Just messing around on this Wednesday afternoon before I try to drive through 60 mph winds to get home and I decided to take a look at some stats from the start of this season. I know, I know, it's early, but I found a couple interesting things.
- Last year, Wake Forest shot 32% from 3pt as a team and had one player over 33% from deep (Teague).
- This year, they are shooting 34.5% and have 3 players over 33% (Ari, Al-Farouq and CJ).
- In the William & Mary game, Wake shot 36 threes. In the other 6 games combined, they took just over double that (74).
- Everyone in the world was wondering how Wake would replace the loss of James Johnson and Jeff Teague. The two losses are two more than Wake had through the first 16 games last year, but statistically, the Deacs are not as far off as you'd think:
2009-10: Aminu+Harris+Stewart+Ish= 49.7 PTS, 20.1 REB, 9.3 AST, 8.9 TO
2008-09: Johnson+Teague+Aminu+Ish= 52.9 PTS, 22.7 REB, 10.4 AST, 10.4 TO
Thought that was a little interesting. Seven games does not a year make, especially when it comes to the contributions of freshmen, but it is of note that the youngsters are close to keeping pace thus far.
And if you look at freshman campaign comparisons:
2009-10
C.J. Harris: 25.7 MIN, 13.1 PTS, 1.7 REB, 1.6 AST, 1.6 TO
Ari Stewart: 15.6 MIN, 8.6 PTS, 3.3 REB, .3 AST, 1.4 TO
2007-08
Jeff Teague: 29.7 MIN, 13.9 PTS, 2.7 REB, 2.5 AST, 2.5 TO
James Johnson: 29.2 MIN, 14.6 PTS, 8.1 REB, 1.2 AST, 2.6 TO
It is not nearly as far off as I thought it would be. The main disparity is rebounds, but everything else is relatively close numbers-wise.
So, it really is a testament to just how well our freshmen have played so far this season. With the loss of two first-round NBAers, there was going to be a dropoff (and the disappointing loss to W&M and the tough loss on the road to Purdue show this), but it is nice to know that we have players who look like they are up to the challenge.