Utah State transfer portal player breakdown — Zach Keller | Sports

Utah State lost its starting center – the 6-foot-11 Aubin Gateretse – to graduation this offseason and needed to find some size to replace him. Former Utes forward Zach Keller, standing 6-foot-10, is a solid candidate to do the replacing. But a similarity in size is about all Keller shares with the man whose role he’ll try to fill as Keller will bring a much different skillset than the rim-running/rim-protecting Gateretse did. Jerrod Calhoun landed a stretch big with Keller who’s gone toe-to-toe with some of the best teams in the country across three seasons in the ACC and Big 12.

Keller’s experience in some of the best conferences in the country is something Calhoun was quick to point out in the press release announcing Keller’s signing. But more important to this breakdown will be what skills he brings to the table, something else Calhoun touched on.

“Zach’s skill set fits our style of play perfectly, as a player who can be impactful both inside and out,” Calhoun said. “We look forward to seeing Zach thrive in our system.”

So let’s go through how that skill set fits the Aggies style and what to look out for with Keller’s game. There some great stuff, and some things he’ll need to work on, but Keller should be a good addition to Utah State’s roster.

A note on source for stats in this piece. Basic averages (points, rebounds, etc.) come from Sports Reference, as do the advanced stats of Win Shares and Box Plus/Minus. Bayesian Performance Rating comes from EvanMiya.com as does any lineup data used. All stats referencing specific shot types (i.e. shots at rim or jump shots) along with play-specific shot attempts (such as post-ups or spot-up shooting) come from Synergy Sports.

Biographical Info

• Height: 6’10”
• Weight: 235 lbs
• Class: Senior (1 year of eligibility)
• Hometown: Highland Ranch, CO
• High School: ThunderRidge
• Previous Colleges: Wake Forest (2022-23 & 2023-24), Utah (2024-25)

Keller was a pretty promising recruit coming out of high school in Colorado. He was a McDonalds All-American and the top-ranked recruit in the state, easily projected as a future starter for a high-major school. Wake Forest landed the young forward and he saw sparing minutes in 17 appearances as a true freshman. In his second season with the Demon Deacons, Keller got a glimpse of being a full-time player. Early in the season, injuries and eligibility issues among his frontcourt teammates led to him starting eight games over the course of about a month. He didn’t play major minutes, but in 19.5 minutes per game he averaged 4.0 points and 3.9 rebounds. That run ended when teammate Elfton Reid was granted eligibility to play and Keller’s minutes tanked, going from nearly 20 a game down to just eight the rest of the season.

At Utah, Keller’s minutes didn’t really improve all that much, though a preseason injury may very well have contributed to his fall in the rotation. Keller only missed three games, but missed a chance to become a frontcourt staple with fellow transfer Ezra Ausar earning the other starting forward spot instead. The most minutes Keller played in a game all season was just 17, in a blowout loss to Texas Tech.

Statistics

Here’s a summary of King’s advanced catch-all metrics, with context of his rank within his team, Utah, and his conference (Big 12).

• Box Plus/Minus (BPM): -0.7 (11th on team / 130th in Big 12)
  • Offensive BPM: -1.4 (11th / 124th)
  • Defensive BPM: 0.7 (11th / 133rd)
• Win Shares (WS):  0.6 (10th / 127th)
  • Offensive WS: 0.3 (10th / 113th)
  • Defensive WS: 0.3 (11th / 135th)
  • WS per 40 Minutes: 0.085 (11th / 102nd)
• Bayesian Performance Rating (BPR): 0.31 (10th / 133rd) 
  • Offensive BPR: -0.50 (10th / 137th)
  • Defensive BPR: 0.81 (6th / 104th)

Strengths

• Smooth jump shot
• Size and athleticism to play both PF and C
• Good touch around the basket
• Defends well against physical bigs in the post

Weaknesses

• Poor rebounder
• Consistently struggles in pick-and-roll defense
• Inconsistent in perimeter defense against guards or bigs

Scouting Report

After a season where Calhoun lamented a lack of scoring punch from his frontcourt, the Aggies have landed another big man that can put the ball in the bucket, though in different ways than some of his peers in the USU locker room. Keller has the makings of being a very skilled big, one that has great touch around the rim, catches the ball very well (even in traffic), can step out and shoot the three and even put the ball on the floor and attack the closeout. Finding all of those skills in a 6-foot-10 college big can be a difficult task, but it’s one Calhoun seems to have pulled off.

Keller has showcased three types of scoring that he can be highly effective at. In no particular order, those three are 1) Scoring as the roll man in the pick-and-roll, 2) Getting to the dunker’s spot and finishing after getting drop-off passes and 3) Stepping outside the arc and hitting 3-pointers.

Starting with the first of those, it’s really easy to spot the skill Keller possesses, even at his size, when seeing how he moves and makes plays in the pick-and-roll. When either setting a hard screen or slipping the screen, he’s able to quickly turn and catch the ball. But he’s capable of doing more than being a lob threat. Plenty of times when Keller got the pass out of the pick-and-roll, he still had some work to do and was able to dance around defenders and finish strong a the rim and with a buttery-smooth touch.

His roll man duties flowed right alongside his work as a cutting big, and he found a decent amount of offense in finding an opening in the defense where he could receive an easy pass and either throw down a dunk or finish a layup around a too-late challenge.

Keller can pair this skilled scoring in the lane with the ability to hit shots from the outside. His jump shot is very solid with a good release and fluid motion.

A minor hesitation on this 3-point shooting is that his percentages are a tad questionable despite how good the shooting form looks. His career percentage on 3-pointers in college sits at just 28.8 percent (including high school it’s 29.3), though it’s been steadily moving up. As a freshman he hit just 20 percent in sparing minutes but then upped it to 29.2 percent as a sophomore — with an important note that in his eight starts in 2023-24, the only time he got decent playing time, he shot 35.3 — and then shot an even 40 percent as a junior at Utah last year. The trend, at least as an optimist will hope, is that Keller is not only improving but he clearly shoots better when he’s given some time to get in the flow of the game.

Something Keller has not showcased in his career is post scoring. Synergy tracking credits him with nine career post-up possessions. Total. Even in what will surely be an increased role at Utah State, Keller’s rate of post-up scoring attempts is not likely to see a drastic increase. He may get a look in the post here or there, especially if he gets switched onto a guard, but the post is not going to be a place where Keller gets a notable amount of his points or looks. It’s just not in his bag of tricks.

Turning to some of the weaknesses of his game, one of the biggest concerns for Keller is his rebounding. For starters, his rebounding percentage of 7.8 is not so much a red flag as it is a tornado siren. Last year there were only 12 players listed at 6-foot-10 or taller who had a rebounding percentage under 8.0. And the film very much backs this up. It’s hard (though not impossible) to find an instance where Keller wins a contested rebound or creates a rebounding opportunity for himself or his team. His instincts for when to jump and where to be for box-outs is lackluster at best and it really works against his impact on the court. In four games where I was specifically tracking his rebounding efforts, there were no less than 13 cases where Keller had a pretty reasonable (or better) shot at getting a rebound and failed to do so.

This fact about Keller’s game has to change when he comes to play in Logan. The Aggies already had a bit of an issue with size, physicality and rebounding last year and Keller will be the tallest and potentially the bulkiest player on the team. Garry Clark and Karson Templin are the only other veteran bigs on the roster and they can’t carry the rebounding weight all by themselves (though maybe incoming freshman David Iweze can pick up some of the slack as well). If Keller isn’t physical on the glass and fighting hard for rebounds, or at least boxing out at a high level to let wings and guards pick up the board, it’s going to be a long season for the Aggies.

Another aspect that features a lot of red flags is Keller’s defense. There’s a few particular areas, but most of them involve times where Keller has to venture out onto the perimeter. The footwork and athleticism he shows on offense translates somewhat well to his defense out near the 3-point arc, but things just don’t seem to come together enough for Keller to be an impactful player. Most concerning is how he handles pick-and-roll defense. Whether team defensive schemes called for him to hedge the guard or play drop coverage, Keller struggled regardless. He’s not a natural rim/paint protector, which made his drop coverage less-than-stellar. And while he should be athletic enough to hedge, so many times he didn’t pull it off, leading to an easy dump-off pass and an easy score.

To put it bluntly, if there’s one area that Keller has to improve in to be a good player at Utah State, it’s his pick-and-roll defense. Even in the context of his rebounding struggles. The biggest hope is that the matchup zone scheme clicks with Keller and its pick-and-roll coverage principles fit better with his skills and mindset (check in later in this article as we’ll dive into some clips of his pick-and-roll defense with Utah and Wake Forest vs what it’ll look like at USU).

One area of defense where there isn’t as much concern is when he goes one-on-one in the post. Keller did a bit more in terms of post defense when he was at Wake Forest, but there are a few cases of him bodying up guys while at Utah. I’ve put together around a dozen clips, both the good and not-so-good, which will give you an idea of his overall post defense.

It’s worth noting some of the guys Keller went toe-to-toe with and won on multiple occasions. You have All-American forward JT Toppin whom he stonewalled twice into less-than-ideal post shots. There’s also Lynn Kidd (with Virginia Tech in those clips) who ranked 16th in the nation in post-up efficiency (min 100 post-ups) in the year in which Keller faced him. These were no scrubs that Keller stood up to. Now, it wasn’t all sunshine and daisies as he got punked in a couple of those clips, but by and large, Keller made it tough on post scorers. The main points of improvement for him will be to work on not yielding as much real estate in the post and having better balance and footwork to defend against finesse moves, which is something he clearly struggled with a bit more than those going for raw power.

Fit with Utah State

Keller’s role with Utah State will, by necessity, be pretty big. With the final addition to the roster made late last week, the Aggies will be carrying just four players who can be classified as bigs (i.e. centers and more traditional power forwards). Those four being Keller himself, along with Garry Clark, Karson Templin and the incoming freshman David Iweze. That’s a pretty thin frontcourt numbers wise. Keller will have to perform or the Aggies will end up relying on a true freshman for significant production (which may not be a bad thing, it’s just a risky endeavor).

As promised, let’s call back to Keller’s pick-and-roll defense and look at how he can try and improve that within Utah State’s scheme. I mentioned his struggles in both of the most common ways in which teams choose to deal with high pick and roll. First, we have the hedge, where the big comes above the screen to keep the ball-handler from going anywhere. In an ideal world, this gives the trailing guard to get back to his man and backside help from the defense gives the hedging big time to recover to the man he left alone in the paint. But, as in this clip, Keller gets it wrong by not reacting quick enough and truly hedging the guard, making it easier for the pass to the big.

The second major type of coverage is drop coverage. Keller had his struggles in these cases, but a bit more successful. It requires a bit more balancing as the dropping big has to fend off a drive while also not straying too far from the rolling big. This next clip also featured a failure, but it wasn’t as much on Keller since the trailing defending guard could maybe have done a bit more to deny the pass back to the big. Keller deterred the shot from the guard and can’t be everywhere.

Utah State’s pick-and-roll coverage, which Keller will now have to learn, is a bit of an in-between of these two. The big will kind of hedge the ball-handler, but doesn’t jump all the way outside to directly impede and/or double-team the guard, but it also isn’t true drop coverage. Slappin’ Glass referred to it as a “lateral hedge.”

It’s hard to say without seeing him try it, but there’s a decent chance this is a system that could help shield Keller from his own struggles in pick-and-roll defense. Something that also really helps is just how much the zone defense is built to not leave the big in no-man’s land as can very often happen to man defensive schemes in the pick-and-roll. The trailing guard quickly gets back to his man to let the big return to his mark, with the backside defense shifting over to deter any lob pass to the roll man. Keller will need some coaching and some significant work in this area, but it’s his chance to turn over a new leaf in this area of his game.

Shifting toward something more fun than sugar-coating a player’s weakness, I hinted at this in the breakdown of Kolby King. Keller has the chance to become a significant threat in the pick-and-pop game, especially if he ends up playing center a decent amount or shares the court with Garry Clark a lot. Utah State has several players who can be threats going downhill, Mason Falslev, Kolby King, Drake Allen and MJ Collins, and using ball screens to create opportunities for those guys to get downhill is common. When a big-man screens, he usually rolls to the rim and we’ve seen how Keller can excel there. But his 3-point shooting can create even more chaos as defending bigs usually don’t handle 3-point shooting bigs very well in these actions. Just look at Air Force trying and failing to account for Isaac Johnson in a simple pick-and-pop.

Beyond the obvious impact of being able to hit 3-pointers as a pick-and-pop center, there’s a knock-on effect this can have with teams that desperately don’t want to have their center leave the paint. Looking back on that same Air Force game you see how much the Falcons didn’t want 7-footer Wesley Celichowski to leave the paint. They ended up switching a smaller player onto Johnson to guard him on the perimeter. This allowed Celichowski to stay in the paint to deter shots at the rim without having to follow Johnson to the perimeter.

But this only works if the center can stick to a non-shooter, which is why the caveat about Keller playing center or being on the court with Clark (also a decent 3-point shooter) was made earlier. Because if you have five shooters on the court, you can do what Utah State did a couple of plays after the above clip. To facilitate keeping Celichowski in the paint, Air Force was switching the man guarding Dexter Akanno — in this next clip it was coincidently the future Aggie wing Luke Kearney — to guard Johnson. So when that switch occurred, the Aggies reversed the ball over to run a pick and roll with Akanno as the screener. Celichowski had nowhere to run at that point and it was an open 3-pointer for Akanno.

When you are able to throw out five-out lineups, you can drag opposing rim-protecting centers kicking and screaming onto the perimeter which in turn makes more room for guys like Falslev, King, Allen, Collins etc. Keller is a prime candidate to be a serious pick-and-pop threat if he’s able to shoot at least in the 34-35 percent rage from three. And he’s shown that capability at times in his career.