Michigan has an open scholarship spot and a clear need at shooting guard, so this was news of some import yesterday:

George Mason grad-transfer Justin Kier has cut his final school list to Arkansas, Georgetown, Georgia, Iowa State, Michigan, Minnesota & NC State, he tells @RivalsPortal

One of the top remaining immediately eligible guards available

— Corey Evans (@coreyevans_10) April 22, 2020

Kier did not have Michigan or Iowa State in his top ten, so the situation is pretty fluid. Michigan is the only one of those teams that would have made the tournament last year and has by far the best recent track record, so if they've got the minutes they should have a good shot. FWIW, he's got some Michigan-themed I Am In School X's Uniform fan art on his Instagram page, though that may be due to the rabidity of the fanbase.

[After THE JUMP: scouting]

Kier missed all but nine games last year with a stress fracture and was only full go for his last couple before he shut it down and had surgery, so to get a glimpse at what Kier plays like you have to go back a year. Fortunately, Youtube has a copy of the George Mason-St Joe's game from 2019. Check out Phil Martelli! Remember that St Joe's had a guy literally named Charlie Brown! If that was my name there is a 100% chance I'd go by "Charles"!

This is definitely seeing Kier good: he had 18 points on 12 shot equivalents, five assists, no turnovers, and 14 rebounds. Two of his misses from two were a Kobe assist and a shoulda-been Kobe assist. The god of Evaluating People By Whatever Full Games Happen To Be On Youtube was kind indeed to Kier, who put up a 102 ORTG over the course of the season in question.

One man's bullet points on this game:

He got roasted by Fresh Kimble early. Kimble got two early buckets, one in isolation and one off a bad closeout. Mason switched that defensive matchup and Kier did fine the rest of the way. There was one St Joe's turnover towards the end of the first half on which he showed excellent awareness to switch onto option C and force an errant pass.

He's a plus shooter but his motion limits his upside behind the line. Kier's three point shooting by year: 40%, 17%, 37%, 46%. That's 36% on his career He's a career 77% free throw shooter. And he's vastly more active inside the line (661 twos plus 334 FTs) than outside (202 3PAs). That is a deeply unusual distribution for a basketball player in 2020.

Some of this comes from a shooting motion that takes a moment:

I would call that closeout-susceptible.

He's got some pick and roll capabilities. Pick and roll action from Kier in this game was frequent and this was the median result:

A couple minutes later he was able to use a hesitation move on a similar play to get a layup.

And towards the end of the game he converted this into a pull-up.

That latter is a source of optimism. Kier knocked down 49% of his midrange twos, which were plentiful, as a junior.

This game was unrepresentative of his season, though. Kier had a 20 TO rate. That's not horrible for a guy who took a ton of twos and created 80% of them himself; it isn't good. In this game Kier made almost no bad decisions and found open guys on PNR action with consistency.

He's not an alpha even at a lower lever. Kier not did force the issue. Again, this game may not have been entirely representative. But there were only a couple slightly questionable shots, and the second was the aforementioned pull-up jumper from a 49% shooter.

This makes him a very different player than Mike Smith, who spends entire games doing that because he has no other choice. 2019 George Mason was a normal basketball team with relatively even usage—the alpha topped out at 24.6—instead of a "you go do everything" one. The latter model is common with low-major up-transfers. Ryan Taylor led the country in Shot% at Evansville before landing at Northwestern; Jahaad Proctor had 28% usage at High Point before landing at Purdue; Smith was a 34% usage player at Columbia.

Kier is in the A10, a significantly higher level of basketball than the others, but it is a concern that Kier's an up-transfer with middling efficiency and 22% usage. Up-transfers tend to lose a lot of usage and take a higher percentage of their shots from three. They tend to maintain their efficiency by dropping out all their worst shots.

This would be balm for Kier's efficiency as long as he's able to find enough looks to get his three off.

The Synergy picture. Notes from Kier's profile:

• Like Smith he was a knockdown catch and shoot guy, 84rd percentile. He attacked closeouts well, too.
• Kier's midrange was very midrange: he took almost all of his two point jumpers from 16 feet and in and hit 1.1 PPP on them, 94th percentile.
• He was poor generating his own offense in isolation situations, 0.73 PPP.
• He was okay as a PNR ball handler. When you include passes he was 67th percentile.
• The weakest part of his game was transition, where he scored under a PPP.

Shooting translates, and both my eyes and his statistical profile indicate a guy with a high basketball IQ who makes the most out of situations where he's got an advantage. Isolation attempts are going to look a lot like Isaiah Livers isolation attempts. His PNR efficiency would probably take a dive towards unviable. He's a much better fit next to Josh Christopher than Eli Brooks, but that was going to be the case for any grad transfer.

Upshot

Kier's got a lot of bits of his profile that look like good things for an up-transfer to have. He's got size and was a tremendous defensive rebounder for George Mason; his shooting is solid to excellent; he's got some potential to create shots at the Big Ten level.