay in front of. Power does a really good job of retreating on the dribble, cutting off Harris’s driving angle, and then getting a strong contest on his step back jumper, forcing a terrible miss.

And, while this next clip is far less impressive, in my opinion, than the previous three, here’s a solid look below at how, when he’s guarding a 4 like Jake Groves, his on ball defense looks very comfortable. Groves isn’t going to drive by many, but it’s still encouraging to see Power stay with him comfortably on ball at first, and then off ball, eventually helping to force the shot clock violation.

I’m not trying to paint the picture that he was always stout on-ball on the perimeter. Here he is after getting switched onto the point of attack against Roosevelt Wheeler (#4) on Louisville. When Wheeler recognizes this, he signals for his teammates to clear out, gets a head of steam past Power into the lane, draws the help and dishes it to Huntley-Hatfield for the and-1…

But, still, the number of instances where he was just isolated and attacked on the perimeter when matched up against a guard (which he often was) were far fewer than I expected and it was more normal for him to hold up like with the rest of the clips, above.

This is a bit of a head scratcher given what we’ve seen earlier about his struggles with change of direction, quickness, and speed… and, to recall, Duke did try to keep him on the least threatening perimeter player for a reason. That being said, in these situations most of the time he did do a good job of keeping proper spacing and then using his size and length to control drivers; so there’s something encouraging to build off of here.

Pick and Roll

Now this is an area in which he struggled much more than just in isolation, perimeter basketball. This leads me to think that some of it is the mental processing of what’s happening and being able to read the play in time while also being limited in his quickness. And, if that’s the case, we probably can expect quite a bit of improvement with the repetition and coaching that CTB will give him. But, instead of putting the cart before the horse, let’s take a look at a couple of these:

In this first clip against Arkansas, we see Power playing drop coverage after the screen, picking up El Ellis (#3). Here we see a contrast with his primary on-ball defense in that Ellis has momentum coming at him and he doesn’t get the depth/isn’t able to cut off the driving angle in time. Perhaps he under-estimates Ellis’s burst. The foul here is actually on the Jeremy Roach reach in, not on Power, but he’d have conceded a layup otherwise.

This next look, below, against Georgia Tech is better. He and Jeremy Roach shade either side of a ball screen for Naithan George (#2), a very impressive young ball-handler/scorer. Eventually, GT forces the switch and Power is on ball vs. George. This is actually just good shot-making from George over a fine contest from Power, but you can see how Power’s just having to play catchup throughout the on-ball defense.

Still, there’s less to read on that play above, and it turns more into isolation defense and it’s a better effort from Power (if still unsuccessful).

Here’s a look against Syracuse, below, where Duke once again proactively switches Proctor off of Mintz after a cross and allows Power to take him. Syracuse sets up a ball screen with Maliq Brown on Mintz, who drives toward the hoop and draws Ryan Young in drop coverage. Power spends too long trying to get back into the play, chasing Mintz, rather than trying to recover and get back to Brown soon enough. When Mintz takes the midrange jumper, Brown is wide-open under the rim for the weak side rebound. Power attempts to recover and crash down on the glass and, between he and Young, they’re almost able to secure the rebound, but Brown is able to get the ball deflected off of them for Syracuse to retain possession.

While I do like Power’s lean on Brown and the way he uses his right arm to keep from a clean rebound/catch, he needed to read this play better and recover to Brown much sooner.

In this next clip, below, against GT, he defends a ball screen and plays drop coverage and the GT ball handler doesn’t press the issue. Power seems to relax on his recovery, though, and doesn’t fight to get back into good rebounding position when the shot comes. He actually gets boxed out by his man, who collects the offensive board.

Another clip against Georgia Tech, below, again. This time on the ball screen Power flat hedges to pick up the ball handler, but Caleb Foster (#1) passes Power’s man and returns to the ball handler and Power over-stays, lingering around the ball-handler and even reaching at the ball for a while after Foster’s already back in good enough defensive position. GT is able to pass back to Power’s man who catches the ball on the block and is able to finish with a nice little jump hook over the help from Ryan Young. On the plus side, I like how Power recovers here, identifies the switch, and boxes out Young’s man well on the weak side, but he needed to recover sooner so that this pass was harder and not caught as deep.

There were some positive looks from him in this regard, though. Below is a good look at him, once again late in the Georgia Tech game. There’s a ball screen set for George and this time Duke doesn’t switch, Power plays drop coverage and does a good job of maintaining an angle on George’s drive while keeping depth to stay with his man, rolling. Filipowski sags from the weak side and the pass skips to his man and GT has to reset. From there, GT puts Filipowski in a ball screen and tries to pass it to his man on the roll, but Power does a nice job of stopping the roller with the ball, then recovering to his man (lost him momentarily but still stayed with him). The ball rotates to the opposite corner from there and Power fights to box his man from the weak side (but the rebound comes off in the other direction)

Now, this is drop coverage which we don’t normally do at UVa, but it was a much better job from Power of reading the play and keeping himself in the right position to keep GT from doing what they wanted to – across multiple levels. He stopped the initial ball handler on the pick and roll, kept a return pass from going to his initial man in the process, played good help side defense on a different roller, and was in good rebounding position, boxing out on the weak side. Good positional defense there.

This last one, below, was closer to how we defend it, so I thought a good example on which to close this section. On this ball screen he hedges probably the hardest I saw him. Not as assertively cutting off the driving lane as we typically do, but it wasn’t just flat, it did impact the ball-handler. Rather than recover, though, he switches with Roach who trails the initial screener as he gets the ball. Ryan Young steps up to take the roller who kicks it into the corner, and Power crashes down from the point to grab the rebound.

These last two examples were pretty good, but this is likely going to be the biggest adjustment defensively for him when coming here. The way we high hedge screens and recover is going to pull power away from the hoop into more space and force him to cover a lot of ground on his recovery. We’ve already covered how this (recovery time and quick change of direction away from the hoop) isn’t a strength of his. So, while reading where he should be on these plays and getting himself to the correct spot was hit or miss, I expect that challenge will be compounded as he tries to be more proactive about jumping the ball handler and cutting off his dribble without fouling and then sprinting back to his man. Hopefully this will be one of those situations, as we’ve done for players like Jayden Gardner and Ben Vander Plas in the past, where we’re proactively willing to adjust our hedge depth to account for this.

Rebounding

I thought that TJ was a better offensive rebounder (as shown above) than he was a defensive rebounder. The reason being that on offense he could get a running start from the perimeter and track the ball while, on defense, he had to be sound positionally and his standing vertical wasn’t great. He wasn’t bad, though. His size was formidable in and of itself, he boxed out when he could, and he had a high motor going after boards.

Like in this clip, below, for example, in transition against Syracuse he’s trailing the play and Jeremy Roach is having to try to box out Maliq Brown. When the shot goes up, Power could stand in the middle of the lane and ball watch, but instead he works across Brown’s face, plays through the contact, and is there to secure the loose rebound rather than Roach having to try to fight off Brown on his own.

And here’s a look against Arkansas where he’s distracted by Roach falling down (can’t stop playing to help him up), and loses track of his man, the 6’10” Trevon Brazile (#2) crashing the glass from the corner. He’s not able to get a box out as a result, and Brazile has a running start, but Power is still able to get hands on/disrupt the ball enough so that his team can secure it.

I realize that’s not necessarily high praise in the clip above, but I think it’s a good look to illustrate that he didn’t do a ton right on this play from a mental aspect, but despite that he was still able to do enough to secure the ball for his team, even if it was clunky. It’s a good baseline from which to work as he becomes more “continuous” on the mental side of the game.

But, conversely, here he is against us on a play where he’s guarding Taine Murray, is already under the hoop, a shot comes from Jake Groves in the corner, Jeremy Roach is trying to box out Ryan Dunn, and rather than pinch down on Dunn and help secure the board (which he’s in good position to do to begin with), he instead floats away from/behind Dunn and allows him to have a good angle to collect the airball.

That’s neither recognizing the situation (Roach on Dunn) nor taking it on yourself to be the one to make sure you collect that rebound (even though you’re the most logical one to do so).

And here’s another look against Louisville where he’s covering a smaller, quicker, man and attempts to face guard the rebound rather than box out. His man is able to easily/quickly rip past him and, had the ball come off his way, he’d likely have conceded this offensive board despite starting in good position.

I won’t belabor these clips as there were plenty of examples in earlier sections as well, but this is certainly an area that’s a work in progress. He naturally takes up enough space and has the presence to be a good rebounder, and he doesn’t lack the hustle, but he needs to adapt a little more tenacity/responsibility on the glass. Better system polish and positioning will help him here as well.

In Conclusion

This review was interesting for me to write, less from the tape itself, but more from the standpoint of thinking about what Power can be and what he represents. Naturally, there’s a lot of excitement about his addition to the team based on his recruiting profile and as someone who we pulled from Duke. And, I suppose that most of this review would serve to temper those expectations, at least in year one. It’s important to remember that, unlike the recent line of stretch PFs we’ve drawn to the program (Hauser, Vander Plas, Groves… Stattmann (jokes, just jokes)), Power isn’t a finished product entering his final season. He still has three more years to go. He’s a more physical presence than any of those three; taller than all but Groves with the frame to fill out more. And, while he’s not an explosive athlete, he is a fluid one. Once the game slows down for him a bit and he becomes a higher volume/more relied upon part of a team like ours; he has the potential to be the type of offensive player that Hauser was and a better defensive player than any of them.

But, I would recommend hitting the brakes when it comes to thoughts on his ceiling for this coming season. Although his baseline in certain areas, specifically his ability to shoot the ball from range and stretch the floor, won’t likely change and will consistently remain helpful, he’s still very raw and there’s a lot of opportunity for growth in his game – which won’t all happen over one offseason. It strikes me, though, that when Duke played Power (albeit in a much more limited capacity) it was very similar to how Oklahoma utilized Jake Groves, as I wrote about last offseason. They’d mostly use him as a spot-up option for spacing in the corner on offense (with the occasional rotations up to the wing), and they mostly tried to hide him defensively off of the most dangerous threats (and Groves’s defensive quality varied highly from game to game). But, when he came here, Groves was the only of our four incoming transfers last season who exceeded expectations on the court. He improved his three-point shooting by a whopping (almost) 8% (up from 38 to 46, rounded), and it was because we didn’t just put him in the corner for kick outs all of the time as an afterthought to the play design; we did a lot of different things to try to proactively create clean looks for him. And, while defense still wasn’t his strength, that was compounded by us playing him out of position at Center for much of the season.

As an absolute floor for us (probably not in shot %, I doubt TJ will get up to 46% from three this season), I’d expect Power to play a similar offensive game as Groves did last season while being a better defender (but still not the strength of his game). I don’t expect he’ll making a living putting the ball on the floor, I expect he’ll still need others to help create opportunity for him, I don’t expect he’ll suddenly become a potent scorer inside (and that’s not been the strength of our system anyway), and I think we’ll want to keep him on opposing team’s PFs as much as often, because his mobility defending the 3 and his athleticism defending the 5 aren’t ideal in either case. That being said, I do expect him to show marked improvement from his time at Duke. He’ll likely be a much bigger priority as a conversion point from deep, he should be able to get his shot off more easily, and he should be able to hold up both inside (and out, when needed) as a support defender better than we’ve seen from our recent stretch 4s. A lineup with one of our Centers alongside Power at the 4 and either Saunders or, if we have to, Warley at the SF should be a much more formidable defensive 3-5 than we’ve posed across recent seasons even with Ryan Dunn back there (the presence of bigger Centers and plus defensive SFs is doing the heavy lifting here but Power as the stretch PF should be a net positive over those we’ve had in those roles).

That’s my best guess as to our lens for 2024-2025, with Power then having TWO more seasons to build off of the increased usage that he should take on for the first time. To be clear, I DO have considerably higher expectations for him over the long run. Get him some Mike Curtis time on that frame (he’s already got 5 lbs on Groves… three more off seasons will be transformative) and now he should be able to use his body/physicality more off of the bounce, finishing around the rim, on the glass, etc. Add onto that experience and the improved mental side of the game… he is a very exciting addition. My lone caution is not to expect or be disappointed if his game doesn’t look much different than most of the guys we’ve seen in that role this coming season.

Alright! Two transfer previews down and two to go. Expect the next one to be out in about two more weeks, this time on Elijah Saunders.