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View Full Version : Freemantle: Freshman vs. Sophmore



MHettel
10-18-2021, 08:45 PM
Thinking more about last year and happened to peek at Freemantle's stats.

He's been good in general, and could become a "great." But the guy he was as a freshman was not the same guy he was as a Soph. And I'm not talking about just being better than he was as a Sophomore in the thing he did as a Freshman. I'm talking about about a Sophomore that just had a different game than his Freshman self.

Sometime Freshmen dont play alot, and as a result their stats may not be a big enough sample size to conclude that it their performance really does represent their skills. But that wasn't the case with Zach. He played alot as a Frosh.

Comparison, Freshman vs. Soph Season.

658 vs. 661 minutes played. essentially identical, which makes this analysis quite a bit easier. he played more minutes, but less games. Should only impact a few select stats...

Lets compare him on a "totals" basis. not per game. The minutes were identical, so the totals are pretty much directly comparable.

Freshman totals always listed first:

Pts: 241 / 339
Rebs: 137 / 187
ORebs 50 / 41
DRebs: 87 / 146
Asst: 18 / 30
Stl: 17 / 15
Blk: 22/ 18
Tov: 28 / 42
Fouls: 64 / 48

2PA: 166 / 191
3PA: 34 / 78
FTA: 45 / 38

Ok, I'm confused. He took 69 more shots as a soph, but only 25 more 2's. That means 44 more 3's in the same amount of minutes. As a Freshman, he used to take a three every 19 minutes on the court. Last year, every 8 minutes. he shot 32.1% from 3 last year, although he was at 35.3% as a fresh. But in any case his 3 pt shooting frequency and success rate did not help the team.

So, what about the other byproducts of taking 3s? Well, hanging out on the perimeter might have been as reason why his offensive rebounding rate dropped by 20%. His defensive rebounding was great, due mainly to something I refer to as the "Tyrique aint here no more effect." But honestly, without Tyrique around, wouldn't it make a ton of sense to ask Zach to stay down low on offense?

I suspect his drop in FTA was also related to his transition to becoming a perimeter player (in his own mind). He did take more 2's, but for whatever reason went to the line less? I assume at least some of his FTA were just common fouls when they were in the bonus. And probably a few when they were closing out a lead at the end of the game. But the FT rate is bad. And it needs to get fixed soon, and I need to see evidence of it in the first 5 games or we could be in for a long season and a coaching search come March. I'm going to come back to his FTs in a minute.

Other stats that perplex me: Steals and Blocks are down from his Freshman to his Soph seasons? Down slightly albeit, but that's not what we'd normally see with a guy that has a year of experience under his belt. His turnovers were up considerably (50%), and his fouls were down by 25%. Assist were up by 66%. HUH?

I've heard some ideas that he stayed outside a little more to avoid foul trouble. But he only averaged 2.3 fouls a game. That doesn't make sense. And he was a beast on the D-Boards, which you'd think could result in MORE fouls....but didnt.

I understand he had a more central role in the offense, so the increase in assist and turnovers generally aligns to that. Our season isn't in a "make or break" situation based off of his assists and TOs.

Lets go back to his FT Shooting: in his career (so far) he ranks #39 out of 59 players in Free Throw attempts per minute. He takes LESS FTs per minute than Myles Davis, Justin Martin, Stanley Burrell and Justin Doellman. I dont know what to say bout this other than he's been below average so far in terms of doing one of the basic skills of getting to the line.

How about a few other Random or interesting Freemantle stats: Has taken the 4th most amount of shots per minute out of 59 former players. in front of him in the rankings? Bluiett, Kanter, and Crawford. Remember, Freemantle is a now a junior. His attempts per minute could climb from his rate he showed in his first 2 years.

His offensive rebounding per minute is ranked 24 out of 55 players. He's just ahead of Carter and Keith Jackson in the ranking, and just behind Frease and West (West was apparently too busy scoring all the points and didnt have time to OReb). Free does need to improve here. Just isolating his Soph year, and his OReb per minute rate compares to the career rate of Doellman (great player, but not exactly a banger).

Last stat for Free is his Points per minute which rank him 14 out of 59. Pretty good. And I'd expect his to climb up in this category as a Junior and Senior.

hoopster68
10-19-2021, 07:09 AM
How does the availability of Nunge/Miles affect Free's play?

bleedXblue
10-19-2021, 07:36 AM
How does the availability of Nunge/Miles affect Free's play?

Free is going to play A LOT

Neither of those guys will eat into his minutes

Lloyd Braun
10-19-2021, 07:40 AM
Free is a stretch 4, so I imagine his 3PA will only go up with more big guys in the mix this year. He could be a banger to at times but that is not really utilizing his skill set and floor spacing ability. We should revisit these stats at the end of the year and see what it looks like… nice job MH

markchal
10-19-2021, 08:46 AM
He's not a traditional stretch 4, he's more of a traditional PF. I think he shot a lot of 3s last year (at times) because the defense was willing to give him those, as we didn't have much of an inside threat (Carter? lol) to help take the heat off the guys on the perimeter. I do think things can be a little different for him this year with the roster makeup.

Dblue
10-19-2021, 08:51 AM
Great stats! I'm not really all that surprised with any of the stats. The style of play for the entire team was different the two years, plus the front court personnel getting valuable minutes was completely different. With more guys up front, I wouldn't be surprised to see more of the stretch 4 offensive numbers along with an uptick in fouls, steals, and blocks that would go with the team allowing more aggressive D as a result of having less of a drop off in experience/skill should Free get into foul trouble.

Lloyd Braun
10-19-2021, 08:54 AM
I guess I don’t think of traditional power forwards shooting and making a lot of threes. Not to mention I think Travis wants him out on the perimeter and in PnR situations.

MADXSTER
10-21-2021, 11:48 AM
Great stats/Great Info. Not sure if I agree with your analysis though.

If Free made 3's at a 35% clip as a freshman, you would think that you would want him to shoot more as a sophomore and that's what he did. Now the results weren't what you wanted but that's in hindsight. Hopefully he can get that back up to 35% and help spread the floor.

I suspect his rebounding numbers will go down being due to other bigs being available.

The lack of fouls is concerning to me because he was so unaggressive on defense.

markchal
10-23-2021, 07:47 AM
Are we sure he's going to play the noncon games? I feel like his "week-to-week" injury is more serious than people are letting on, given that he's still in a boot on crutches and hasn't practiced at all.

Olsingledigit
10-23-2021, 09:08 AM
Are we sure he's going to play the noncon games? I feel like his "week-to-week" injury is more serious than people are letting on, given that he's still in a boot on crutches and hasn't practiced at all.

Free suppos3fly out 6-8 weeks.

xukeith
10-23-2021, 09:51 AM
Free suppos3fly out 6-8 weeks.

That foot injury has him sidelined for at least a month. X will probably rely on Hunter and Edwards for rebounding and post production.

Likely he will miss OSU game and Preseason NIT.

whopper
10-23-2021, 06:58 PM
from what I have heard (and seen on youtube) Stanley could provide a low /mid post presence on offense and hold own on boards..we shall see. Plenty of depth to be sore and hope he will be effective starting in the Big East schedule..I am from Conn (a Uconn grad) but will be in gym rooting for X Men on October 28 as visiting daughters for the week both employed in health care and one (and maybe the other soon?) married to Xavier grads.

Xuperman
10-24-2021, 08:35 AM
Are we sure he's going to play the noncon games? I feel like his "week-to-week" injury is more serious than people are letting on, given that he's still in a boot on crutches and hasn't practiced at all.

The gravity of this situation is just now sinking in for me. If he is out for anything approaching December, would we not then be home dogs vs OSU on the 18th? Are our chances of beating Penny Hardaway and his JR NBA squad also diminished? Same if we happen to draw Va Tech. The answer is an obvious yes.

Zach's injury could be the difference between winning and losing, especially if Jack Nunge has issues post rehab and/or Dieonte Miles doesn't emerge as expected.

On the bright side, after seeing Hunter and Stanley Friday night, we have the production/physicality/athleticism to replace an All Conference1st teamer. Not to mention Edwards looks like he could surprise. However the fact remains "this sucks". The injury looks serious and even if he gets out of the boot, there will be a significant amount of time to be game ready.....even more to knock off the rust from lack of practice.

markchal
10-24-2021, 09:28 AM
The gravity of this situation is just now sinking in for me. If he is out for anything approaching December, would we not then be home dogs vs OSU on the 18th? Are our chances of beating Penny Hardaway and his JR NBA squad also diminished? Same if we happen to draw Va Tech. The answer is an obvious yes.



I don't know how it snuck up on me too, I just thought it was something minor he'd be over by the time it mattered. Was there not much coverage at the time about how serious it was? Missing our second-best player for most of the non-con is a pretty huge development, especially when it affects our chance to pick up any signature wins in NC

xukeith
10-24-2021, 09:43 AM
I don't know how it snuck up on me too, I just thought it was something minor he'd be over by the time it mattered. Was there not much coverage at the time about how serious it was? Missing our second-best player for most of the non-con is a pretty huge development, especially when it affects our chance to pick up any signature wins in NC

I think the coaches wanted to keep this info very quiet

whopper
10-24-2021, 12:28 PM
[QUOTE=xukeith;709809]I think the coaches wanted to keep this info very quiet[/QUOTE

I think the rotation without Freemantle can make up the 16 p 8 Reb efficiently but will be missing to go to guy unless one develops. Free could draw a double team (which sometime resulted in turnovers at end of year) but maybe Hunter and Stanley can be a threat in a different way. I recall Nunge having some range and ability to finish and Miles will surprise I think. Not to mention Colby and even Nate have played the 3. It will be a juggling act but at least we are not held hostage to one player(Zach) fearing foul trouble which I thought was a problem last year on defense.

markchal
10-25-2021, 08:44 AM
Yeah, we have some depth options to at least get through some of the games, it just sucks for chemistry/development purposes to be without a preseason first-team All-BE player.

It's nice to have some depth, but I'd rather see our top 8 get to gel more and at least have a shot at a big non con W

xukeith
10-27-2021, 08:44 PM
We found out more about Freemantle's injury Friday October 22. He has not been playing or practicing for about 2-3 weeks. Now he is in a boot and walking on crutches. Google search "stress fracture" and most people with this injury have to stay off that foot for 4-8 weeks.

He started wearing the boot and walking on crutches ( really don't know) October 22. So in 4-8 weeks, he can come back and play as early as OSU game, November 19 (4 weeks) or as late as Marquette game December 18 (8 weeks).

We all want him back ASAP as he is our leading scorer and rebounder but a 100% Zach is better at anytime for team 100.
Maybe he is back sooner because he has been off that foot since earlier than November 19.


November 19 might be his 6th week of healing.

I can hope can't I? We can hope can't we?

UCGRAD4X
10-29-2021, 06:05 AM
I can hope can't I? We can hope can't we?

I hope so.

UCGRAD4X
10-29-2021, 06:09 AM
This might be one of those situations where the chance to play more bigs, of whom we have highest need and lowest surety, will benefit the team later in the season when it matters most.

I hope.