Mizzou Hoops Player Preview: Josh Gray

Oct 23, 2024 | Uncategorized

Written By

Gregory Fisher-USA TODAY Sports

After two seasons of being undersized in the interior and weak on the glass, Dennis Gates landed the services of Josh Gray who is a specialist in both areas.

Over the weeks leading up to the season, this series will dive deep into the players we see making a push for time in the rotation for the 2024-2025 Missouri basketball squad. The pieces read like a birds-eye scouting report. They skew more toward the offensive end of the court for two reasons. First, a player’s offensive metrics are more reliable than defensive data and less team-dependent. Second, it’s considerably easier to describe a player’s qualities with more well-known offensive statistics. As always, we encourage interaction from our readers. Please drop us a comment or find me on Twitter @DataMizzou.

The film credits are given to Matt Harris. Matt has provided all of the film used in this series, and plenty more video and analysis on every player that can be found on https://rockm.plus.

The Player

When portal season arrived in March, Missouri sought functional size to bolster its roster’s interior. Connor Vanover and Noah Carter were gone, and Jordan Butler and Mabor Majak quickly entered the portal.

Sure, the staff had landed commitments from two promising freshmen big men, Peyton Marshall and Trent Burns. But it was also acutely aware that the rugged Southeastern Conference is no place to break in rookies as your primary last line of defense.

Enter Josh Gray.

At first glance, Josh’s profile doesn’t really jump off the page, aside from the physical attributes listed on his team page, which have him standing at 7 feet and 255 pounds. Can you really fly under the radar at that size? No matter, the transfer from South Carolina still may best be described as a journeyman. In baseball parlance, Gray’s the left-handed specialist you trot out of the bullpen. He provides something very specific and essential to a team’s success. It’s what allows the fifth-year senior to play the game. It’s also a commodity that Mizzou badly needed.

Gray began playing for Will Wade at LSU. After a rather nondescript season, he smartly opted to transfer to a coach who wasn’t at the center of a federal investigation, landing at South Carolina to play for Frank Martin. As luck would have it, Martin was let go after Gray’s sophomore season and replaced by Lamont Paris. Gray would spend his next two seasons with Paris and eventually find himself in the NCAA tournament this past year as the Gamecocks wildly exceeded preseason prognostications.

All told, the Brooklyn, New York native has played in 60 SEC league contests over his four seasons in college. If my math is correct — and I think it is — the rest of Mizzou’s roster has played in 80 SEC games — combined. That volume of experience, coupled with a particular skill set, creates value for this addition. Oh, and he’s universally beloved among teammates and fans alike. The big man’s personality may be larger than his shadow as he’s affectionately called “Horse.”

Steve Roberts-USA TODAY Sports

The Numbers

Statistics provided by Barttorvik.com

Viewing Gray’s stat line is likely to leave you a little unimpressed. That’s understandable. Gray has averaged between 8 and 16 minutes per contest over the last two seasons. When he’s on the floor, he’s rarely, if ever, a primary option on offense, evidenced by his career 18% usage rate — firmly in the category of a “role player.”

Yet, when I’ve worked the numbers on this roster, that’s not bad.

MU imported and retained enough scoring punch. However, it lacked a veteran big body to clean the glass, match up on the block with the monster frequently seen on opposing SEC teams, and provide stability to the Tigers’ interior defense. Even in limited playing time, Gray checks all of those boxes.

Perhaps the most eye-catching aspect of the graph above is Gray’s work on both the offensive and defensive backboards. Gray has a penchant for rebounding anything and everything. However, there will likely be some regression in those numbers. The explanation shouldn’t raise alarms. Mizzou’s defensive scheme — even if adequately employed — will likely take Gray further away from his natural rebounding habitat.

A feature of Paris’ defense was allowing him to reside in locales close to the rim. Yet even with a slight downgrade, Gray still provides Mizzou with its best rebounder in the Dennis Gates era. While that may be a low bar, it’s a nod to improving on that end.

Gray’s offensive game is somewhat limited, but he can carve out a nice niche when his team is on the attack. A year ago, almost 22% of his shots came from the block in post-ups, and he posted a sterling 1.391 points on those touches — easily the best mark of his long career. (His career efficiency in those areas is a solid if unspectacular 0.870 PPP.) Gray’s opportunities on the block weren’t a focal point. Instead, you could describe him as an advantageous post-up threat, as many of his looks result from pre-positioning before the pass.

His screening and rolling, though, was more limited in frequency and efficiency. Those touches have only been worth 0.698 PPP for his career, which leaves quite a bit to be desired. But suppose Mizzou’s offense is performing how we believe it can. In that case, these touches won’t be necessary for him and the rest of the roster to get scoring opportunities.

The final area of Gray’s fairly well-established offensive game is when he’s moving away from the ball. That is when he’s camped in the “dunker spot” or diving down into the paint for a high-percentage touch. This has been the most frequent form of his offensive workload during his career, with 26% of his offense coming in this fashion. His career efficiency of 1.144 PPP is fine, though a bit underwhelming. Part of his can be attributed to playing several seasons on teams that could not space the floor well — either by lack of shooting ability or sheer design.

Plugged into Gates’ system, I’d expect Gray’s offensive game to expand slightly. Gates often has his bigs get touches on the perimeter and elbow to draw the opposing center away from the basket. How Gray will fare here—and how many opportunities he’ll get—is a total unknown, as it will be a fairly radical change from his prior campaigns.

Gray’s defensive mindset will also undergo a foundational shift. If you’re unaware, Paris comes from the Bo Ryan coaching tree at Wisconsin. Its disciples are firm proponents of sturdy defense: keeping the ball in front, closing gaps, and forcing contested shots instead of takeaways.

Mizzou’s defense has been, and likely will be, the polar opposite. It emphasizes quick hands, heavy on-ball pressure, and creating deflections. In Mizzou’s terms, it’s more Mike Anderson and less Cuonzo Martin on defense. Gray’s tape shows a solid team defender, but how smoothly adjusts in the other Columbia is a significant question moving forward.

In ball-screen coverages, he’s often been tasked with a conservative approach. He was typically asked to defend by keeping the ball in front of him in “drop coverage. “

When Carolina toyed with their defensive coverage in these situations, the results were a little more mixed.

But setting that aside, Gray’s experience and defensive abilities inside should bode well for the Tigers next year. If only in more limited instances when faced with a player who in years past would cave in Tiger defenders time after time on the block.

The Role

Gray should be able to carve out as much time as possible. He’s one of three true big men on the team, and if we’re applying a more strict definition of a traditional post, one of two. His challenger for minutes at that spot is freshman Peyton Marshall. While the staff is high on Peyton’s potential, the transition for young big men into a high-major conference is rarely smooth. As such, I believe Gray has a leg up going into the season.

The bigger challenge is not his competition at the five spot. Instead, it’s much simpler: How often does Mizzou “play small” and disregard the position altogether? We won’t know that answer until the season starts, but unlike past years, it won’t require stark compromises. Often, it was the default because infusing offensive skill meant playing a 5-10 point guard and a 6-foot-6 forward at the five. This season, the Tigers are bigger, longer and more physical.

Steve Roberts-USA TODAY Sports

My projections have Gray playing approximately 26% of the team’s minutes, which works out to a little more than 10 minutes a night. I do not think this will be a consistent dose. What’s more likely is that they’ll fluctuate based on matchups. Sometimes, matchups will inflate it to 15 minutes or 20 minutes. On other nights, it could be as little as five if Mizzou has an offensive advantage going small.

Considering the variables at play, his usage figure of 20.4% last year feels right. Should those projections hold, we’d expect Gray to average roughly 4 points per game. Having looked over similar big-man transfers between high-major schools, most players see a moderate increase in usage and minutes played. What they do see is a bump in efficiency. Maximizing touches that flow his way and offering up defensive solidity is Gray’s best-case (and most reasonable) scenario.

PPP: Points Per Possession
Min %: This is simply the percentage of minutes played by a given player.
Usage %: A measure of personal possessions used while player is on the court. This includes making a shot, missing a shot coupled with a defensive rebound and a turnover.
eFG%: Same as traditional FG% with the added bonus of 3-point shots given 50% more weight to account for additional point.
OR%: The percentage of possible offensive rebounds a player gets.
DR%: The percentage of possible defensive rebounds a player gets.
AST%: Assists divided by field goals made by player’s teammates while on the court.
TO%: The percentage of personal possessions a player uses on turnovers.
FTR%: A rate which measures a player’s ability to get to the free throw line.
FT%: Free Throw shooting percentage.
2PT%: 2-point field goal percentage.
3PT% 3-point field goal percentage.

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