Does Wichita State’s Dexter Dennis have a case for AAC Defensive Player of the Year?
Judging who should be this season’s American Athletic Conference men’s basketball Defensive Player of the Year is a difficult task.
For starters, judging defense in general is a difficult task. There are no statistics for fighting over screens, denying passes and contesting shots. Almost everything basketball coaches care about on the defensive end is not tracked in a box score.
The easiest things to track — steals and blocks — only tell a fraction of the story. Yet it is seemingly a requirement for the AAC Defensive Player of the Year to excel in at least one of these categories. Of the last five winners of the award, all have averaged at least one block or steal per game.
And that is the reason why the AAC coaches might not select Wichita State junior wing Dexter Dennis for this season’s award. The film proves Dennis has played a superb season of defense, but that excellence doesn’t show up in the counting stats: he averages 0.7 steals and 0.7 blocks per game.
That’s why WSU coach Isaac Brown has been so vocal down the stretch of this season to push for Dennis’ candidacy.
“I think Dexter Dennis the Defensive Player of the Year in the conference,” Brown said. “He’s just one of those guys that wants to defend the other team’s best player and he understands scouting reports. He knows what guys’ weaknesses and strengths are and he does a good job of contesting without fouling and guarding without fouling. He’s a big-time defender.”
The likely favorite is Moussa Cisse, the 6-foot-10 shot-blocking machine at Memphis. The freshman leads the conference in blocks per game (1.9), ranks 20th in the nation in block percentage (11.0%) and is the eraser in the back that allows Memphis to play its run-and-jump defense that now ranks No. 2 nationally in KenPom’s adjusted efficiency.
It’s hard to argue that some player on Memphis isn’t deserving of the award. While Cisse’s blocks grab the attention, the work that Lester Quinones and Alex Lomax do hounding ball handlers might actually be more valuable and DeAndre Williams has also been excellent too. But the Memphis candidate will likely be Cisse because of the blocks and it’s hard to compare Dennis head-to-head against a player like that because they play different roles.
Cisse is an elite help defender. Not only is he blessed with foot speed, athleticism and length, his arsenal also includes impeccable timing that makes him a lethal shot-blocker. It looks like he glides when playing defense, giving the illusion that his long limbs are capable of reaching shots no matter where they are on the court. He pounces on unsuspecting players driving to the hoop, peeling off his man to go chase blocks that he almost always makes. While he’s sometimes vulnerable in the pick-and-roll and guarding the post, there’s no doubt Cisse is most valuable when he is cleaning up the mistakes of others.
Dennis, meanwhile, is an elite on-ball defender. His job is to play such good defense that an elite help defender like Cisse isn’t necessary. Instead of hanging back and swooping in to make plays on other players, Dennis is tasked every game with staying in front of the man in front of him — almost always the leading scorer. It’s a different kind of impact.
You can make a highlight reel of Cisse’s blocks. It’s less fun to watch Dennis fight through screens, not let a scorer get to their preferred destination and force them into a strongly contested jump shot that misses. Both are crucial to good defense.
“I think Dexter deserves a lot of attention for that award,” WSU senior Alterique Gilbert said. “He does a lot defensively that goes unnoticed for us. He’s an NBA defender, without a doubt.”
For as good as Cisse is at blocking shots, Dennis is equally as good at making life miserable for leading scorers. Among his best performances from this season:
Held Tulane’s Jaylen Forbes to a combined 14 points on 1-for-22 shooting in two games, the only two times he was held in single-digits in conference play. In fact, Forbes averaged 18.4 points in his other 14 AAC games.
Held Oklahoma State’s Cade Cunningham, the Big 12 Player of the Year, to 10 points on 4-of-11 shooting with four turnovers. It’s the second-fewest points Cunningham scored this season, as he entered the game averaging 20.2 points on 52% shooting.
- Held Missouri’s Xavier Pinson to three points on 1-of-13 shooting with three turnovers. Pinson averaged 16.3 points in Missouri’s nine other games to start the season.
- Held Tulsa’s Brandon Rachal (14.7 points) to five points on 2-of-15 shooting with three turnovers. It was the worst efficiency game of the season for Rachal, whose seven two-point misses were also a season-high.
- Held Central Florida’s Brandon Mahan (12.5 points) to seven points on 2-of-11 shooting. The six two-point misses by Mahan were a season-high for him.
“It goes to the coaches,” Dennis said of his success this season. “I pretty much just follow the scouting report and follow the plan that we have.”
While Brown and assistant coach Lou Gudino are known to put together a detailed scouting report, the WSU coaches said that Dennis deserves almost all of the credit for his stellar season.
“I give Dexter 95% of the credit because I’ve been coaching for a long time and I’ve put a lot of different guys on a lot of different players with a scouting report and it usually doesn’t end that way,” Brown said. “He’s just a big-time defender and he gives a lot of effort on both ends of the court. I hope he wins it because he really deserves it. He gives 110% effort on every defensive play.”
What makes Dennis an elite on-ball defender doesn’t always make for a great highlight.
Sometimes it’s fighting through a screen to deny the swing pass to the wing where his man likes to catch it. Sometimes it’s keeping his hand extended in the shooting pocket of the scorer to prevent a quick pull-up altogether. Sometimes it’s moving his feet to wall off a drive to the basket and dissuading a potential shot. Sometimes it’s executing WSU’s ball-screen coverage to swallow up the ball handler.
Those things don’t count like the blocks that Cisse makes, but to coaches, these stops on potential scoring plays are just as good. Where Cisse makes his case by making things happen by blocking shots, Dennis makes his case by ensuring things don’t happen — like drives to the basket, open threes and pull-up jumpers.
According to Synergy’s logs, Dennis’ defense grades out above-average at all three levels of the floor. With Dennis as the primary defender, opponents are shooting just 32.1% at the rim (league average is 54%); they are shooting 29.4% on mid-range jumpers (league average is 35%); and they are shooting 29.5% on above-the-break three-pointers (league average if 33%).
“Dexter does a tremendous job at understanding scouting reports,” Brown said. “He comes in before practice and after practice and does a great job at denying guys catches, so they don’t get their shots off and then he contests their shots at a high level without fouling. The older you get, the more you tend to look at those scouting reports and take notes and I think he understands guys’ strengths and weaknesses now.”
Is it enough for Dennis to become the first WSU player to win a conference Defensive Player of the Year award since Tekele Cotton won the honor two straight times in the Missouri Valley in 2014 and 2015?
It would be a surprise considering Dennis lacks the eye-catching stats mentioned at the top and that he also plays for the No. 112 defense in KenPom adjusted efficiency, although WSU upped that to fourth-best in conference play. Still, WSU not an elite defense like Memphis. But it’s also true that Cisse had tremendous on-ball defenders like Quinones and Lomax hounding ball handlers as well, while Dennis didn’t have the luxury of playing with an elite shot-blocker backing him up.
The voting results from the league’s coaches will be revealed on Wednesday. Asked what he thought about the race, Dennis said he doesn’t need the award for validation.
“I don’t like to toot my own horn,” Dennis said. “I just do whatever it takes to win. If that’s guarding the other team’s best player and making it as hard as I can for 40 minutes, then I’ll do it. It really doesn’t matter to me if I win or not. I care more that we’re regular-season conference champions, though.”
This story was originally published March 9, 2021 at 6:00 AM.
.jpg)