Inside The Numbers

If you've been anywhere online over the past couple of weeks, you know that stat totals for some players have been out there and readily available through Scout and Rivals.  Both sites have done an amazing job providing quality, and more importantly, free, recaps for each game.  What I hadn't seen (at least without paying a subscription fee) is averages for players through all the games.  With that said, I spent a little bit of time compiling the numbers and figuring out averages for the Pitt players from the information out there (Nerd chants begin in 3...2...).

At any rate, what I quickly found out is that the numbers between the two sites differ.  Even in points.  For example, Rivals lists Gary McGhee with 25 points in his most recent game this past Wednesday, while Scout has him at 24.  So for the sake of argument, I've simply used Scout's numbers while filling in any missing holes with Rivals'.  Take these numbers with an unusually large grain of salt.

Here's what I came up with:

J.J. Richardson - 12.5 ppg / 7.3 rpg

Ashton Gibbs - 20.8 ppg

Dante Taylor - 15.5 ppg / 8.5 rpg

Travon Woodall - 15.3 ppg

Gilbert Brown - 23.8 ppg

Talib Zanna - 12.8 ppg / 9.8 rpg

Cameron Wright - 10.5 ppg

J.J. Moore - 14.0 ppg

Nasir Robinson - 14.8 ppg / 5.8 rpg

Gary McGhee - 19.8 ppg / 8.5 rpg

Lamar Patterson - 15.5

Brad Wanamaker - INCOMPLETE (Could not find stats from all games)

The first thing you notice is that everyone seemingly has been doing well.  Keep in mind that I don't have shooting percentages.  The other thing to remember is that the players were split up among four teams and in some cases, even some of our bench players were the best players on their respective teams.  Thus, they got more shots - far more than some might get in the regular season.

So with that said, let's look at some of the more intriguing stats:

1. Gary McGhee has been an absolute monster.  As I pointed out, though, in an earlier post about Dante Taylor, the frontcourt competition is considerably lesser than that the team will face in Big East play.  Like most, I don't see any way McGhee puts up these numbers in the regular season.  Still, his play has been encouraging.

2. Talib Zanna leads the team in rebounds with nearly ten per game.  To me, one of the underlying story lines will be to see who will step in and get quality minutes out of Zanna and Lamar Patterson.  Both were fairly good recruits and I think it's a lock that at least one of them will come in and contribute this year.

3. Along those same lines, will Nasir Robinson see fewer minutes in the regular season?  Someone's got to lose minutes in the frontcourt if Dante Taylor is to play more and if Zanna/Patterson are to contribute.  I wonder if it might be Nasir since his offense is not all that great.  If Zanna or Patterson can rebound as well, they may get the nod if they can score a little more.  Nasir may still start, but he might lose some minutes.

4. Gil leads the team in scoring.  True, this is due in large part due to a huge 37 point effort he had in the last game.  But even taking out that game and he still averaged about 19.0 points per game.  His shooting hasn't always been great (including a 6-24 effort), but it's encouraging to see his lowest point total so far has been 16.

5. Both rookies appear to be fitting right in.  J.J. Moore and Cameron Wright have stepped right in and been able to score some points.  Again, since we don't have numbers for turnovers, shooting percentage, rebounds, assists, etc. on all the games, you can't make a good determination on how well they've actually played.  But they've at least been able to score against D-1 players and both have had at least one great game in terms of scoring, reaching 20 points.

Lots of interesting stuff and still some more games to play.