Texas Basketball: 3 players who must step up in place of Jericho Sims

The true freshman campaign for the former four-star recruit and New Hampshire native power forward Kai Jones is very up and down so far. Jones got out to a hot start this season, but cooled down since Big 12 play began. That is similar to how the production of Coleman trended up to this point.

So far this season, Jones is averaging 2.8 points per game, 2.8 rebounds, and 0.4 assists, while shooting 47.1 percent from the field and 18.2 percent from beyond the arc. But Jones is averaging less than two points per game and shooting just 33.3 percent from the field during the Big 12 schedule. Texas needs more out of him against Big 12 competition.

Jones put on display thus far that he could fit more of a defensive stopper role than an offensive floor spacing big man. He’s registering a rather poor offensive box plus/minus rating of -1.6. But his defensive box plus/minus rating sits at 7.1. He’s also got a good defensive rating below 94 so far along with 0.4 more defensive than offensive win shares.

There’s a number of key statistical areas that are encouraging for what Jones could do on the defensive end of the floor given more playing time. He’s averaging 7.7 rebounds, 1.2 steals, and 2.7 blocks, all per 40 minutes. The scoring could take time to come along, but Jones could fill the loss in rebounds and blocks created by the Sims injury.