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A four-star Class of 2025 cornerback who visited Tennessee twice last year says the Vols are one of the teams standing out most to him

Onis Konanbanny has been high on Tennessee since getting his first SEC scholarship offer more than 10 months ago from the Vols. They joined the race for him during his first trip to Knoxville in March, and he has continued to hear plenty from them since then.

Tennessee is still one of the schools recruiting him hardest. The four-star Class of 2025 cornerback from Heathwood Hall Episcopal School in Columbia, S.C., said the Vols and North Carolina have been the two teams recruiting him hardest in recent months, and he released a list of his top 10 college choices earlier this month that included Tennessee.

Inside the Numbers: Elliot Cadeau’s Close Creation

One of a point guard’s most important responsibilities is to create close opportunities for himself and his teammates. While it is not the sole measure by which to judge the position, the best lead guards tend to rank highly in chances generated at the rim. So how has Elliot Cadeau fared in this metric? Does the eye test suggesting a recent uptick in his aggressiveness hold up to the scrutiny of a quantitative review? Let’s go “Inside the Numbers” to find out.

We’ll start by defining a few metrics used in this piece.

Close FGA/40: the number of field goal attempts per 40 minutes that a player takes at the rim (basically layups and dunks)
Close FG%: the shooting percentage on those close attempts
PCA/40: the number of potential close assists per 40 minutes that a player generates for his teammates; this includes passes that lead directly to shooting fouls at the rim
PCA Score%: the percentage of a player’s potential close assists that result in made baskets or drawn fouls
PCA:PTO: a player’s ratio of potential close assists to passing turnovers; a good proxy for how well he is balancing the risk-reward tradeoff associated with creating high-value opportunities
CCC/40: a player’s combined close creation per 40 minutes; this simply sums Close FGA/40 and PCA/40 to provide a more complete view of how many rim chances a player is generating
CCC Score%: the percentage of a player’s combined close creations that result in a made basket or a dr

Good luck deciphering the Big 12’s Player of the Year race. Maybe it’s simple: If Houston wins the league, it’s Jamal Shead. The tough-as-nails point guard is one of the top two-way guards in the sport. Shead is averaging 11.2 points, 6.2 assists, 3.8 rebounds and 2.2 steals. Shead has tapped the scoring button more often like on Wednesday when he eviscerated Texas Tech for 29 points, 10 assists and four rebounds and looked like the best guard in the country. Shead’s impact is supposed to stretch further than the box score can imply, but his numbers are pretty darn good this year for a Houston club that might be the best in the country.

If you love Shead, there’s a fantastic shot that Iowa State’s point guard Tamin Lipsey is your cup of tea, too. The sophomore guard does something new and brilliant every other night. Lipsey casually uncorked a nasty chase-down block in Iowa State’s loss to BYU on Tuesday. He’s the head of the snake of Iowa State’s nasty defense, and he’s a legit triple-double threat this year. Lipsey is shooting a career-best 38% from 3-point range and is stuffing the stat sheet with 14.5 points, 5.5 rebounds, 5.6 assists and a Big 12-best 3.4 steals per game.

And then there’s Kansas, the reigning Big 12 battleship.

If KU finds a way to win the league (again), how do you separate Kevin McCullar and Hunter Dickinson? The duo is carrying a heavy load for Bill Self’s club. McCullar and Dickinson are averaging 39.1 points, 18.2 rebounds, 6.5 assists, 2.7 steals and 1.9 blocks combined. KU has an outstanding +21.6 net rating with Dickinson on the floor, but that drops off the deep end when he sits (down to just +2.4), per hoop-explorer. McCullar’s on-off splits are even more jarring:

Kansas’ net rating with McCullar on the floor (963 possessions): +20.6

Kansas’ net rating with McCullar on the bench (144 possessions): -2.8

Currently, Shead, McCullar, Lipsey and Dickinson are all legit All-American candidates. Only one can win Big 12 Player of the Year.

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