The college basketball season has about a month left before the big conference tournaments begin in the Big 12, ACC, Big Ten and Pac-12. Enough basketball has been played that talent observers and draft analysts have been able to get a good feel for the skill levels of various individual players. One outgrowth of an individual’s level of quality is how well he plays with a teammate, and more specifically, how well he plays with a teammate who has a different function and plays in an opposite area of the court.
Let’s consider the best backcourt-frontcourt combinations in college basketball, the outside and inside players who complement each other the best, in service to their teams.
Manu Lecomte and Johnathan Motley, Baylor
The beauty of this pair of players is how fully the two complement each other. Yes, Motley does occasionally score inside, and yes, Lecomte provides solid defense in his own right, but these players stand out in certain ways. Motley is the reliable rebounder-defender in the paint who anchors Baylor’s defense and takes responsibilities away from teammates so that they can focus on simple individual tasks. He makes the game so much simpler for the other four players on the court. Lecomte is the big shotmaker for Baylor. He usually rises up in crunch time and hits the pressure shot to stop an opponent’s rally or create game pressure against other teams.
Motley gets the big rebound, Lecomte hits the big shot. It’s a simplified analysis, but it does a lot to explain why Baylor is in the hunt for a No. 1 seed.
Joel Berry and Kennedy Meeks, North Carolina
The Tar Heels live and die with Joel Berry. If he’s great, the Tar Heels are great. One could therefore think this is just Berry’s team and that other players are peripheral. Well, Berry is the most important North Carolina player, but Meeks is almost as valuable. He is the most polished low-post player out of anyone on this roster. He is a little more consistent than Isaiah Hicks, and he has a much better understanding than teammate Tony Bradley of how to play in the post. Meeks was once an overweight player, but he has slimmed down, gotten in shape, learned better habits, and made himself more useful than he was two years ago.
Bronson Koenig and Ethan Happ, Wisconsin
The shooting and ball-handling of Koenig, combined with the reliable strength and productivity of Happ in the paint, give Wisconsin such wonderful diversity and the ability to win while playing different styles of basketball. Koenig has hit clutch perimeter shots for Wisconsin for years, while Happ has often been the best player on the floor in a Wisconsin game. Other Wisconsin players such as Nigel Hayes and Zak Showalter have struggled this season, but Koenig and Happ have picked them up.
After Thursday’s narrow 70-69 win over the Nebraska Cornhuskers, the Badgers have now pieced together a healthy eight-game winning streak going into Sunday’s college basketball matchup with the Northwestern Wildcats.
Lonzo Ball and T.J. Leaf, UCLA
The Bruins’ meteoric rise from no NCAA Tournament to a top-four NCAA Tournament seed this season (barring a dramatic shift) is a product of many players. Thomas Welsh and Aaron Holiday are just two examples. Yet, so much of the UCLA offense and its brilliance comes from Ball’s ability to initiate sets and find the open man. Ball does a ton of little things to make life easier for his teammates as scorers and shooters. Leaf is one of those players, but he is a more dangerous and complete scorer than many people fully appreciate.
UCLA is coming off a huge win on Thursday night as they took care of No. 5 Oregon. Proving the point furthermore was that Ball led the Bruins with 15 points while also contributing 11 rebounds and three three-pointers. As for Leaf, he had eight points, five rebounds, three assists and a steal. Aside from a showdown with No. 9 Arizona, the Bruins have a relatively easy schedule the rest of the way before the Pac-12 Tournament.
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