Player Stats for the First Five Games

I have stats for the first 5 games. I wanted to wait until after the Old Spice Classic on the theory that the neutral court and opponents not hand picked by the program might give a better idea of how the team is progressing. I thought the offering of opponents was very good. UCF had a very experienced backcourt that featured an excellent three point shooter in Mike O'Donnell and good ball handlers in Chris Cartwright and Dave Noel. George Mason also threw an experienced squad at the young 'Cats. With Will Thomas & Folarin Campbell in the front court combined with Jordan Carter and John Vaughan's play in the backcourt challenged the 'Cats in both areas on virtually every possession. NCSU's frontcourt reputation preceeded them, but the backcourt play of Courtney Fells and Farnold Degand was (unpleasantly) surprisingly strong. A very good 3 game test for the squad.

Player	Min%	Shot%	Scr%	eFG%	PPWS	FTRate	ARate	TORate
S Reynolds	89.0	19.0	23.7	47.5	1.06	54.1	17.3	17.4
D Cunningham	78.5	22.5	17.9	47.1	0.98	17.6	4.7	20.3
R Redding	69.5	16.9	16.5	66.7	1.37	40.7	12.7	14.5
Shane Clark	68.0	22.7	24.1	56.8	1.23	34.1	11.9	11.5
C Drummond	54.0	24.5	19.3	62.1	1.15	41.4	8.2	14.8
Corey Fisher	45.0	27.8	26.6	46.5	0.94	27.9	16.3	4.7
Malcolm Grant	37.5	17.6	23.6	78.1	1.57	75.0	9.8	13.6
Corey Stokes	30.5	9.6	8.5	29.4	0.59	NA	7.2	12.6
Antonio Pena	20.5	7.2	7.6	28.6	0.53	128.6	7.2	19.5

I have ordered the data by playing time (Scottie is first because he has played 89.0% of the available minutes) and excluded players who have logged less than 20.0% of the minutes at their positions. Links to explanations for each of the stats except Scoring Percentage (Scr%) can be found in the Possession-based Stats Explained Section in the left margin.

To those who have been concerned that the front court would not get their touches and that Scottie might assume too large a role in the offense the numbers to date suggest that is not happening. Shane has gotten regular-type numbers of shots, while Drummond and Cunningham are not far behind. Dante's 17.9% is on the margins of role-player/regular status. If he continues to hit his shot his role most likely will grow a bit more. As suggested by their eFG and PPWS numbers both Shane and Casiem are very efficient. Scottie's Shot% (19.0) was lower than I thought it would be. Given his large amount of playing time it appears he is getting a lot of shots, but in reality he is about "average" for a 5 man line-up. His PPWS is slightly ahead of last season's ending number (1.04). Many have remarked on Reggie Redding's turnaround on offense. The numbers (his eFG & PPWS) back up that perception. I found it interesting that he is still, despite the increased minutes, a "role player" according to his Shot% (16.9 -- like Dante he is near "regular" type touches/shooting, but a bit farther away than Dante). Note also that Shot% and Scr% are fairly evenly distributed among the first six.