Film Room: How Miles Kelly has heated up at the perfect time
In SEC play, Kelly is leading Auburn in net rating by a huge margin. And his two-way impact has been extra valuable with Johni Broome out.
(Zach Bland/Auburn Tigers)
AUBURN — Pop quiz: Who is Auburn basketball’s leader in plus/minus?
Many people’s first guess would be Johni Broome, considering he has been one of the two best players in all of college basketball this season — and his absence has been felt for a team that’s had to win two single-possession games on the road.
Some would opt for Chad Baker-Mazara, as his elite efficiency and all-around contributions in the box score have made him an incredibly valuable player in the all-in-one metrics like Player Efficiency Rating and Box Plus/Minus.
But the answer is actually Miles Kelly.
Kelly is at +271 this season, which puts him in the 99th percentile of all players nationally. (Spoiler alert: Auburn’s top six players are in the 99th percentile.) In SEC play alone, Kelly is at +67 through five games, which is 10 points clear of the second-best player on the team in that category, Dylan Cardwell.
In early December, it looked like Kelly was about to break out for good with his new team, as he went 4-5 from 3-point range in back-to-back games — Auburn’s lone loss at Duke, then a blowout home win over Richmond. But Kelly averaged less than seven points per game for the rest of the month, shooting 4-20 (25%) from deep.
Kelly didn’t open SEC play with a bang, only going 2-6 from the field and scoring a total of eight points in a win over Missouri. However, Kelly played a team-high 32 minutes in that game, and he pulled down five defensive rebounds while finishing with one of the best plus/minus marks on the team.
Since then, Kelly has been on fire for Auburn. He hit four 3-pointers in back-to-back road wins over Texas and South Carolina, then followed it up with three triples in a double-double against Mississippi State. Against Georgia last Saturday, he scored 13 points and made some of the biggest plays of the game for the Tigers.
Kelly has now scored 13 or more points in four straight games, which marks the first time he’s done that since the very end of his sophomore season at Georgia Tech, two years ago.
Against league opponents, Kelly’s effective field goal percentage is 62.5%, and his true shooting percentage is 65% — both ranking in the top 10 in the SEC, per KenPom.
But his impact goes beyond just putting the ball in the basket, particularly at a time when Auburn has missed Broome.
According to CBB Analytics, Kelly’s net rating is a ridiculous +50.7 in SEC play. Auburn’s offensive rating is 128.0 when Kelly is on the floor and just 89.6 when he’s not. Auburn’s defensive rating is also 12.3 points better with Kelly on the floor, and the Tigers’ rebounding rates are up more than 13% on both ends of the floor.
“Miles Kelly has always been a really good rebounding guard,” Bruce Pearl said recently. “Put up good rebounding numbers at Georgia Tech, and he's doing it again now. The area that Miles has improved the most on is his efficiency numbers. He's shooting a great percentage from 3. He's not turning the ball over, and he's playing great defense and rebounding the ball.
“So that whole NBA 3-and-D thing, he embodies it.”
In this edition of the Film Room, let’s dive into three areas in which Kelly has made a big impact for Auburn in these minutes without Broome — and how that could lead to an even more dangerous team when the All-American big man gets back on the floor.