Seems like whenever we have a local player on the team who does well, some people on the board do back flips to try and bring them down.
Just to add a few facts to this discussion about Buddy, here is how the team did last season in key measurables, based on production over 40 minutes:
Player | Minutes | RPG | SPG | PFPG | TOPG | BPG | PPG | APG |
Battle, Tyus | 1162 | 3.614458 | 1.273666 | 2.340792 | 1.962134 | 0.275387 | 18.93287 | 2.753873 |
Hughes, Elijah | 1108 | 5.306859 | 1.516245 | 2.599278 | 2.274368 | 0.974729 | 16.8231 | 1.805054 |
Brissett, Oshae | 1121 | 9.063336 | 1.17752 | 2.533452 | 2.462087 | 0.963426 | 15.09367 | 2.176628 |
Howard, Frank | 779 | 2.926829 | 2.207959 | 3.286264 | 3.029525 | 0.205392 | 13.24775 | 4.313222 |
Boeheim, Buddy | 546 | 3.809524 | 1.318681 | 2.783883 | 1.831502 | 0.21978 | 15.89744 | 2.417582 |
Chukwu, Paschal | 663 | 10.67873 | 1.447964 | 5.972851 | 1.870287 | 3.438914 | 8.687783 | 0.482655 |
Dolezaj, Marek | 737 | 6.51289 | 2.333786 | 5.101764 | 2.062415 | 0.868385 | 7.652646 | 2.930801 |
Carey, Jalen | 305 | 5.114754 | 2.098361 | 1.57377 | 5.377049 | 0.52459 | 11.40984 | 3.278689 |
Braswell, Robert | 55 | 7.272727 | 4.363636 | 1.454545 | 5.090909 | 0.727273 | 18.90909 | 3.636364 |
Sidibe, Bourama | 293 | 10.51195 | 2.047782 | 9.283276 | 1.228669 | 1.911263 | 7.508532 | 0.682594 |
Analysis:
The criticism about Buddy getting in foul trouble too much is completely unfounded. That is a good criticism for Sidibe, Chukwu and Dolezaj. Maybe Frank. But not Buddy.
Buddy was the best rebounding guard on the team. As he gets stronger and more experienced, he will just get better here. Which is good because we are going to need rebounding next year. The rebounding numbers for Elijah and Marek are really bad.
Buddy was better at getting steals than Tyus. Not that blocks mean a lot for guards, but he was better at getting them than Frank Howard.
In terms of turnovers, Buddy was excellent...under 2 per 40 minutes is really good.
In terms of points per 40 minutes, he was third behind Battle and Hughes.
In terms of assists per 40 minutes, he was just behind Tyus. But Tyus played a lot of PG, which gave him a big advantage here. Given how little Buddy had the ball in his hands, he did well in this area.
Buddy didn't play well before conference ball began. I suspect a lot of that had to do with Frank being hurt, and our in ability to run a coherent half court offense without him. That certainly contributed to the bad game Buddy had in the NCAA tournament. Buddy, like all shooting guards, needs a good point guard to get him the ball in places where he can make shots.
Once conference ball started, and Frank took over the point guard role, even against a higher level of competition, he did really well. I have already posted some stats showing him to be one of the top shooters in the ACC as a freshman.
Any program in the ACC, or the country for that matter, would love to have Buddy on their team.