Swing Skill Series: Can Jayden Stone supply Mizzou with instant offense?

Each summer, I carve out time to watch each of Missouri’s transfer additions play with their former squad. How do I choose the viewing menu? The pool is comprised of games they played against teams that finished in the top 100 of KenPom. Using descriptive stats, I identify five “median” games for that player. Those viewings are the basis for the Swing Skill Series, which fuses data and video to highlight a facet of a player’s game that might influence the scope of their impact once they put on black and gold. 

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Every portal season forces us to recall a tried-and-true aphorism when evaluating transfers: Somebody needs to score on a bad team.

Or is it an adage? Since it’s so old, could it be a proverb? Can it also be a cliché? What I do know is that it isn’t an idiom. Anyway, the kernel of wisdom remains true – no matter the figure of speech. 

A gaudy stat line is a result. We care about the process the player used to assemble it. Then, we must ask tough questions about which aspects will scale up and translate in a new setting. 

Take Sean East, for example. 

Two seasons ago, he averaged 17.6 points and 4.0 assists on a Missouri squad that cooked up a piping hot bagel in SEC action. Was the JUCO product piling up points simply because MU lacked alternatives? A look under the hood tells us no. East’s usage rate was normal for a headliner, and his offensive efficiency ranked in the 81^st percentile among Division I players. 

In a season gone awry, East posted 1.021 points per possession, placing him just behind Florida’s Walter Clayton Jr. and ahead of Mississippi State’s Josh Hubbard and South Carolina’s Meechie Johnson. Those three each garnered a spot on the All-SEC Second Team. Meanwhile, MU’s net rating slipped by 9.2 points per possession when East received a breather. 

So, even the most cursory of review drives home a straightforward conclusion: East’s process was sound – even if the Tigers languished in the SEC cellar. 

Which brings us, in a very roundabout way, to Detroit Mercy transfer Jayden Stone. 

The fifth-year combo guard averaged 20.8 points in a campaign that saw the Titans lose 26 in a row, finish 1-30, and land at No. 351 in KenPom. The Australian paced the Horizon League in scoring but needed a hefty usage rate to pull it off. Once that season wrapped up, UDM fired Mike Davis, and Stone hopped into the transfer portal, landing at West Virginia.

This time a year ago, the questions in Morgantown were probably the same ones we’re posing now: How will Stone scale his scoring punch to life in a power conference? Answering it means delving into the process he used while plying his trade in a low-major league. From there, we can gain a better understanding of which facets might translate into a likely reserve role for the Tigers.

So, let’s start simply by examining how Stone performed against decent competition. In this instance, it means isolating his outings against teams that finished in the top 150 of Pomeroy’s ratings.

On first blush, Stone was seemingly productive, but his shooting splits are the first hint of inefficiency that swiftly comes into focus. 

The overarching takeaway is that Stone needed a hefty dosage of touches just to reach a respectable scoring output. His net rating indicates that any points that Stone tallied were likely given away on the defensive end. At the same time, Stone’s passing metrics suggest that the attention he drew didn’t create opportunities for his teammates. 

Moreover, Stone’s offensive role experienced significant fluctuations from game to game – and even within individual games. Some nights, the Titans relied on him as a primary initiator. Others, he was shunted off the ball to a spacing role. That inconsistency made it difficult for Stone to find a role and rhythm that would allow him to assert himself routinely. 

At Toledo, he started the game as the Titans’ lead guard but struggled almost immediately, committing three turnovers in a short span as the Rockets amplified on-ball pressure. A road trip to Cincinnati saw Donovan Toatley run the show while Stone, in theory, functioned as a secondary creator. Yet the Bearcats’ no-middle defense hemmed the ball in to one side of the floor, limiting Stone’s touches. Against Oakland, Stone flashed some playmaking as a ball-mover against a zone, but his scoring output was minimal, including a six-minute stretch where he didn’t attempt a shot to start the second half. And in a February trip to Youngstown State, he struggled as a floor spacer, clanking six open catch-and-shoot looks from 3-point range.

Unsurprisingly, Stone proved to be a non-factor in all four of those games. He didn’t start to make a dent in the scoring column until the game was out of hand and garbage time had arrived. That bifurcation also shows up in his stat lines against decent foes. 

It also casts brutal efficiency benchmarks in harsh relief. For roughly 30 minutes per game, Stone averaged 0.710 PPP, and when his scoring touch improved, it came in tandem with a worse defensive performance, which produced a minus-58.4 net rating. 

When Stone got time on the ball, it was hard to miss his struggles to generate clean looks. Touches in pick-and-rolls frequently resulted in contested pull-ups from the mid-range or forced drives into traffic. Even if Stone can create modest separation, he lacks the vertical pop to play directly at the rim off the bounce. And in some games, particularly at UC, his dribble combinations failed to create enough separation for dribble jumpers, even after multiple resets. 

We’ll get to the film in a moment, but instances like a possession against Cincinnati’s John Newman III stand out. Stone drew him in a switch from a spread pick-and-roll midway through a possession. He turned the corner to find Newman beat him to the spot, cutting off the middle gap. Stone backed out and tried attacking left, only for Newman to head him off again. Now, the possession was deep in the shot clock, forcing Stone to use a rushed hesitation dribble to get into his shooting motion – a jumper that was guarded and came up short. 

Sure, Stone will show flashes of panache in PNRs, particularly when defenses deploy some softer coverages like drop or catch hedges. But what was all too common were instances where Stone couldn’t manipulate pace to keep a defender on his hip or in a trailing position. 

Timing also mattered. Stone’s ball-screen opportunities often came his way in secondary actions or late in the shot clock, which sped him up and influenced some questionable shot selection.

 Crucially, MU shouldn’t have to task Stone with an overwhelming amount of creative responsibility. Anthony Robinson II is a focal point, and Sebastian Mack’s physical drives are a natural complement. Meanwhile, T.O. Barrett will likely hope for expanded responsibilities as a sophomore, while freshman Aaron Rowe can fill in any remaining seams. 

However, this offseason’s roster churn depleted the Tigers’ supply of reliable 3-point shooting. While the staff hopes that Jacob Crews and Trent Pierce will replace some of that stock, there was a reason the Tigers considered a veteran like Rylan Griffin. If Stone’s angling for a more prominent role during his layover, knocking down jumpers might be the best pathway.

Unfortunately, it was also a major weakness against anyone with a pulse while he toiled away at UDM. 

In this clip packet, which came from normal time, Stone knocked just one of seven catch-and-shoots in spot-up situations. Five of those attempts were taken from the corners, a look that is one of the most valuable in the sport. Additionally, three of them came against zone looks, which some opponents felt comfortable using against a UDM squad that was fourth-worst nationally from behind the arc. 

Another fruitful source of catch-and-shoot threes are offensive rebounds, when a defense is scrambled and likely unable to close out on time. Stone had four of those opportunities in the games I watched. He only sank one of them. 

And in instances where Stone put the ball on the floor from a spot-up, he often opted for pull-ups – even against some loose zones. 

In the five median outings I watched, Stone’s spot-ups only yielded 0.524 PPP, and he only went 2 of 12 as a stationary shooter. Even a generous accounting, which includes garbage time, sees Stone finish 13 of 45 on catch-and-shoot looks against quality opponents. 

Stone showed some modest promise as a movement shooter, but the results are again inconsistent. His best moment came at the start of the second half at Toledo, where he sprinted off two screens in zipper action to can a three. But against Oakland, he clanked a pair of uncontested looks from quality in-bounds plays, and we’ve already mentioned his issues at YSU.

 He also showed promising feel as a cutter, particularly when his defender overplayed him or watched the ball a bit too long. Stone would also flash to the mid-post of a zone to hunt for a jumper. Converting those chances still proved frustratingly elusive for him. 

In the batch of games I watched, Stone’s shots in half-court settings during normal time were only worth 0.568 points. It’s hard to spin many positives out of that metric and the clips that show how it came about. Coach Dennis Gates and his staff have a knack for assessing a transfer’s shot diet and trimming out the excess, but that also assumes there are two or three touches they can use to recalibrate it. 

With Stonee, his best touches came sporadically in transition. While Gates’ defensive scheme prioritizes generating turnovers to tilt possession math, he can’t direct it to dial up more takeaways the moment Stone checks in.

Put simply, it’s hard to find a few skills that the staff can use as a foundation. It’s also why comparisons to Marques Warrick don’t quite stand up to scrutiny. Below, you can see a head-to-head comparison between Stone, Warrick and Dree Gholston in games against top-150 teams in the season before their transfer to Columbia.

With Gholston, the sample consists of only four games, which is not nearly enough to provide an adequate supply of possessions to analyze. Yet Warrick easily topped Stone’s scoring output and matched his assist tally. A review of essential analytic metrics shows that Warrick’s efficiency (0.965 PPP) tracked well ahead of Stone, and while he wasn’t a prodigious set-up man, the NKU guard’s assist-to-turnover rate was healthy.

Admittedly, Warrick’s clip from long distance (26.4 3FG%) left a bit to be desired. Fortunately, we could see that as an outlier, because Warrick’s CV showed a 36.5 percent clip on threes attempted off the catch during his first three seasons. NKU’s heavy roster churn and poor injury luck heaped more creative work on Warrick’s already overflowing plate, leading to an increase in threes taken off the dribble in ball screens or isolations.

Unsurprisingly, MU’s staff began its developmental plan by eliminating those inefficient shots and attempting to optimize Warrick’s prowess as a stationary shooter. Sure enough, the grad transfer hit 21 of 48 threes taken off the catch. 

As we noted in Stone’s portal profile, his nomadic career means we have just one full season to use as a yardstick. And as you just saw, the way he went about amassing his output isn’t all that sustainable. 

Now, I should note that we’ve seen a Horizon transfer overcome woeful metrics. Gholston’s performance in his final season at Milwaukee left plenty to be desired, and we certainly had doubts about whether he could backfill in the wake of Isiaih Mosley’s extended absences from the rotation.

Turns out that Gholston proved helpful. Analytically speaking, he was a replacement-level wing. Yet he had a knack for bullying his way into the mid-post against mismatches and certainly didn’t shy away from taking tough shots. There’s always the possibility Stone forces me to issue another mea culpa next spring.

Ultimately, Stone’s profile comes with an obvious note of caution. His production came mostly in low-leverage moments and inefficiency. As it stands, his best fit may be as a secondary playmaker who can occasionally drive against closeouts, make simple passing reads, and pick the right moments to cut and relocate. But without a clear tool to build around, it’s hard to envision how he factors into MU’s plans as a vet capable of packing some scoring punch off the bench.