Lots of opinions and discussions about how valuable Kunkel is, and whether his playing style and production will be worthy of significant minutes this year or not.

Without having done any analysis, my GUT says that we need Kunkel as a "shot getter" on a team with seemingly few guys that can create their own shot whenever they want. What I'm describing is a guy that can get a jumper off when he already has the ball in his hands. Sounds like a common skill, but it's not. Most guys can catch-and shoot. Scruggs could drive, or post and fadeaway, but not create space for an off the dribble jumper. Johnson couldnt do it. Haven't seen Jones do it. Tandy hasn't shown it. Big guys generally never do this, and we dont know anything about the Freshmen. Cant say I know much about Boum, but he gets to the line ALOT, so I'll assume he has an attacking style.

So, will Kunkel fill that need, and how good would he be if that's what we count on him for.

A few Stats:

Kunkle took .35 shots per minute last year, and .361 per minute the year prior. His average at XU of .353 would put him slightly ahead of Semaj for #6 most shots per minute out of 75 recent XU Players. Ahead of him? Crawford, Kanter, Lenny, Trevon, and.......TANDY.

So, yeah. He shoots ALOT.

But what REALLY matters is Points, right? He averages .380 Points per minute at XU. For this stat he would rank 37th among the 75 former players......YIKES.

So he takes the 6th most amount of shots and scores the 37th most amount of points. So how do you improve on that?

He could take less shots, right? Stick to the higher percentage shots which would lead to more success and a higher %. Thats the magic trick right. Its not just less OVERALL shots, its less of the tough ones. And ideally, and increase in the shooting % of the easy, open shots.

Is he even capable? in his sophomore year at Belmont he put up numbers that when compared to the 75 XU players would have ranked him #2 in Shot attempts per minute and #3 in points per minute. This is Jordan Crawford territory. So yeah, he can do it....against Belmont level competition at least.

he could be a deadly offensive threat, but as of now I'm viewing him as a net negative on offense. Unless we need a microwave off the bench in a comeback situation, I dont see him getting that many minutes with that offensive efficiency. And his relative size and strength add nothing on defense.

I'm convinced we need a "shot getter" on offense, but I'm not sure if Kunkel is the guy.