Guillaume Grotzinger Scouting Report
Bonjour, les amis. Loyola made their first big splash of the offseason in signing French point guard Guillaume Grotzinger. Let’s get into it.
Grotzinger plays for Châlons-Reims in the LNB Élite 2 league, which is the second-division league in France. There’s three professional basketball leagues in France that you need to know about.
Élite (Pro A)
This is France’s top league. If a young player is playing a significant role in this league, they’re typically going to the NBA (like Zaccharie Risacher and Tidjane Salaun) or getting a lot of money to go to a high-major (like Ilias Kamardine on Ole Miss).
Élite 2 (Pro B)
France’s second division. Considered to be the best second division league in Europe. Comparing European leagues is subjective and quite fluid, particularly with promotion & relegation, but No Ceilings put together a good ranking that I’ll link to here.1 They have France’s Pro B as being equivalent to the Big Ten, which seems ehhh a bit generous, but it’s clearly a solid league.
Espoirs Élite
France’s U21 league. Most French players that are playing college basketball right now came from this league. Amaël L’Etang was playing in Espoirs when he committed to Dayton.
Grotzinger is a legit prospect. In his final season in Espoirs, Grotzinger was the MVP, averaging 21/7/4. And he won it over some serious guys like Joan Beringer (17th pick in 2025, much younger), L’Etang, Roman Domon, who was great for Murray St this year, and Narcisse Ngoy, who Auburn just signed.
After Espoirs, Grotzinger was loaned to Châlons-Reims (commonly referred to as Champagne Basket because they play in Châlons-en-Champagne) where he went through some growing pains in his first season. However, Grotzinger has taken a massive leap this year and become one of the best players in Pro B.
Grotzinger is a true lead guard. He’s more than capable as a scorer, but he still plays with that pass-first mentality. His court vision and passing ability is exceptional. Châlons-Reims lets Grotzinger run the show with pick-and-roll after pick-and-roll because he’s consistently making the right reads without turning it over, which his 2.2 AST:TO ratio is indicative of. Turnovers have been such a thorn in the side of Loyola teams for years now, and Grotzinger will help to mitigate that issue.
There’s even times when he gets a little too pass-first.
With the ball in his hands, Grotzinger is lightning quick. Blitzing/hard hedging is the most common pick and roll coverage in Pro B, and Grotzinger is routinely able to dribble around the trap and turn the corner.
There’s also plenty of times throughout a game where you’ll see Grotzinger create a semi-transition opportunity off of a made basket simply by how quickly he’s able to push the ball up the floor. And then there’s plays like this where he creates an advantage so suddenly and so effortlessly that puts the defense in rotation almost immediately.
As an advantage creator, Grotzinger is a tier above Justin Moore. Whether it’s out of ball screens or one-on-one situations, Grotzinger is able to get into the paint with more ease and regularity. He’s also a better finisher at the rim compared to recent Loyola guards. For both Moore and Tavarez, the biggest red flags coming in were their struggles to finish around the basket. Both players shot 42% on 2PA before coming to Loyola, whereas Grotzinger is at 52% on his 2PA this year.
As a shooter, Grotzinger is good, not great. He’s at 37% on 3P this season on decent volume (115 attempts), and he’s at 73% on FT, so I feel pretty good about where he’s at right now. He’s made a lot of progress shooting the ball efficiently from deep this year, which has contributed to his breakout, but if you look at his 3P shooting over the last three years combined, he’s at 32%. That’s where I get a little nervous. If the shooting regresses, like it did for so many Loyola players this year, then it becomes more difficult for him to create advantages driving to the rim.
But shooting is such a volatile ability. Over Tavarez’s first two years, he had as rock-solid of a 3P shooting profile as you could reasonably expect to find for an A10 transfer. He was at 39% from deep on over 300 attempts and 74% from the line, and then he went ice cold this year, so no level of shooting is guaranteed.
Regardless of the shooting, Grotzinger still remains one of the more efficient scorers Loyola has brought in recently given his 57 TS% over the last three seasons.
Grotzinger can operate out of the midrange too, but only when necessary. He does well at maintaining an analytically-friendly shot chart.
Defensively, Grotzinger is not an impact player. He’s not a liability, but his slight frame makes it difficult to have his presence felt on that end. Châlons-Reims was very reluctant to switch Grotzinger onto bigger players, who would often be quick to post him up and force the defense to double. You can also feel Grotzinger’s lack of length when opponents shoot over him, particularly on closeouts, but he is reliable at containing drives given his quickness. His 2.7 STL% is a positive indicator too.
From a defensive IQ standpoint, I feel pretty good about Grotzinger. Here he is identifying a Spain action on multiple occasions and switching up from the corner onto the back screener. (He did this on the first possession too. They didn’t have to bury a three before he realized what he needed to do.)
That may seem like a small detail, but Loyola had trouble guarding basically every action under the sun for most of the season, so this stuff is important. If Grotzinger is our worst defender this season, we’ll be fine.
I can’t fault you if you’re approaching this offseason with skepticism after the year we just witnessed, but I believe this signing is as close to a home run as we can get. From a statistical perspective, everything you want to see is there. For comparison, Penn State signed François Wibaut out of the Pro B a few days ago, and Grotzinger is undoubtedly the better player right now. Wibaut’s has a PER of 13.7, while Grotzinger’s PER is 23.1, fourth best in the league. Auburn just signed big man Narcisse Ngoy, who is the league leader in PER, for a lot of money, reportedly.2
The fact that Loyola signed a player of the same caliber as Ngoy is remarkable. This is very impressive work by the coaching staff and program. I fully expect Grotzinger to start at point from the jump next year and command the offense. Let’s see who else Loyola can get to fill in around him. And with that, I bid you adieu.
https://www.lequipe.fr/Basket/Actualites/Sous-contrat-avec-bourg-narcisse-ngoy-poitiers-file-en-ncaa-a-auburn/1664252
Great write up!