The Quad

As all Nova alums and current students know, sophomore year can be described by two words: the quad.  Maybe it is the sweet smell of the bathrooms in Sheehan or Sullivan, or the short walk to the pit, or the short walk to the gym, whatever it is the year in the quad treats Nova guards well.  And in case you haven’t noticed Wayns is having a pretty damn good year.  And for the record I am aware that most of the team does not live in the quad but whatever.

So I began with a simple question:  Is Wayns more like Lowry or Foye?  He has that cute and cuddly baby face like Lowry, but if you were to remove his head he has the same body type that Foye has.  So that’s what I started with, however as I slowly began to comb through and collect the data, I started to get curious.  Next question:  Statistically who had the best sophomore year at Nova?  Because stats do not go back far enough and because frankly I do not care that much about pre-2000 Nova (Ok, for anyone over the age of 33 calm down of course I care) I decided to narrow my field down to Scottie, Foye, Fisher, Lowry & of course Wayns.  Who else would even make this list?  Snowden or Nardi I guess, but they are on a lower tier.  Wait, what about Malcolm Grant!?  Oh, that’s right he never had a sophomore year at Nova.  Moving on, again while compiling (which in case you are wondering this task includes me using all the data from kenpom.com and moving it over into a spreadsheet – it’s more fun than you might think) another idea ran through my head:  I wonder how each player progressed from year to year and in which year did they make the biggest jump?  The surprising thing is that what I found really didn’t surprise me too much, but here are the results.  One final note – for Foye kenpom only has data for his Senior and junior year so when I saw sophomore year it is really Foye’s junior year.  Cheating I know.

Here are the basics for each of their sophomore years

	Ht	Wt	Yr	Yr	G	%Min	ORtg	%Poss	%Shots
Wayns	6-1	185	So	2011	17	72.8	105.2	28.3	26
Lowry	6-1	175	So	2006	33	72.7	113.4	22.1	17.8
Foye	6-4	205	Jr	2005	32	79.9	110.1	26.1	29.1
Scottie	6-2	195	So	2008	35	81.4	105.6	25.1	24.3
Fisher	6-1	200	So	2009	38	60.7	106.4	23.7	22.2

So they are all pretty close to the same size and weight, same amount of playing time, similar ORtg’s.  They also all used a decent amount of possessions and took their fair share of shots.  Does anything really stand out? Any surprises?  Not really right.  Maybe the thing that stands out the most to me is how little playing time Fisher had relative to the others, but when he was on the floor he played as efficient as the rest of them did.  Lowry has a low shot% and poss%, but that makes since given the fact that he shared the court with Foye and Ray.  Same for Scottie who had Nardi and Dante along side him.  Nothing too remarkable here so let’s move on.

	eFG%	OR%	DR%	ARate	TORate	Blk%	Stl%
Wayns	43.6	2.2	9.6	38.1	20.5	0.2	2.5
Lowry	48.2	6.8	10.2	25.9	19.6	0.9	4.8
Foye	48.1	6.1	11.6	21.5	15.9	1.6	3.3
Scottie	51.1	1.7	9.6	20.8	21.5	0.1	2.6
Fisher	48	2.7	8.1	22.6	19.7	0.3	2.9

Now here we actually have some differences.  Look how low Wayns’ eFG% is, but look how high his assist rate is!  I think we can assume that his eFG% should increase hopefully this season and most definitely next year as well, but can we also assume his assist rate will drop off?  I am inclined to think so but maybe this is his real strength.  Scottie has the best eFG, but he is also the best 3point shooter of this group.  Take a look at the OR%.  Both Foye and Lowry are much better than the rest.  Foye played more down low so his rate is not too surprising, but Lowry is pretty decent as well.  Not a huge shock because he was always tough and fearless going to the hoop.  It makes sense he did well scrapping away.  Finally, look at Foye’s TOrate.  That is really good for a guard who used 26% of total possessions.  So far we are getting a decent picture but there is more.

	FTRate	FT%	%Pts.	2P%	%Pts.	%of Shts	3P%	%Pts.	%of Shts
Wayns	50.8	82.6%	32.5%	48.8%	52.1%	69.1%	21.4%	15.4%	30.9%
Lowry	61.4	78.6%	33.3%	46.8%	60.1%	92.8%	44.4%	6.6%	7.2%
Foye	26.4	75.2%	17.1%	46.5%	51.5%	64.3%	34.0%	31.4%	35.7%
Scottie	47.7	77.9%	26.7%	44.3%	30.6%	48.2%	38.3%	42.7%	51.8%
Fisher	54.7	77.8%	30.7%	48.0%	47.3%	68.2%	31.9%	22.0%	31.8%

Now we can clearly see a difference in style.  For Foye, his FTrate is very very very low.  I actually thought it was a mistake the first time I saw it, but it is accurate.  Another number that pops out is Lowry took 93% of his shots from inside the arc.  So what if I told you that a 6-1 guard was drafted in the first round after his sophomore year and he only made 13 3 pointers in his entire collegiate career.  Oh and this is not because they just introduced the 3 point line.  Ok, last 2.  Scottie took over 51% of his shots from 3 – good ol’ Scottie, and Wayns is only shooting 21% from deep while 30% of his shot attempts come from downtown.  Come on buddy, who do you think you are Reggie Redding?

So who had the best sophomore season?  I think you have to say Lowry with Foye second.  Lowry had the best ORtg with a solid eFG.  He had the best FTRate and most importantly he played within himself.  He did not shoot 3’s, he had the 2^nd best ARate and he had a respectable TOrate.  For Foye, outside of his FTrate he had everything else going on.  I still can’t get over the FTrate.  After that who do you put up there?  Scottie I guess then Fisher and then Wayns, but did you notice anything missing from any of my analysis?  Fisher is totally middle of the road for this group.  He got to the line ok, shot a decent percentage from 2 and 3, and seemed to take a good variety of shots (not too heavy on 2’s or 3’s)  His ORtg was right there with everyone else’s, but the only thing is his playing time is much less than the other guys.  From an efficiency perspective he performed better than Scottie did his sophomore year.  Scottie has many more negatives like taking way too many 3’s, a low FTrate, and being just as likely to turn it over as he was to getting an assist.

But is Wayns the worst?  So the assist rate is spectacular but likely to decline as the season goes.  The eFG% is bad but that is only because he is shooting terribly and too much from 3.  The TOrate is a little high as well, but we are asking a lot from him (although each of these guys including Fisher we asked to handle the ball a lot).  It’s hard to tell I think.  If we are just judging on sophomore years then he is near the bottom.  My final ranking:  Lowry, Foye, Fisher, Scottie, Wayns.

Alright so what about the future of Wayns and in what season did everyone make the biggest step forward.  Here is the thing about Wayns.  He played the fewest minutes of any of these guys as a freshman.  I do not know Foye’s but I am sure his was higher.

	%Min
Wayns	37.2
Lowry	43.3
Foye	-
Scottie	74.1
Fisher	53.1

He did not have enough time as a freshman to really get used to the game at this level, and sitting behind Fisher and Scottie meant that he was most likely not running the point like he is this year.  This is pretty interesting though:  Here is the % of shot attempts from 2 & from 3 for Wayns in his first 2 seasons.

	%of Shts 2	%of Shts 3
Freshman	69.1%	30.90%
Sophomore	69.10%	30.90%

Identical.  So, he understands his game really isn’t from behind the arc, but he could improve or take fewer shots from there.  Here is the deal.  Foye improved between his junior and senior years but not drastically, while Scottie took his biggest step forward in that time.  Fisher improved most between his sophomore and junior years and Lowry obviously between his freshman and sophomore years.

	ORtg	eFG%	FTRate	ARate	TORate
Foye
Junior	110.1	48.1	26.4	21.5	15.9
Senior	113.6	49.2	31.3	21.3	12.6
Scottie
Junior	107.8	48.9	48.8	20.4	19.3
Senior	117.6	54.4	51.5	21.8	18
Lowry
Freshman	97.8	43.8	48.7	17.3	20.8
Sophomore	113.4	48.2	61.4	25.9	19.6
Fisher
Sophomore	106.4	48	54.7	22.6	19.7
Junior	116.2	51	58	27.5	17.3

For Foye, his biggest jump was probably between his sophomore and junior years when the whole team took of during that same stretch.  Scottie finally got it his senior year.  Fisher if you remember did not play very much as a freshman, so he like Wayns used his sophomore year to get his feet under him.  Lowry needs no explanation of course.  Fisher for the record is playing less efficient in almost every category this year (except ARate and TOrate), but that most likely coincides with the loss of Scottie.

In conclusion, I believe we will see Wayns make a good deal of progress next year.  But his senior year will be when he takes it to a very high level.  Next year without Fisher he will be almost solely responsible for running the show, and so he will have some bumps along the road.  His shooting should improve, and as with every guard his TOrate will decline.  It is unclear if his ARate will stay as high as it currently is, but his overall efficiency will climb as well.  Even though he ranks 4^th in terms of sophomore years (efficiency wise) I think he has a higher ceiling.  Maybe Fisher was stunted with Scottie being here and we are only left to guess about what Lowry would have done as a junior or senior, but Wayns will have the opportunity to really run the show as a senior.