Welcome to Part 3 of 2025’s Tracking A Transfer series; this one featuring Devin Tillis, a PF from UC Irvine (the Anteaters is an awesome mascot). For previous installments, please feel free to check out Part 1 on Sam Lewis and Part 2 on Jacari White.
Chronologically, Dallin Hall would have been next (and I’ll tackle him in the next piece), but they both signed around the same time and I’ve been hankering to chat a little Tillis, who I think has the potential to be the polarizing player of the season. Certainly, if early discussion about him is any indicator, that appears to be the case. In this piece, I’m going to look at what’s contributing to the wide range of opinions on his game and what I think the reality is for him moving to the major conference level; and how he fits into Odom’s system. I’ll also attempt to debunk, in my opinion, an inaccurate narrative that I’ve seen evolve.
Why is Tillis so polarizing? It’s that extreme disparity between athletic ability and basketball skill/savvy, again. Tillis is 6’6″ and 215lbs as a PF. He is a very poor leaper, plays the game below the rim, and is also slow-footed with both his acceleration and his change of direction. That being said, he’s also a really good outside shooter (39.5% last season on over three attempts), and a really fantastic passer with good court vision and game feel. He has a mind for doing the thing that the defense least wants him to be doing; and exploits mismatches well. Really, Tillis is like the collegiate embodiment of “Old Man Game,” if you’ve played pick up – the player who uses his wiles and skill to outfox and outmaneuver more athletically gifted players… to a point.
I think that’s what makes him so tricky to evaluate and why the range of opinions is so great – because he’s the kind of guy who can absolutely dominate a certain level of player – but then the drop off has the potential to be extreme at a certain point. Now, to be clear, he can absolutely still be competitive when the level of play increases, I believe. He likely would have been named the MVP of the NIT had his teammate converted a would-be layup as the clock expired in OT of the championship game (on the back of his excellent full-court pass, as well). Against UAB in that tournament, a game we’ll talk about the most because it was his most formidable competition at the PF position, he helped lead his team to victory through his control and influence of the game on the offensive end despite struggling on the defensive end. But his schedule WAS pretty weak and rarely did he face that level of positional composition. Even when playing against their best conference competition, a very good team in UC San Diego, the Tritons were excellent through skill and scheme but not through any kind of overwhelming frontcourt talent or size. The rare times he did face those more athletic and lengthy frontcourt duos throughout the regular season, like against Oregon St. (a game we’ll see) or even against Duquesne, he struggled. And yet, that’s what makes the UAB game such an interesting case study; because they did have that length and athleticism and, in some ways, he did still struggle – but, in other ways (offensive ones), he was the best player on the court.
EvanMiya.com has him listed as the 51st ranked available player in transfer portal; higher than either of the previous two players discussed and higher than all but two of the guys incoming in this class. I will make the case that this is probably too high and that we would do well to hope Thijs De Ridder gains eligibility and is our starter at the PF this coming season. But I do think there’s an important and exciting role for Tillis coming off of the bench for this team. The way our roster is constructed and Odom’s system both play to his strengths and can help mask some of his weaknesses.
For this piece’s feature games, we will look at the most formidable early season game for the Anteaters; a loss @Oregon St., their loss to UC San Diego in the Big West Final, their OT win over UAB in the Quarterfinals of the NIT, and their OT loss to Chattanooga in the NIT Finals. I want to talk about each of these games briefly first so that there’s some context prior to getting into some of the clips below:
Oregon State was a rough one for Tillis. He was held to 9 points on 4-11 shooting and 0-4 from deep. He also didn’t have any assists. Oregon State started 6’9″ 260lb Parsa Fallah and 6’9″ 220lb Michael Rataj. I thought the collective length and size really bothered Tillis in that one. He was more passive than normal and then, when he did try to make something happen it often felt forced. Defensively, his lack of size was a significant factor.
UC San Diego was the third time the teams had played and UC Irvine got trounced by probably the best team in this whole grouping. That being said, UC San Diego was not a physically imposing team – with no one over 6’8″ in their starting lineup and no one over 6’6″ among the other four. They played a zone defensively and, although the Anteaters were stymied, I thought Tillis played a better offensive game – scoring 12 off of 4-11 shooting as well, but also contributing 8 assists (the team only scored 61 points). Defensively, though, the Tritons stretched them out and Tillis’s closeout speed was tested (and didn’t do well).
In the UAB game, Tillis was matched up against an NBA prospect, the 6’9″ 240lb Yaxel Lendeborg, who was flanked by the 6’8″ 205lb Christian Coleman. This was an interesting contest because the narrative afterward became that Tillis played really good defense against Lendeborg, holding him under his season averages and efficiency, and leading his team to a big win. The second part is true; Tillis played a great offensive game, shot well from deep, and was able to have the game flow through him. There is some nuance to that, but the big discrepancy in the narrative, in my opinion, is his defense. I thought he was very poor defensively in this game. UAB’s game plan was to have him guard Lendeborg initially, but to send him aggressive help from their Center whenever he neared the lane. This freed up Coleman often, but Lendeborg was still able to contribute as well. Furthermore, there were many situations where Tillis was the last line of defense, especially in transition, and it did not go well – so kind of a tale of two extremes in this one offense/defense.
The last game we’ll visit against Chattanooga was also interesting (all of these games were very different matchup/wise). Tillis’s primary assignment and person guarding him was the 6’7″ under-athletic, Freshman, Garrison Keeslar. With few exceptions Tillis did not have an issue defending or taking over the game offensively against him. On the other hand, their Center, the 6’10” 218lb Collin Mulholland scored 19 points and shot 17 threes in this game. He was taking advantage of UC Irvine’s extreme reluctance (sometimes downright refusal) to bring their Center out of the paint. So, late in the game to combat this, they actually put Tillis on Mulholland and their Center (we’ll discuss below) on Keeslar… and it worked! Tillis was stronger than Mulholland and just quick enough to hound him and be physical… until Keeslar started being the one taking and making the outside shots. But this was a rare and interesting situation where Tillis became the positive defensive matchup.
Alright, background established so the clips have context, let’s pick this bone a little bit but…
First A Word About UC Irvine
UC Irvine was the NIT runner up and the 68th best team in the nation with the 20th best defense if you’re a believer in Kenpom (and, if you’ve been reading these, you’ll notice that I do like to reference it just to help level set). Were the Anteaters really the 20th best defense in the country? I certainly wouldn’t go that far and think beating up on their middle-of-the-pack schedule helped. They were intentional and innovative, though. Earlier in the season, as we’ll see in the Oregon St. game, they ran a hybrid zone that was often basically a Box-And-1, but sometimes was more of a straight 2-3 with the occasional Man-To-Man. Later in the season they relied on Man much more, though. At the end of the day, their strategy was to keep their rim protectors, the 7’1″ Bent Leuchten primarily and, secondarily, the 6’10” Kyle Evans at home in the lane and to funnel offensive traffic into them so that they could help and either block or alter the shot. This was pretty universal with their zone concepts but also in how aggressively these Centers would sag off of their man in Man-To-Man to ensure they were around to help. Their mandate was obvious – help the rest of the team to protect the rim.
Interestingly, despite the overall well-rated defense, Tillis was just 6th on the team in defensive BPR, per Evan Miya, while he was 1st on the squad offensively. I thought that checked out. In fact, I thought he was pretty regularly a liability on that end who benefitted greatly from support by Leuchten – but there were a few exceptions to this.
Offensively, UC Irvine ran a heavy motion ball-screen style offense but they looked to post up heavily out of it; either by trying to isolate Leuchten on the low post or, more commonly, by looking to Tillis in the mid-post. They would try to run ball screens to create mismatches and then take advantage of one-on-one matchups where they best shook out. Everyone on the team played a role, but this often allowed Tillis to be the epicenter of the storm on this side of the ball. When he was at his best, things seemed to flow through him creating for himself or others from that isolation, or by stretching the defense with his outside shot. When he was at his worst, it became a little chaotic and he was caught forcing some ugly moments. But, generally, I thought UC Irvine shared the ball well and played off of each other well – with Tillis often leading the charge.
Alright – let’s get to the good stuff like the…
Offense
Outside Shooting
Tillis was a very good, almost 40%, three-point shooter last year, on 124 attempts for the season. His shot selection didn’t always make the most sense to me – he’d occasionally pass up what I thought was a pretty clean look to drive it and, at other times, would just throw up some absolute heat checks. Suffice it to say, his confidence level within a game played a big role in his shot selection and he buried some clutch shots toward the end of games in the NIT.
He’s mostly a spot up guy; able to take advantage of a kick out off of an offensive rebound, like here:
Or like with this huge shot to tie the game late in OT against UAB where you can see he’s just itching for the opportunity very early in the shot clock.
He identified where the defense would be soft and just readied himself.
He’s got some deep range in his bag that can really put pressure on a defense such that they can’t help as well as they’d like and they also don’t recognize the need to close out with quite as much urgency as they should – like here:
And, while he’s not going to break someone down off of the bounce and fire away from out there, he’s got some nifty navigation where he can put the ball on the floor to avoid a contest and seamlessly get the shot up, like here:
So, this is a significant strength of his game. We’ll also see later how he can get into his shot in transition. He’s a fluid and quick shooter who doesn’t just have to be stationary right at the three-point line; he can set up deeper or he can be moving a little – just don’t expect him to isolate someone off the bounce and pull up from out there.
The only things I’d log as areas of improvement here are in games where he’s struggling with his matchup, he sometimes alternates between not taking the open looks he has and should:
And sometimes pressing a little too much, like in this look below. Admittedly, this was late in the game so you don’t mind him getting a shot up – but this is so deep because he’s had such a struggle of it and in the game situation felt a little desperate like he wasn’t confident anything else would work (and it wasn’t that he was open, it’s that he wanted to avoid that Rataj contest by jumping the gun).
There were a couple of other examples like that – and I know I applauded his deep range earlier – but it’s better to take those shots when you’re surprising a defense that isn’t willing to stretch that far or when you’re already feeling yourself and have some positive momentum. They’re not great when you’re more in the fling spaghetti against the wall kind of situation.
All-in-all, though, this is a great strength and, if anything, you want him taking all of the open looks he can get around the arc and then allowing that to build him some positive game flow.
Creation (For Others)
His other great offensive attribute, and I would classify this as his greatest, is his passing. I thought Devin Tillis displayed some quality court-vision and some really creative passing with touch. He only averaged 2.5 assists per game, which is fine, but at times it felt like the entire team’s offensive orbit was revolving around him either finding some long outlet passes, making a read out of the mid-post, or even playmaking off of a ball screen and throwing a nice pass with touch to his big.
Here’s a first look at a nice little high-low pass he throws after flashing to the high post. The two things I most like about this one is the quickness with which he throws the pass – he’s already identified it before he even gets the ball – and the touch with which he delivers it.
It really is just a smart and skilled play.
Here we see him in that mid-post for the first time, his favorite spot. Now this play works against UC San Diego because he’s a threat to score inside against them and they’re focused on helping. That’s 6’5″ Justin Rochelin (#5) guarding him from his spot in the zone. Tillis faces up and sees the 6’8″ Maximo Milovich (#33) getting ready to help. The brilliant thing, in my mind, about this play is the little ball fake that makes it all happen. All Tillis does is rip the ball like he’s going to drive to his right, bringing Milovich farther out, and then he quickly tosses a pass into Kyle Evans (#14) for the easy layup before help on the back side can collapse (not that they would have been able to contest Evans anyway).
That space is where Milovich should have been but the threat of Tillis exploiting a smaller man was very real and his manipulation of the defender to get that easy bucket was good, smart, basketball.
When we talk about feel for the game, this next play, below, does a good job of showing that. Sometimes the most effective plays aren’t the most flashy; it’s just knowing where to go with the ball and when. Here he works out of that mid-post and when his defender tries to steal the ball, he pivots away baseline but runs into a double. He could try to lob it over the double, but instead just turns and flips it back out to his teammate who threw him the pass and relocated to the vacant space.
There’s so much subtle game control here – taking advantage of his man overplaying the entry pass, commanding a second defender, and knowing that the easiest pass is probably the best one (and worth the most points) despite not having his eyes there until the very end. It’s a good illustration of him subtly controlling the game on the offensive end by just stringing together smart decisions fueled by being able to read the defense quickly.
This next one, below, continues to show his court vision and his control. Again out of the mid post, here’s that low ball swipe, this time to his left, to get his defender to drop his hands. He then picks out and one-hands a dime across the floor to allow his teammate to attack a closeout and hit a floater.
That’s just identifying the soft spot in the defense and being able to put the ball where he wants it.
But now, in this next clip, you get to see a little bit of his creativity (and him attacking off of the dribble). There’s nothing quick about this dribble attack – it’s really like a glacier – but it’s all positioning. He takes the ball screen, draws the switch, but then uses his body to pivot back toward the lane as if he’s posting up his defender, only to dump off an almost blind bounce pass to Evans, who was also sealing his, much smaller, man and could convert with the reverse layup.
You’ve got to appreciate that spatial awareness!
This next one was a turnover… but it was still awesome and keeps with the trend of great vision and creativity in his passing. Here he’s got Christian Coleman (#4) defending him on the perimeter. You’ll notice how Coleman, despite being bigger than Tillis, is also much quicker. But this also highlights that Tillis charm where he uses his body to spin off of guys. Coleman cuts off his left-handed drive but he reverse pivots and gets back to his right hand, keeping his dribble. It’s off of that probe that he throws a ridiculously angled pocket pass through a pretty tight window that Leuchten just isn’t ready for.
The UAB defense wasn’t the only one who didn’t anticipate this pass – his own teammate didn’t see the opportunity, either, but you’ve got to be ready for a pass at all times as a big and this turnover is actually a result of Tillis being steps ahead.
I’m going to stay on this section a little bit longer and show a few more clips because I really do think this is where he’s at his best. Here’s another look at him running the pick and roll and showing really nice touch on that lob pass to his teammate:
Here, below, he actually draws a triple team in the mid-post, again, and threads a fadeaway one-hander right over the heads of them to his Center on the other side of the lane (who draws the foul but misses the shot).
And here he is delivering a crisp backdoor pass that leads to a nice little floater:
I also really liked this next play, below, late in the game because it’s so calm. They’re in OT in the championship game and he gets the ball with his back to the baseline in the short corner against a scrambling defense. He doesn’t turn immediately to the hoop, pound the ball into the floor, and try to get a shot up against a contest; he keeps his eyes on the open floor, surveys, and then feathers the softest little touch pass to Leuchten, diving down the lane.
And, lastly, let’s not forget that his 3/4 quart heave that was on the money, despite the play ending poorly, was the result of Devin’s right arm:
You get the point. But I did show all of these because I don’t think it’s enough to simply say, “he’s a good passer.” He’s got touch and accuracy on his passes, he uses his body to set up good passing lanes and opportunity, he’s got great court-vision and he’s really creative in how he finds where he wants to go with the ball. When I say that he has the ability to kind of control a game flow on the offensive end, it’s all of this stuff working together for him to keep the ball going to the right place.
Transition
The last aspect of his offensive game that I find… slightly more fault than the other two… but makes up a big strength of his on the offensive side, especially as it relates to Ryan Odom’s system, is his transition game. Three-for-three on transfers in who do well in this area… go figure. Tillis is different than the other two, though, as he’s not as good at using speed to push the pace, nor is he really good at finishing in transition. He does bring the ball up the floor from the forward position, though; he throws a mean outlet pass, and he’s good at trailing the play, picking out weak spots in the defensive coverage, and knocking down some threes. Altogether, it creates great pressure on a defense without Tillis himself having to be overly fast or athletic (and likely will support those kinds of players quite well).
I do enjoy being able to show so many fast break clips now! I’m going to jump right to my one of my favorites that probably best encapsulates what Tillis is all about in this area, and you don’t even get to see all of it on tape! This is after a UAB make in the paint. Tillis takes the ball under the hoop and throws a chest pass basically to half court (exactly where we can’t tell because the camera man just isn’t even ready yet). This has UAB scrambling to defend the two-man game on the wing before they’re even fully back. As they gather themselves, Tillis just creeps down the court, locates the soft spot, and drills the three on the secondary break.
That clip is probably Devin Tillis in a nutshell – placing a lot of pressure on a defense without doing anything physically remarkable. It’s just his alertness and willingness to probe on that deep outlet and then knowing where to go himself to capitalize on the early offense.
Here’s a similar idea that also highlights another one of his strengths. I could have but didn’t include this in the shooting section because it’s the set up that gets us here. After a rebound, Tillis takes the outlet himself and pushes the ball up the floor. Notably, Odom wants basically all of his players, certainly all of his non-Center players to feel comfortable pushing the ball in transition and Tillis is. He even helps break the press when it comes to that. But here, he uses that tempo to fake a DHO and force a switch by the defense. Now he’s got a mismatch in his favorite place, that mid-post, where he forces a double team and starts some rotations – eventually spotting up and hitting the three.
It feels a little bit like cheating including a shot that comes with 12 seconds left on the shot clock in the transition section, but I stand by it. The whole imbalance created in the defense by the offense in this play came because Tillis pushed the ball up the floor and used that tempo to force the switch and the mismatch.
Alright, some more traditional transition looks now. Here he is pushing it himself, again, nothing blistering, just good vision and under control. He does a really nice job of manipulating the defense by looking to the corner, getting the defense to react, and then flipping it right to Evans for the much easier layup.
Great look away.
When he first gets the ball, he does a really nice job of getting his eyes up the court – as we saw earlier after the make – but here are a couple more looks at his nice outlet passing creating something positive, here:
And here:
And you really do have to keep track of him trailing a play or he’ll find a really nice spot to make himself available for a kick out. For good measure let’s get a couple more looks at that, here after the defense collapsed on Leuchten:
And here, he’s just feeling himself at this point!
I can hear you now, “hey Cuts – why call out the earlier long miss against Oregon St. and praise this look against Chattanooga… is it just because he made one?” Well, astute friend, yes, but also no. Of course, I’m not showing this clip if he misses the shot – showing that he can make it with this kind of range while jogging into it is part of the point. But, more importantly, this was a heat check. He’d already made two threes in this game before this shot, one just 22 seconds beforehand. In the Oregon St. game, he launched having been 0-3 prior and because he was out of other ideas (and it was late in the game) because things hadn’t been going so well for him. There’s a big difference between a momentum three when you’re hot and a desperation three.
Alright, look at you making me digress, you sly boots. But, so… yeah. That’s where he’s at his most effective on the break. Pushing the tempo through probing passes, getting his teammates quickly involved, and then backing them up to hit a dagger if the defense sleeps at all.
Where I would say he was weaker in this area was when he actually had to finish something himself at the rim. This is a trend we’ll talk about in more depth momentarily, but you get a good look at it here. The ball gets deflected right to him and he runs out in what could be a two-on-one. He’s not really fast enough to make that happen, though, and allows the UC San Diego defender at the top of the screen to get into the play. Additionally, instead of getting out a little wider to his right hand, he just kind of jams the ball into traffic in the paint, has to come to a complete stop, almost turns it over with a travel (probably should have) and has to kick it out so the play turns into nothing.
This is where his athleticism limits him. More fluidity with his stride would either get him to his right hand for a finish with a layup, or create a passing lane for his man when the defender came to him. The lack of speed allows the other defender to catch up, and the awkwardness on his change of direction kind of crashes everything down into the cluster we see.
This is a limitation and trend we see in other areas of his game, especially when trying to create for himself off of the bounce which we’ll talk about now…
Creation (Self)
For this section I’m talking more about him handling the ball and taking his man off of the bounce; but it’s also relevant for the section we’ll get into below regarding his mid-post/inside game. Tillis is like a little bowling ball in there (little by frontcourt standards); bouncing off of things and causing chaos – but that lack of quickness, lack of quick change of direction (as opposed to more controlled and powerful pivoting), and lack of verticality often creates some sloppiness/missed opportunity around the hoop. Specifically, he often has to either reset an opportunity he could have taken with some more explosiveness (or length), force up something awkward, or just end up doing something sloppy with the ball.
Here’s a look at him jamming the ball into the lane against the Oregon St. frontcourt. He has a wide-open lane after a pick and pop but you just see the lack of athleticism in effect here. He gets going with a full head of steam, doesn’t seem to have any ideas, can’t really slow himself down, jumps into the defender but can’t elevate well enough to clear the contest, and just kind of gets absorbed.
To his credit, he is able to hang onto the ball and force it over toward Leuchten who grabs it and keeps the play alive; but this play (and the last in the last section) start to illustrate the issues with the athleticism. If it’s not obvious watching these, he’s struggling to change his attack angle when he’s running toward the hoop. He gets too much momentum behind him and doesn’t have the control or ability when he does that to alter his trajectory – which is what leads him to plod right into danger.
It’s very similar in this next look. After some stagnation early in the play, eventually he gets a pass in the corner and actually does a nice job with his jab step to clear a driving lane. The problem is that there’s just no explosion. He actually finds a way to split the two defenders, but his drive allows them to get back into the play and there’s just no elevation on that jump, despite him having momentum getting into it. He gets the shot blocked and it turns into an awkward scrap for the ball and eventual turnover.
This is the kind of lack of athleticism that I do feel is going to hinder this part of his offensive game at the next level. UC San Diego is not an incredibly athletic team themselves. It’s a good move, but you have to be able to do more with the opportunity.
And it’s a similar thing here, below. Less of the forward momentum issue – but getting the ball with a nice opening to just explode right to the hoop to finish and instead… his man gets into the play, dislodges him on the bump, and he ends up turning the ball over AND fouling.
He just takes too long to get going here and then gets a little sloppy with the ball, as happens occasionally when the opposition is just quicker to collapsing on it.
I do think that for these kinds of plays that are going to require him to be explosive around the rim – we’re just not going to get a lot of positivity out of him. BUT, that doesn’t mean he can’t create for himself from the outside at all, he just has to slow down (counter-intuitively) and play under control.
Here’s the best example of this against an athletic and long defender in Christian Coleman (#4) on Baylor. On this play, he gets the ball in the corner and, though a ball screen, gets the switch (with Lendeborg switching with Coleman). The difference in this drive and the others before it is that he’s not trying to exploit an advantage that’s been created quickly; he’s taking his time, but the driving angle he’s using is roundabout. He’s able to just methodically keep his body between the ball and Coleman and work his way to his spot before hitting a little baby hook.
It’s still a pretty tough shot fading away from the basket a little bit with the one hand over a contest, but it’s in rhythm and pretty close to the bucket. He’s not rushing, he’s playing under control, and he’s using his frame to keep the shot from being blocked. This is the kind of approach I could see him having some success with.
One more look at something similar, this time against a less impressive defender, but still with the same philosophy. This time he’s, once again, methodical toward the basket. He initiates the drive left, spins back to the right, and hits a pretty similar running baby hook shot again over his man (this time the much less imposing defensively 6’6″ Aniwaniwa Tait-Jones).
He’s probably going to see more defenders like Coleman than Tait-Jones, but this can be an effective approach against either. He also does draw switches sometimes, as we’ll see below.
But yeah, being more consistently methodical with his drives would be beneficial.
Inside/Mid-Post/Post Up Game
Now, we saw earlier how Tillis can facilitate pretty well out of this mid-post; but it also has the potential to be very matchup specific when it comes to his own ability to score out of it. In fact, this is one of those elements of his game that really often boils down to who is guarding him. Unfortunately, he’s just going to run into a lot more length, strength, and athleticism at this level and that’s going to matter. I can’t say enough how much length around the basket negatively impacts his finishing around the rim and that there are several examples I haven’t included of him just missing bunnies in there while rushing. Not always; we’ll see some good here too – but often.
But first let’s start off with a positive, and that’s that he does a really nice job of attacking and punishing switches on the defensive end. I can remember many times over recent seasons watching some of our 6’11” guys get switched onto a guard and not call for the ball and be timid if they got it. Not Tillis. Tillis will demand the ball on a switch and attack it relentlessly.
Here he is against UAB, with Coleman defending him again but this time he draws a switch from the ball screen. The man guarding him is #10, Alejandro Vasquez and at 6’4″, 205lbs, he’s not an especially small or weak guard – but Tillis is able to play bully ball here. He starts backing him down until Coleman feels compelled to show help, allowing Tillis just to kick it back out to the guard Coleman is covering. After doing so, he stays put and posts up again, takes the return pass deeper this time, and goes back to work. He threatens the middle, spins back baseline, and draws a foul after the pump fake (you’d like to see a finish but he’s a very good foul shooter at almost 82%).
And here, below, this time he draws a switch from the 6’4″ 180lb Efrem Johnson. That 25lb difference between Vasquez and Johnson is no joke, and this time you see Tillis just straight up overpower Johnson, no mercy, and go right through him for the strong finish.
So, he can really take advantage of guards and his ability to shoot (and be surrounded by shooters, as he will be on our team) often will force big/guard switches. I’m sure you’ll see this some this year and you’ll also see this if we run into small ball matchups with opponents playing 4 guards. Tillis will take advantage of those situations using his post skills and strength and forcing his man to guard.
He can also go to work on similarly sized or under-athletic PFs. He shouldn’t see this as much in major conference play, but it’s worth calling out that if the opposing team is playing someone at PF, like the 6’6″ Bash Wieland (#22) here, Tillis will feast. In the clip below, he does a nice job of faking the pass to the back cutter before passing it out and re-establishing himself in the post. With the side cleared out, he sweeps the ball to his right and then executes a nice drop step to get fully around Wieland (and also doesn’t have to worry about his contest on the finish).
I recently jokingly referred to this as the “Mortar and pestle” from Tillis because it’s much, much, slower than a blender – but it can still get the job done very effectively when the situation is right.
One more look, below, I wrote in my notes when I Cut this clip, “nice push shot over an under-athletic 4” and… yep. That’s what this is (that’s Wieland again).
But here’s the flip side of that coin – when faced with the length (and weight – that matters quite a bit against him), it looks much different.
Here’s a first look at this vs. Oregon St. and after the inbound pass he’s picked up by Isaiah Sy – who is just 6’7″ 190. Tillis is probably fouled on this play as Sy isn’t really straight up – but it’s also discouraging how Sy is completely flatfooted and how much he’s able to umbrella Tillis here and render his shot attempt completely unthreatening.
Here he is against Liutauras Lelevicius (#37) who is just Oregon State’s Small Forward, but also stands at 6’7″ 198. Tillis tries backing him down and makes a little progress but Lelevicius is still able to be incredibly bothersome without even jumping and Tillis just kind of flings that hook shot up with much less control.
Neither of these are the Beaver’s starting frontcourt yet.
This next one is kind of funny to show because it actually ends in a Tillis wide-open layup as his teammate makes a nice shot fake pass and he’s wide open – but the aspect I’m showcasing is from about 12 seconds into the clip until about 16 seconds into the clip. Tillis is absolutely wide-open cutting to the hoop after the long rebound cause the defense to scramble, but the length of Oregon State doesn’t even really allow him to get a shot up. He feels Sy closing in from behind and pump fakes, but Sy still gets a piece of the ball causing him to lose it on the way up. Sy is out of the play at that point after his jump, but Tillis wants no part of trying to get a shot up there with Parsa Fallah (#11) on his back and simply dribbles it back out of the baseline to reset the play.
It’s not great when your PF is that open with momentum moving toward the hoop and ends up getting blocked from behind and then refusing to even attempt a shot with another player behind him.
Here’s one against UC San Diego where he gets the seal on the smaller player, but when the help comes over he almost freezes and loses the ball on a haphazard pump fake.
That’s another trend you’d often see is that he speeds himself up when playing inside like this because you can tell he’s rushing at times to beat the help or shot blocker. When that happens, he gets a bit turnover prone either by being butter-fingered with the ball or by pressing and being unaware. Here’s another example of that, below where he’s moving so quickly to spin off of his man he isn’t under control and doesn’t sense/can’t react to the help defender quickly enough:
Alright, a couple more looks at length just in general making his life pretty hard. Here, below, he collects a long offensive rebound after a blocked shot, and gets a one-on-one with space against Lendeborg with good depth, starting from the elbow, and being able to attack a good driving angle. But the contest is intrusive and he has to take a difficult release angle with his shot – missing the layup pretty badly.
Here, you get a look at a suite of isolation moves and he actually gets Coleman to bite on the shot fake, but he doesn’t actually gain much of an advantage from doing so. He is able to lean into him and make some headway there on the drive, but the lengthy contest still forces him to fadeaway on his left-handed hook and misses (nice clean up by Evans, though).
There is some benefit in him making these attempts because, even though Lendeborg didn’t feel the need to come over to help, he was baited into trying to block the shot at the end, which is what gave Evans the path to the easy put back.
And finally, here, below, it’s funny how many of the plays I’ve selected end up in a teammate getting a put back – which could be a hidden benefit we see from Onyenso or Grünloh. But, anyway, you certainly can’t count on a teammate cleaning these up and it won’t be the most efficient offense if we rely on it often. Here he’s being shadowed by 6’9″ Sean Cusano and that contest forces a very difficult release that barely trickles over the front of the rim and off the other side.
You may find yourself thinking, “So what? Players miss shots.” Also true; you sure are feeling confrontational today! But this is actually a pretty small sample size of similar plays and the issue isn’t just the misses, it’s how intrusive these players are to him. Almost everything he’s having to shoot in here is off balance or one-handed, falling away from the basket, straining to keep the shot from getting blocked, in some cases not even being able to get a shot up. Many players create a good opportunity and miss a shot, but Tillis feels like he has to move mountains sometimes to get a look in here against this kind of competition and, when he does, it’s often still a really hard one for him.
Now, I’m going to write about all of this and how it’s a concern at this level of play. How he’s probably going to have to rely on those other element of his offensive game more often; his outside shooting, and his facilitation for others, BUT I’m going to close with one final look. This is what UC Irvine went to, down two points, with under 30 seconds left to play against UAB. It’s just Tillis in isolation against Coleman again… and this time he completely destroys him, backing him in, getting him to use his leverage to resist the back down, and then spinning off of him for a quick layup.
That’s a classy move right there. It should be worth calling out that the reason you’re seeing him have a little more success in the paint against Coleman than against Lendeborg might because of the inch difference between the defenders, but more likely is because of the 35lb difference.
All of that being said, we saw how Tillis struggled at times with Coleman too, so it’s to his credit that he came up huge here in this clutch moment. It’s enough to make you not close the door here and understand that there can be moments of class from Tillis that trump everything – but I still have some serious concerns about his efficiency/reliability in the paint against at least on par and probably better than he saw against Oregon St. and UAB on most nights in the ACC.
Miscellaneous
Just a few odds and ends to add on here that I haven’t spoken on yet…
Cutting
He’s surprisingly effective as a cutter and makes some reads that absolutely lose his man and allow for an easy finish. Three looks here on that:
This one, lulling his man like he’s going to set a ball screen and then taking off toward the basket instead:
This one on a really nice wrap-around Leuchten (and a good catch and finish because this one wasn’t wide-open):
This one baiting the ball screen defense and slipping before setting it again:
It’s not something that regularly came up – but there was some flashes of it that showed his ability to read a defense and, again, show some creativity, that I liked.
Offensive Rebounding
And it should probably go without saying that he’s not a great offensive rebounder at 1.6 per contest at about 30 minutes per game. He’ll get a couple just by being around the hoop, getting some long rebounds, having a Center command more box out attention beside him, and scrapping. He doesn’t just turn and run back up court when those shots go up; but he’ll lose a lot of 50/50 style balls like this, again just from that leaping ability/reach:
I do want to be very clear – if you’re playing a Devin Tillis it’s going to be for his offense. He’s going to find a way to contribute to most games when he’s in there if nothing else than through his ability to space a defense, though his ability as a connector to find some really intuitive passes, and from his savvy doing things like finding quality outlet passes, knowing where to go with the ball and when, etc.
There are also going to be times like when he hit Christian Coleman with that drop step that you’re going to sit up in your chair and point at the screen Rick Dalton style. But I also think it’s likely he won’t be able to play or control a game in as many ways as he’s used to. His full bag won’t be as effective at this level. He’s not going to be as efficient hunting his own shot inside the arc as he’s used to.
So, to me, the story around his efficacy for us in 2025 on this side of the ball is going to come down to how much he’s willing to adjust his game. Is he willing to be that glue guy who can set his teammates up, keep the ball moving to the right place, exploit a mismatch, and knock down an open shot? Or, is he going to try to be a more ball-dominant player, and try his luck at forcing the action in the paint? What I’ve seen of Tillis suggests to me that he’s a good team player with basketball smarts, so I’m hopeful for the former – but focusing how he plays should go a long way.
This will be the question, though, how does all of that balance with his…
Defense
I’m not going to sugarcoat it; Devin Tillis’s defense is a significant concern of mine. In fact, it’s probably the single biggest concern I have for any of our incoming transfers re: the role they’re likely to have on the team and what might cause a pain point. In my piece on Sam Lewis, I discussed this as well – but that was mostly an effort and awareness issue. That’s the kind of thing, in my opinion, that’s easier to correct with coaching and team culture. This has very little to do with effort (he’s good there) or awareness – it’s all just ability, which is a much harder thing to correct especially because he’s already learned a lot of the tricks of the trade.
The overall issue is that he doesn’t have the lateral quickness, change of direction and start/stop to do a great job shutting down driving angles or closing out effectively around the perimeter, and he doesn’t have the length/height/verticality to bother many shots on the inside or to offer any rim protection. When he was successful on the defensive end, he usually either got help, successfully funneled his man to help, or used some physicality and aggressive reaching from behind to try to be disruptive.
The most common argument I’ve seen in support of Tillis’s defense is from the UAB game in the NIT when he was primarily matched up against NBA prospect Yaxel Lendeborg and Yaxel was held to 13 points (4.7 under his average) on 5-13 shooting. The argument goes that if he can hold his own against a player like that, then surely his defense can be effective or good enough. But, I’m here to tell you that I fully disagree with that assessment of that game and thought that Tillis really struggled on the defensive end – to the point of being the point of attack his team had to game plan to help. Of course, he did enough offensively to help his team to victory, was the game-high scorer at 22 and pulled down 11 rebounds so I can see how if someone was box score watching they would draw this conclusion. Because of this, and because I love a good debunking, I’m going to speak to his defensive game from the other three feature games and then do a whole section on the UAB game.
That being said, I think that general idea (him being the weakest defender of the UC Irvine starting five) was accurate not just in that UAB game. Let’s take a look:
Defending the Drive
I talked in the offensive piece about how Tillis would sometimes get a head of steam and struggle to change the direction of his point of attack. The same was true of his defensive game in that, if he gave up an angle, the offensive player was going to have an easy time beating him through the gap and he also really wasn’t going to be able to do much to contest the shot outside of fouling.
Here’s a great look from the Oregon St. game. This is him guarding Michael Rataj (#12). He sinks down for help side defense just momentarily when the ball is low, then has to change direction as the ball is kicked back out to his man. Despite not recovering much past the elbow, he’s really slow opening his body and gets blown by with the right-handed drive, gets firmly put on Rataj’s hip, and actually steps away at the end basically conceding the shot so as not to foul, but also because he’s not going to be able to offer any kind of intrusive contest whatsoever on this.
Contrast the ease of this shot with Tillis on Rataj’s hip with that of Tillis’s shot with Lendeborg on his hip earlier in the piece. One was basically uncontested while the other was a runner quasi-fading away and rushing a shot. Aside from having no hope at contesting, it’s that little piece from 5-8 seconds into the clip above that’s most noteworthy. He’s kind of lost in space, running in circles a little bit, but the stop and start of each decision, the acceleration, if you will, is incredibly slow and is what leads to the easy path to the bucket. There was nothing complicated about this build up, all he had to do was sag a little and close out. It reminds me of when players don’t trust their cleats on a bad field in either football or soccer – or when there’s a poorly swept basketball floor with too much dust/dirt and so the players cuts are more roundabout and delayed.
Here’s another look, this time on a long rebound where he’s running toward the ball but Lelevicius (#37) beats him to it. You can see Tillis recognize that he’s beat and start to try to stop his momentum, but he can’t do so quickly enough. This slide step to his right looks like it’s in molasses. And then, once again, he just kind of has to let the man go after he’s on the hip.
It’s just too easy for the offensive player in both of these.
There’s also the element of him navigating ball screens, both because of those struggles with the change of direction and because of the cushion needed to protect against the drive. Here, against Chattanooga, UC Irvine had clearly made the decision to not worry about the 6’7″ Garrison Keeslar’s outside shot. But he shot almost 35% from deep on the season, so it’s unclear really why other than, they thought it better to let him fire than to try to press Tillis up on him. Here’s a look at him staying deep to maintain depth, getting caught on a pin down screen and making no effort to get over it for the contest:
And here’s another one where he’s less passive, this time against Sean Cusano (#7) who shot only 30% from out there but you still see that change of direction as he goes under the screen and then can’t really turn on the forward quickness to get a contest on the shot:
Far too comfortable for these small PFs who, in Keeslar’s case was a solid shooter and from Cusano who was below average; letting them line it up and have their way. It’s one thing if you’ve decided you’re going to let these guys be the ones who beat you from outside as a strategy but, even still, that’s just way too easy and it comes from Tillis trying to cheat himself as much space as he can to either react to a drive or be able to help more effectively away from the ball.
It’s especially bad in transition because everything is more extreme. The opposition is moving with more momentum so his ability to cut of driving angles is worse and he can’t jump with most. This is one look (but we’ll see a lot more from the UAB game below). He got a flagrant 1 on this play because he lost the footrace with the 6’9″ big man with the ball, and ended up undercutting him because he couldn’t really begin to jump for it.
Now, where Tillis sometimes redeems himself is with active hands before his man can actually go up with it, even when he’s beaten sometimes. Here’s a look, below, against UC San Diego and you see both things at play here – Tillis’s active hands and how UC Irvine’s shot blocking presence in the middle helped him out. They’re playing a Box-And-1 here, which was a pretty questionable call against such a good three-point shooting team. They played Leuchten more under the rim and kept him home, and also put Tillis on his side. As UC San Diego passes the ball down to Nordin Kapic (#24) here, it makes Tillis scramble to recover. That ball fake and drive completely loses him, he has to put the brakes on, slowly, is slow to open his body, and lets Kapic get right by him. Leuchten is there, however, as a looming presence right outside of the circle. Kapic has to slow down as he enters the lane, which allows Tillis to get back into the play and he reaches in here to poke the ball away and force the turnover.
A bad idea to run this defense like this against a team like UC San Diego, poor defense from Tillis, backed up by Leuchten being a space eater and then Tillis being opportunistic. This is why I say that Onyenso and Grünloh (and I know I haven’t covered either yet) could be a big factor in Tillis’s ability to stay on the floor this year, though, as both are very good shot blockers and are more mobile than Leuchten.
Here’s one more look, this time in transition, where he takes the chance and swipes at the ball on the way up, which dislodges it and kills the threat.
It’s kind of a desperate way to play defense, but it is one of those tricks that can help keep so many of these bad situations from ending poorly. It also probably won’t matter as much if he gets into foul trouble for us – so he can afford to do this more regularly.
I do want to be clear if this is the first time you’ve read one of my pieces or forget how I approach these – this certainly doesn’t mean all of his defense on the drive goes this poorly. That’s rarely the case in basketball. Sometimes he anticipates the move better and is able to react in time, use his body to deter the drive, like here:
But in these pieces, I try to focus on strengths and weaknesses and what I think will either be something a player brings that helps our team or something that will more often cause issues for our team. This element of his game is the latter.
Defending The Post
More examples of this in the next section against UAB because of the matchups. Neither UC San Diego nor Chattanooga had the personnel to challenge him in the post much with Leuchten backing him up (and both teams were getting too much on the perimeter anyway). I think he’s a better post defender than he is at any other defensive element, because he doesn’t have to be as mobile and he can use some of those tricks.
He’ll reach to deny the entry pass quite often, and sometimes it works out like this one where he holds up strong on the entry pass and gets ball. I thought he did a nice job pushing back here to not allow the space and then using those active hands again.
Sometimes this kind of post entry defense does draw him a foul, though.
But, more often, if a major conference-sized big man gets the ball in the post vs. Tillis, UC Irvine was going to try to keep their Center close to try to help either double or to contest the shot. This next clip below is a good visual of that against Oregon State. Michael Rataj (#12) catches the ball near the block against Tillis. He faces up gives a quick ball fake, and then drives baseline. Tillis is leaning on him, but he pretty easily gets to his spot deep under the hoop. Leuchten (#15) comes over to double team and Rataj elevates for the layup attempt. Pause the clip around 7 seconds and note how Rataj is able to pretty effortlessly elevate over Tillis to get into his shot, but Leuchten’s contest makes it difficult and forces the miss. of course, Leuchten needing to go and help so aggressively makes the rebound easy to clean up for his original man, Parsah Fallah (#11), who finishes and draws the foul.
That clip encapsulates so much of the problem statement. Having Tillis defend against size in there creates a vacuum where your rim protector has to help due to the ease at which that shot attempt is coming otherwise. And even if successful, it then puts pressure on the back side of the defense because now your opponents Center (typically) is either left alone to offensive rebound or, if the rotations are good, just has to fend off a guard.
We’ll revisit this concept, including where he’s left as the last line of defense himself.
But I will leave with one interesting positive. Against Chattanooga, most of the game Leuchten was covering the 6’10” Collin Mulholland (#21), a true stretch 5. The Anteaters were primarily playing man in that game and, as we’ve seen, Leuchten wants to stay at home in the paint to help support Tillis and anyone else whose man tries to score inside. The problem for UC Irvine was that Mulholland shot 17 threes in the game (and only took 19 shots). He only shot 29% but he still scored 19 points and kept forcing Leuchten out of his comfort zone, opening other things up as well. And so, the Anteaters tried putting Tillis on Mulholland and Leuchten on Keesler… and it worked! At least on Tillis’s end. He was strong enough to push Mulholland around (as you see him doing throughout the clip below) and was quick enough to lean on him and not worry about the blowby (because that wasn’t Mulholland’s strength). So, it was actually quite effective.
Of course, Chattanooga just started letting Keesler shoot the wide-open looks, of which he made a couple, and Tillis and Leuchten ended up having to switch back. I don’t think there will be too many starting Centers in the ACC that Tillis will be able to push around like that – but it was still a neat wrinkle that was counter-intuitive to how their defensive matchups typically worked so I thought it worth showing.
Off-Ball Rotations
If change of direction and acceleration is an issue, then you can probably imagine that when he’s off the ball playing help side defense, in either zone or man, his closeouts can be slow coming.
UC San Diego put this to the test the most. Here, they miss a wide-open corner three, which is fine, you’re going to miss some open looks and that’s one of the best ones you can get. It’s Tillis operating in space that’s on display. His ability to react to the drive, then recover to the wing, and then try to chase the ball into the corner is very slow; and he’s really hustling.
That last close out to the corner feels a bit like Fred Flintstone feet moving in place before he gets the car going.
The previous clip, above, illustrated the slow acceleration/change of direction, but most players would have struggled to effectively contest that spacing and ball movement. Here, below, it’s a much different story where at 7 seconds you see Tillis in his zone staying between two players close together on the wing. They space out a little, with one moving up to the wing with the ball and the other moving to the corner, but Tillis doesn’t get sucked up too far to the wing, he keeps fine depth. The pass still goes to the corner, though, and he can’t flip and get over there in time to contest it.
That’s a play that most forwards at this level would either have the quickness or length to effectively bother. For more perspective and a different way of thinking about it – he’s basically set in the zone as he should/wants to be and one pass against his set defense creates an open look.
And here’s one more, below. Again, this isn’t any kind of extreme rotation he gets caught up in, it’s him taking a step into a driving lane to help and then just having to recover out to the corner.
It’s the lack of quickness but also the leaping ability and length that are issues here because all of that adds up to a late close out and non-intrusive contest. And, once again to be clear, most players are late to close outs from time-to-time – that’s part of the game. What I’m trying to illustrate is how these quality looks are coming more easily against Tillis than they should.
Coach Odom does run a zone, albeit sparingly, and I get why UC Irvine did to revolve around Leuchten in the middle, but I wouldn’t recommend this with Tillis against the quality of shooting that exists in today’s game. Better, in my opinion, to have him stick as closely as he can to a man and then support him on the back side with a shot blocker, which is pretty likely to be what we do at UVa. Again, we’ve seen that’s not always effective, but I do think it’s more effective than having Tillis play in space and chase.
Rebounding
Tillis averaged 7.8 rebounds per game, which is an okay number for a PF getting 30 mins per in a vacuum; but this is where competition comes into play some. Remember how much Elijah Saunders struggled on the defensive glass at times last year as an undersized PF? Well, he’s taller, bigger, stronger, and can jump higher than Tillis can.
I’d say that, fundamentally, he’s fine. He’ll often get decent positioning, box out, and hold his man off the glass. Like here in this clip below. That’s 6’10” Malachi Richards (#34) who is freed up with Leuchten supporting a contest on the ball handler. Tillis moves over, does a nice job of leaning back to push Richards further away from the ball, and lets the ball fall into his lap (almost without jumping).
But there are a lot of times where he just either gets outclassed in there (which we’ll see later on) or where his physical limitations just keep him from being able to make a play on the glass, like here:
Alright, let’s put it all together now…
The UAB Game
To set the stage, this is the game that many UVa fans are using to make the case that Tillis is anywhere from a solid defender to a plus defender (depending on who is making the argument). The rationale being that he was primarily guarded by and guarded the 6’9″ 240lb Yaxel Lendeborg (#3), who attended NBA draft workouts (but did not do well). This is technically true. Tillis was usually the primary defender on Lendeborg who finished with 13 points, 4.7 under his average on 5-13 shooting with 17 rebounds; but there’s a good deal of context needed to be added there. Additionally, UAB also had the 6’8″ 205lb Christian Coleman (#4) who we saw earlier in the offensive clips. Coleman was primarily guarded by Leuchten and went for 21 points (10 over his average) and 14 rebounds. We’ll see how this is relevant, because much of Coleman’s offensive impact came either directly at the expense of Tills or because Leuchten was helping Tillis with Lendeborg.
To tackle this, I’m just going to go through the game chronologically and comment on the clips I thought worth highlighting as exceptionally bad or that better contextualized the conversation.
In the first, Coleman gets the ball and pushes in transition. If you pause at 3 seconds, Tillis is out ahead, facing the play, with about three steps between him and Coleman. Coleman just… goes left, gets easily past Tillis who has to foul him to keep from giving up the easy bucket.
You need lateral movement there to shut down the driving angle – Coleman had a man on his hip so this should have been something Tillis could help slow down earlier, or at least force a pass over to Lendeborg (who was covered by a guard).
Next, another break out in transition. This time most of the UC Irvine defense is back. Leuchten shuts down the drive of Ja’borri McGhee (#2) baseline, but McGhee passes back to a diving Coleman for a really easy finish.
Tillis is back in defensive position with his eyes out on the floor. He sees Coleman – but doesn’t get over to stop him and really can’t make any decent effort to contest the shot. Leuchten, recovering from defending McGhee actually makes more of an effort to contest this than Tillis does, and this should be his responsibility! Way, way, too easy against a defense that made it back like that.
Watch this play, below, for a pretty good sense of this overall dynamic. Tillis is guarding Lendeborg at the start of the play. Coleman sets a ball screen on him, so Tillis switches onto Coleman and dives with him, leaving Leuchten, who had been dropping, to step out and context Lendeborg’s jumper. It’s a good and high contest and it forces the miss… but Tillis can’t keep Coleman off of the glass who holds him off and one-hands the rebound. As Coleman attempts to go back up with it, Lendeborg comes back down and blocks his shot, and then Tillis collects the loose ball/rebound.
Tillis was technically guarding Lendeborg to start this one, who missed the jumper, and he collected a defensive rebound. This was a great box score possession for him… but this play was all Lendeborg helping on the switch and contest and then coming back to help block the shot after Tillis couldn’t contain the glass on the switch.
Here he is defending in transition against a guard, the 5’11” Tyren Moore (#5). He’s just so worried about the blow by that he leaves way too much cushion there and practically invites Moore to take the three (and Moore shoots 39%).
This just felt like zero defensive confidence in the open floor. If you’ve got 7 inches on a player, you should be able to stay a little closer than that and think that you can bother a shot on a drive, even if he’s quicker than you are. You can’t gift the more valuable shot to a player who is going to be happier shooting from distance anyway.
I thought this next one was one of his better defensive possessions in this game, despite being called for the hand check. It’s why I say that he is generally better at defending the post than the perimeter because he can do a nice job of using his body and doesn’t have to cover as much ground.
I don’t think he should have been called for a foul here – and I actually pulled this one as a positive, but it does also illustrate the tension here as it’s just not going to come easily, he has the potential to get called for cheap ones and, if you watch the UC Irvine defense, all five players are packed into the lane on this drive trying to help. Evans (#14) is fully lurking off of Coleman to provide support, Che (#77) has one foot on the foul line and the other between the hash marks, Dixon (#24) is pinching down from the weak side on the block and Hohn (#2) has his back to his man in the corner, and is on the hashes with both eyes watching the play. Pause at 10 seconds and you can see how committed the team strategy was to collectively not let Lendeborg beat them.
Here’s a look at him not getting as much help on Lendeborg. Leuchten is there lurking, but it’s one of the few times he didn’t come over to help more proactively and stayed home on Coleman. Yaxel works his way into the lane and makes a nice left-handed hook.
I think Tillis does a decent job banging here and absorbing the body contact with the back down, but his only recourse on the hook is to do the two hands in the air contest and Lendeborg doesn’t really have to worry about the contest on the shot.
This next one is probably a good illustration of supporting him with a quality rim protector. Early on in the play, trying to navigate a ball screen he gets completely crossed-up and entirely left behind, but Leuchten does a nice job of cutting off the driving angle and staying long to force Lendeborg into his jump stop. They switch back and Tillis moves to defend Yaxel in the post again. This time he’s able to use that reach in (this one might be called a foul sometimes, but it can make up for the hand check called earlier… and you’ll take it) to knock the ball away and a teammate pounces.
So, this is why I say if you have an alert and quality defensive Center, as we will, you can sometimes mask some of this. Anyone watching the game would remember that Tillis stole the call from Lendeborg here, not that it took Leuchten to make a really nice defensive rotation to shut down Tillis getting burned earlier.
But this next one is a look at what happens when the rim protector (in this case, Evans) was pulled away from the rim and Tillis had to act as the last line of defense. Watch Coleman set a ball screen for Moore (#5) here and slips to the basket when Evans (#14 hedges). He catches the ball around the free throw line running at the rim and Tillis is right above the circle in defensive position. He literally backs away, parting the Red Seas, holding his hands up as if to distract Coleman for the easy finish.
I put some exclamation marks by that one in my notes, because he just doesn’t do anything. Doesn’t attempt to take a charge, doesn’t attempt to stop the drive, doesn’t attempt to block the shot… doesn’t even jump. Actually, in backing away from the play, he backs himself behind Lendeborg on the weak side so if the ball had somehow come off, he wouldn’t have even been in good rebounding position.
That one was wild.
Here is another miss logged to Lendeborg, but it’s really just him beating Tillis pretty cleanly to the hoop and Evans making a nice rotation to send the shot:
Watch Evans head/eyes on that play. As soon as Coleman passes to Lendeborg and moves away, Evans never takes his eyes off of Yaxel and drops to the circle, despite Coleman running off to the opposite elbow. Again, this was the UC Irvine game plan – help Tillis on Lendeborg, like, ignore the other things and help.
Here in this next clip, below, Tills just kind of leaves Lendeborg such that Che has to try to come over to contest. This could have been a mix up with Leuchten again like we saw earlier Tillis take the dive, but they certainly didn’t both intend to go with Coleman and it makes sense for Leuchten to stay home here.
Here, below, this basket is negated for interference, but it’s another transition bucket where the defense should be set and Tillis just kind of cedes ground and watches him shoot the layup without trying to do anything. There are no other responsibilities around, it’s just an “ole!” moment – and it’s a smaller player than the others.
Here, below, another great example of the Leuchten support. Tillis is defending Lendeborg on the perimeter. This time he makes some body contact on the drive, but still gets turned and put on Lendeborg’s hip as he strides into the lane. As he gets parallel to Tillis, he would have an angle at a layup, but Leuchten stays home and jumps to contest, turning the shot into a floater, which Tillis is then able to rebound from his more centralized position (he actually pulls back and doesn’t jump on the shot attempt again).
Again, another missed shot and another rebound but, again, this is set was mostly about Leuchten’s help and contest. It’s a harder fought rebound but you should be able to beat the player who shoots the ball to the board when you’re not the one contesting.
I get not wanting to foul, but this is just no effort to stop the break:
Then we get one like here, below, where he just gets walked under the glass by Lendeborg on the rebound.
And, finally, we’ll take a look at the last defensive play of OT. UAB calls an isolation for Lendeborg on Tillis. Yaxel pretty easily gets into the lane with momentum and dislodges Tillis from him, but Leuchten comes over to contest the shot. Tillis basically stands in the short corner and is an onlooker as Lendeborg collects the offensive rebound and attempts to put it up again, but Leuchten offers another strong contest and this time bats the ball over to where Tillis can grab it, drawing the foul (and he hit both clutch free throws).
Two more misses on Lendeborg’s stat line and another rebound for Tillis, again pretty much all Leuchten’s quality presence around the rim. Tillis was basically a non-presence on this play other than to clean up the board, but it still turned out well.
And I stress again – these are the clips that either stood out to me as being really bad (most of them) or, in some cases, highlighting where he was able to be most effective (the hand check foul, the steal from behind after getting lost).
So, I put all of that together not to bury him collectively to challenge the narrative around his defensive capability. Was this game an example of Tillis’s quality defense rising to the occasion and guarding a potential NBA-level talent? Quite the opposite, in my opinion, in fact – many of Lendeborg’s misses had nothing to do with Tillis (and he still got his 13), most plays he required the defense to invest resources to help him out and, still, there were many occasions where he literally just stepped out of the way.
It should be reiterated that Tillis went for 22 points in that game, which was the most in the contest, and held serve throughout on the offensive side of the ball – so his offensive contributions offset his defensive liability. But it was still a liability and, ideally, at this level, you’re getting the positives while limiting the number of instances where the team has to compensate for a specific weakness.
In Conclusion
The cost-benefit analysis of Devin Tillis is going to be how much can he help you on the offensive end compared to how much is he taxing you on the defensive end. Offensively, he’s a great fit for Odom’s system. He can bring the ball up the floor, he can bomb away from deep at a high level, he can exploit a mismatch inside and, occasionally, a fair match, and he will facilitate for the rest of his team in the half court and pushing the tempo with his transition passing. In a world where Odom wants his Center to set screens, roll to the hoop, and offensive rebound, and then wants his other four guys to be shooting and facilitation threats, Tillis fits that mold incredibly well.
He’s probably not going to be pounding the ball in the mid-post, backing his man down, quite as often against this level of defensive player; but that’s probably fine. He’ll still likely struggle as a finisher right around the rim – but I do think the totality of his game on that side of ball will yield some very positive things and some potentially explosive offense when paired with the rest of this team and Odom’s playstyle.
Defensively, it’s going to depend so much on the matchup. If you’re playing a mid-major or a small ball style of lineup, Tillis should be a great option. Against most high-level competition, though, which is the level at which you want your team competing, he might be able to string together some positive possessions but, overall, he’s going to need help which is going to handicap the broader defense.
As I said before, he should really benefit from either of our Centers on the defensive end. Both Johann Grünloh and Ugonna Onyenso are not only long and effective shot blockers, but they’re mobile, long, shot blockers. Much more mobile than Leuchten was and he did a fine job playing that support rim protection role most of the time.
Still, you’d rather have someone who can give you a similar offensive pop without sacrificing so much on the defensive end, and who is a stronger finisher around the rim. Assuming he is able to sign, which looks positive, I think Thijs De Ridder is going to be that player, which is kind of perfect. Rather than wringing my hands over Tillis as a starter as the level of competition starts to ratchet up, we should be able to bring him off the bench, insert him as a spark plug for the offense, play him more when the defensive matchup isn’t as demanding, and generally be able to test out the positives without having to rely on his defense. Overall, I’m very excited with this trajectory because having a player capable of playing at a NIT MVP level on the offensive end as your backup PF means that you have options and talent while simultaneously not needing or feeling forced to over-rely on his weaknesses.
I realize that the overall weight of this analysis might feel negative – but that’s to establish a slightly more clear-eyed view of the pros and cons of his game. I’m actually very positive on the addition as a whole as long as we’re not married to heavy playing time. I don’t think we are; and because of that talent and depth, I think Devin Tillis has the potential to be used in some very positively impactful ways this season.
Alright, that was the longest one yet so thanks for sticking with it, if you did. I imagine that will be the longest piece of the Transfer season because of the nature of the player. In my next piece, I’ll tackle PG Dallin Hall, from BYU. Until then, thanks for reading!
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