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  1. #1

    Freemantle: Freshman vs. Sophmore

    Thinking more about last year and happened to peek at Freemantle's stats.

    He's been good in general, and could become a "great." But the guy he was as a freshman was not the same guy he was as a Soph. And I'm not talking about just being better than he was as a Sophomore in the thing he did as a Freshman. I'm talking about about a Sophomore that just had a different game than his Freshman self.

    Sometime Freshmen dont play alot, and as a result their stats may not be a big enough sample size to conclude that it their performance really does represent their skills. But that wasn't the case with Zach. He played alot as a Frosh.

    Comparison, Freshman vs. Soph Season.

    658 vs. 661 minutes played. essentially identical, which makes this analysis quite a bit easier. he played more minutes, but less games. Should only impact a few select stats...

    Lets compare him on a "totals" basis. not per game. The minutes were identical, so the totals are pretty much directly comparable.

    Freshman totals always listed first:

    Pts: 241 / 339
    Rebs: 137 / 187
    ORebs 50 / 41
    DRebs: 87 / 146
    Asst: 18 / 30
    Stl: 17 / 15
    Blk: 22/ 18
    Tov: 28 / 42
    Fouls: 64 / 48

    2PA: 166 / 191
    3PA: 34 / 78
    FTA: 45 / 38

    Ok, I'm confused. He took 69 more shots as a soph, but only 25 more 2's. That means 44 more 3's in the same amount of minutes. As a Freshman, he used to take a three every 19 minutes on the court. Last year, every 8 minutes. he shot 32.1% from 3 last year, although he was at 35.3% as a fresh. But in any case his 3 pt shooting frequency and success rate did not help the team.

    So, what about the other byproducts of taking 3s? Well, hanging out on the perimeter might have been as reason why his offensive rebounding rate dropped by 20%. His defensive rebounding was great, due mainly to something I refer to as the "Tyrique aint here no more effect." But honestly, without Tyrique around, wouldn't it make a ton of sense to ask Zach to stay down low on offense?

    I suspect his drop in FTA was also related to his transition to becoming a perimeter player (in his own mind). He did take more 2's, but for whatever reason went to the line less? I assume at least some of his FTA were just common fouls when they were in the bonus. And probably a few when they were closing out a lead at the end of the game. But the FT rate is bad. And it needs to get fixed soon, and I need to see evidence of it in the first 5 games or we could be in for a long season and a coaching search come March. I'm going to come back to his FTs in a minute.

    Other stats that perplex me: Steals and Blocks are down from his Freshman to his Soph seasons? Down slightly albeit, but that's not what we'd normally see with a guy that has a year of experience under his belt. His turnovers were up considerably (50%), and his fouls were down by 25%. Assist were up by 66%. HUH?

    I've heard some ideas that he stayed outside a little more to avoid foul trouble. But he only averaged 2.3 fouls a game. That doesn't make sense. And he was a beast on the D-Boards, which you'd think could result in MORE fouls....but didnt.

    I understand he had a more central role in the offense, so the increase in assist and turnovers generally aligns to that. Our season isn't in a "make or break" situation based off of his assists and TOs.

    Lets go back to his FT Shooting: in his career (so far) he ranks #39 out of 59 players in Free Throw attempts per minute. He takes LESS FTs per minute than Myles Davis, Justin Martin, Stanley Burrell and Justin Doellman. I dont know what to say bout this other than he's been below average so far in terms of doing one of the basic skills of getting to the line.

    How about a few other Random or interesting Freemantle stats: Has taken the 4th most amount of shots per minute out of 59 former players. in front of him in the rankings? Bluiett, Kanter, and Crawford. Remember, Freemantle is a now a junior. His attempts per minute could climb from his rate he showed in his first 2 years.

    His offensive rebounding per minute is ranked 24 out of 55 players. He's just ahead of Carter and Keith Jackson in the ranking, and just behind Frease and West (West was apparently too busy scoring all the points and didnt have time to OReb). Free does need to improve here. Just isolating his Soph year, and his OReb per minute rate compares to the career rate of Doellman (great player, but not exactly a banger).

    Last stat for Free is his Points per minute which rank him 14 out of 59. Pretty good. And I'd expect his to climb up in this category as a Junior and Senior.

  2. #2
    How does the availability of Nunge/Miles affect Free's play?

  3. #3
    Supporting Member bleedXblue's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by hoopster68 View Post
    How does the availability of Nunge/Miles affect Free's play?
    Free is going to play A LOT

    Neither of those guys will eat into his minutes

  4. #4
    Junior Lloyd Braun's Avatar
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    Free is a stretch 4, so I imagine his 3PA will only go up with more big guys in the mix this year. He could be a banger to at times but that is not really utilizing his skill set and floor spacing ability. We should revisit these stats at the end of the year and see what it looks like… nice job MH

  5. #5
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    He's not a traditional stretch 4, he's more of a traditional PF. I think he shot a lot of 3s last year (at times) because the defense was willing to give him those, as we didn't have much of an inside threat (Carter? lol) to help take the heat off the guys on the perimeter. I do think things can be a little different for him this year with the roster makeup.

  6. #6
    Great stats! I'm not really all that surprised with any of the stats. The style of play for the entire team was different the two years, plus the front court personnel getting valuable minutes was completely different. With more guys up front, I wouldn't be surprised to see more of the stretch 4 offensive numbers along with an uptick in fouls, steals, and blocks that would go with the team allowing more aggressive D as a result of having less of a drop off in experience/skill should Free get into foul trouble.

  7. #7
    Junior Lloyd Braun's Avatar
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    I guess I don’t think of traditional power forwards shooting and making a lot of threes. Not to mention I think Travis wants him out on the perimeter and in PnR situations.

  8. #8
    Supporting Member MADXSTER's Avatar
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    Great stats/Great Info. Not sure if I agree with your analysis though.

    If Free made 3's at a 35% clip as a freshman, you would think that you would want him to shoot more as a sophomore and that's what he did. Now the results weren't what you wanted but that's in hindsight. Hopefully he can get that back up to 35% and help spread the floor.

    I suspect his rebounding numbers will go down being due to other bigs being available.

    The lack of fouls is concerning to me because he was so unaggressive on defense.
    Balls of Steele!!

  9. #9
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    Are we sure he's going to play the noncon games? I feel like his "week-to-week" injury is more serious than people are letting on, given that he's still in a boot on crutches and hasn't practiced at all.

  10. #10
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    Quote Originally Posted by markchal View Post
    Are we sure he's going to play the noncon games? I feel like his "week-to-week" injury is more serious than people are letting on, given that he's still in a boot on crutches and hasn't practiced at all.
    Free suppos3fly out 6-8 weeks.

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