Offensive Dudes

[SWC75]

Earlier today Hubert Davis analyzed Syracuse and said that we had nice depth and balance but that "there isn't a Balance Building on the campus" and that we needed an "offensive dude who can create his own shot and create opportunties for others". It seems to me that's a pretty good desription of Dion Waiters.

I decided to, (somewhat arbitrarily), define an "offensive dude" as a guy averaging 20 points per 40 minutes of play. I wondered how many such players the teams ranked in the Top 25 have, (I didn't care to look through the rosters of all 342 D1 teams). I made a list of all the teams ranked in the writer's , coach's or the RPI top 25 and look through their stats for players who had played at least 100 minutes and see which of them had scored at least half as much as their minutes played. I then multiplied their point total by 40/minutes played to get their average points if they played a full game. There were 33 teams that ranked in one of the three top 25s. They had 31 "offensive dudes":

Douglas McDermott, Creighton 31.2
Harrison Barnes, North Carolina 25.9
Jared Sullinger, Ohio State 25.4
Darnell Dodson, Southern Mississippi 24.5
Kenny Boynton, Florida and Darious Johnson-Odom, Marquette 23.8
Jamaal Frankilin, San Diego State 23.5
Thomas Robinson, Kansas 23.4
Dion Waiters, Syracuse 23.2
Mike Scott, Virginia 22.8
Ricardo Ratliffe, Missouri and Isaiah Canaan, Murray State 22.5
Marcus Denmon, Missouri and Russ Smith, Louisville 22.3
Tyler Zeller, North Carolina 22.2
Jay Crowder, Marquette, 22.1
DeShaun Thomas, Ohio State and Herb Pope, Seton Hall 21.9
Chase Tarpley, San Diego State and Kevin Jones, West Virginia 21.4
Cody Zeller Indiana 21.3
John Henson, North Carolina 21.2
Chase Stanback and Carlos Lopez, UNLV 21.0
James Southerland, Syracuse 20.9
Khalif Wyatt, Temple 20.7
Jeremy Lamb, Connecticut 20.6
JaMychal Green, Alabama 20.5, Anthony James, Northern Iowa 20.5
Mike Rosario, Florida 20.4
Jason Clark, Georgetown 20.1

One team, North Carolina, had three "offensive dudes"- Harrison Barnes, Tyler Zeller and John Henson.

Syracuse, (Dion Waiters,and James Southerland), Ohio State, (Jared Sullinger and DeShaun Thomas), Missouri, (Marcus Denom and Ricardo Ratliffe), UNLV, (Chase Stanback and Carlos Lopez), Florida (Kenny Boynton and Mike Rosario), San Diego State (Chase Tarpley and Jamaal Franklin) and Marquette (Darious Johnson-Odom and Jay Crowder) have two "offensive dudes". (And we've beaten two of those teams.)

Indiana, (Cody Zeller), Kansas, (Thomas Robinson), Georgetown (Jason Clark), Murray State, (isaiah Canaan), Louisville, (Russ Smith), Virginia, (Mike Scott), Connecticut, (Jeremy Lamb), Creighton, (Doug McDermott), Seton Hall, (Herb Pope), Southern Mississippi, (Darnell Dodson), Aalalbama, JaMychal Green), West Virginia, (Kevin Jones), Temple, Kahliff Wyatt) and Northern Iowa, (Anthony James) had one 'offensive dude' each.

Kentucky, (yes, Kentucky), Baylor, Michigan State, Duke, Michigan, Kansas State, Mississippi State, Gonzaga, Harvard, Illinois and St. Mary's, did have any "offensive dudes". But they are top 25 teams nonetheless.

 

[OrangeMuskyFish]

Off-point, but this is why I think KJo won't be missed next year, and Fair might remain a bench player... Southerland has made great improvements, is MUCH more efficient, and if he keeps working the only thing that will keep him from producing is a lack of minutes.

 

[rosconey]

i would like to shake the hand of the man who turned on the mental switch's -js has grown as a player way more than even his biggest fans would have dreamed-same with melo and waiters-

3 kids who we could have mentioned down the road that wouldnt have brought smiles-i think they have grown together into a special unit that push's along the rest of the team-southerland looks like he enjoys defense as much as deon,that scares the hell out of me-

 

[memcorsu]

I think he was talking about this type of role players. Must be a fan of the show.I think they're very offensive.:noidea:

 

[arbitragegls]

...and if you talk offensive efficiency we have Waiters, KJ and Triche...

 

[omniorange]

I keep hearing we need a "go-to" guy, but in all honesty, we don't know if we truly have one or not simply because we haven't needed one yet.

Fortunately for Kentucky, they obviously have one in MKG or else they'd have 3 or 4 losses by now. Our balance has basically kept us out of close games or games where we have needed to come from behind to win in the closing couple of minutes.

Cheers,
Neil