Do freshmen-filled teams get better in-season?

[wh]

I have long assumed that as the season progresses freshman-filled teams like ours have a growth and development advantage over more experienced teams.  The premise here is that they do not:

http://basketball.realgm.com/article/231185/Do-Freshmen-Filled-Teams-Get-Better-In-Season

This may come as a surprise, but I don't think it should. After all, things are still going to get harder for many freshmen. They are going to play true road games for the first time. If they are lucky, they will face the bright lights of the NCAA tournament, where even super freshmen like Marcus Smart failed last year. And most importantly, the scouting reports are only going to get tougher. All those freshmen that are busting onto the scene right now, are about to find out what life is like when teams take away their favorite move.

It will be interesting to see how things play out for us.

[StlVUFan]

This may come as a surprise, but I don't think it should. After all, things are still going to get harder for many freshmen. They are going to play true road games for the first time.

It will be interesting to see how things play out for us.

This is where I deduce that the article writer is not talking about a team like Valpo since our freshmen have played 5 or 6 true road games already and we're not even into conference play.

I'm not sure what he's talking about has much to say about our team.

[LaPorteAveApostle]

I would agree with the premise in general.  I would think the biggest improvements happen between years 1 & 2, not during year 1.

[vu72]

Hard to say as it really depends on each individual and how they react to the major changes between High School and D1.  Kentucky would be a prime example.  For at least the last three years they have been loaded with McDonald's All Americans and top 10 to top 25 talent.  Two years ago that group of mostly freshman won the national title while last year's team didn't even make the tournament.

In our case Bill and Bob Jenkins come to mind.  As freshman they couldn't do anything and finally grew to be a couple of the best we've had.  Alec Peter et al are different, perhaps more talented or perhaps more accustomed to playing high level competition as a result of the ever longer and more intense AAU circuits.

[SanityLost17]

Think about Loyola(IL) last season.  They finished with a record of 15-16, but they lost 7 games by 3 points or less!  They had a team with lots of freshman and sophmores.  One of the youngest teams in the country if I remember one of the announcers correctly.  They were talented enough to be in a lot of games, but could not find a way to win most of them.  I am sure that they did improve as the season went on, but their team record did not reflect that.   

I hope we don't find ourselves in a similar circumstance.     

[ARCInsider]

We are not a "freshman-filled team."  Peters gets extremely big minutes...Yeo and Lexus are role players.  Keith Carter is not a freshman, although he lacks some experience.  Gueye, Capo, Dority, Coleman, et al are top of the rotation players and are older guys.

[StlVUFan]

We are not a "freshman-filled team."  Peters gets extremely big minutes...Yeo and Lexus are role players.  Keith Carter is not a freshman, although he lacks some experience.  Gueye, Capo, Dority, Coleman, et al are top of the rotation players and are older guys.

If that article is not about us because we aren't freshmen enough (so to speak), then I misinterpreted it.

[valporun]

The flaws of this article are that the writer only focused on the major conference teams that never play a true road game during non-conference season, or if they do (Ohio St.) it's because of some ESPN setup "tournament" like the B1G 10/ACC Challenge. I agree with ARCInsider, we aren't a true "freshman-filled team", we just happen to have a handful of freshmen who play a bulk of our minutes, but we don't rely on a majority of them to start the game and be the sources of our offense, like Kentucky of 2012 was. Also, the writer focused a lot on the fact that a majority of what "freshmen-filled" teams had were minutes and offensive outcomes in games that were setup for the visiting team to get a pay day. These might be the games where Ohio St. is playing a SWAC or MEAC team, or even a non-D1 team, giving the major starters a large bulk of time on the bench, after they've reached their statistical goals, or Thad Matta took them out of the early second half of a blowout.

We don't fit the modicum of this article because we do have a bulk of our offensive input coming from "veteran" players too. Sure, our numbers are skewed by Peters averaging 14-15 points a game, but we have Dority, Capo, Coleman, Vashil, and others who are doing some work to get wins on the board too. It isn't all on the shoulders of our freshmen this year. We're definitely not a Kentucky 2012 with 5 NBA-calibur freshmen doing everything.

[LaPorteAveApostle]

To give people an idea of what's going on, we deploy 1.4 years of experience per court minute.  I calculated this by taking everyone's percentage of the team's minutes times the year of experience playing in college, regardless of level (from 0-3) they had coming into the year, and summing the result for the team.  I gave KC one for his couple dozen minutes at SLU, btw.

I can't find too many numbers for reference--simply that this year's Michigan team is 0.9 and 335th in D1.  (This is actually a rise from the previous year's 0.7 (342nd)!  "Kansas and Kentucky are down there too", says Brian Cook.

Last year's team was 2.65, probably among tops in the country.

Sorry to not be able to find more context (I'm not sorry that I'm not calculating these for all of D1) but we are about half where we were last year. 

Yes, it shows.

[EddieCabot]

I would agree with the premise in general.  I would think the biggest improvements happen between years 1 & 2, not during year 1.

This makes a lot of sense.  A good mid-major proxy is the '08-'09 Butler team that started 3 freshmen and 1 soph in every game.  http://butlersports.com/sports/m-baskbl/stats/2008-2009/teamcume.htm  They were 19-1 thru Nov/Dec/Jan, but finished just 7-5 in Feb/Mar. 

The following year, the same group took a big step forward by going 33-5 and losing in the national championship game.  That would seem to support LAA's premise.

On a related note, I was extremely bored on Christmas Day at the in-laws, so I crawled through the worm hole to the old board.  One thread was a discussion of what that Butler team might do in '09-'10 after returning everyone from a 26-6 (15-3) team.  http://valpofans.proboards.com/thread/2752/horizon-league-next-year  In retrospect, it's somewhat funny to think that knowledgeable guys like wh and FWalum would think that a 15-3 Butler team returning everyone would some how not be any better in '09-'10.  Very surprising, given that FWalum claims to be a coach/former-coach.  I'm really surprised that he didn't expect his guys to improve year over year ... that's clearly not the expectation at a place like Butler.

[ARCInsider]

Yes, it shows.

It may show in certain circumstances, but the results have been similar this year to last year.  I honestly believe this year's team is/will be better than last year's team by March.

[vu72]

given that FWalum claims to be a coach/former-coach.

Typically Eddie, you've been a pretty solid, thoughtful, poster.  However, taking a shot at one of our most respected posters is over the top. FWalum doesn't "claim" to be anything.  He IS a former coach.  Hindsight is always 20/20.

[EddieCabot]

given that FWalum claims to be a coach/former-coach.

Typically Eddie, you've been a pretty solid, thoughtful, poster.  However, taking a shot at one of our most respected posters is over the top. FWalum doesn't "claim" to be anything.  He IS a former coach.  Hindsight is always 20/20.

Poorly worded response on my part ... I thought that somewhere he stated he had coached and chose my words poorly.  Didn't mean to attack him personally.  I intended to question why a coach would suggest a successful team returning all of its players wouldn't be any better than it was the year before (which is how I interpreted FWalum's comments.)  What I was trying to get to (obviously unsuccessfully) was to ask FWalum that if he had a team returning every player from the previous year, why he wouldn't expect them to improve?  Not an attack on him.  Certainly not an "over the top" attack.  Just a question to someone who has coached at the college level.

The real purpose of my reply was to agree with LAA's opinion that players make a big jump between freshman and sophomore years.  That seems to be in contradiction to FWalum's comments and I'm just looking for more civil debate on the topic ... especially when it involves a coach.  FWIW, I've seen a lot of guys improve greatly from there fr to soph years, so I'm with LAA on this one (2nd time, for those keeping score.  )

[wh]

I would agree with the premise in general.  I would think the biggest improvements happen between years 1 & 2, not during year 1.

This makes a lot of sense.  A good mid-major proxy is the '08-'09 Butler team that started 3 freshmen and 1 soph in every game.  http://butlersports.com/sports/m-baskbl/stats/2008-2009/teamcume.htm  They were 19-1 thru Nov/Dec/Jan, but finished just 7-5 in Feb/Mar. 

The following year, the same group took a big step forward by going 33-5 and losing in the national championship game.  That would seem to support LAA's premise.

On a related note, I was extremely bored on Christmas Day at the in-laws, so I crawled through the worm hole to the old board. One thread was a discussion of what that Butler team might do in '09-'10 after returning everyone from a 26-6 (15-3) team.  http://valpofans.proboards.com/thread/2752/horizon-league-next-year  In retrospect, it's somewhat funny to think that knowledgeable guys like wh and FWalum would think that a 15-3 Butler team returning everyone would some how not be any better in '09-'10.  Very surprising, given that FWalum claims to be a coach/former-coach.  I'm really surprised that he didn't expect his guys to improve year over year ... that's clearly not the expectation at a place like Butler.

More likely you've had this carefully filed in your memory bank, just waiting for the right moment to retrieve it and club us over the head with it. lol  In our defense how many more wins should we have projected for a team that won all but 6 of its games the prior year?  It's probably not the worst mistake I've ever made.     

[EddieCabot]

I would agree with the premise in general.  I would think the biggest improvements happen between years 1 & 2, not during year 1.

This makes a lot of sense.  A good mid-major proxy is the '08-'09 Butler team that started 3 freshmen and 1 soph in every game.  http://butlersports.com/sports/m-baskbl/stats/2008-2009/teamcume.htm  They were 19-1 thru Nov/Dec/Jan, but finished just 7-5 in Feb/Mar. 

The following year, the same group took a big step forward by going 33-5 and losing in the national championship game.  That would seem to support LAA's premise.

On a related note, I was extremely bored on Christmas Day at the in-laws, so I crawled through the worm hole to the old board. One thread was a discussion of what that Butler team might do in '09-'10 after returning everyone from a 26-6 (15-3) team.  http://valpofans.proboards.com/thread/2752/horizon-league-next-year  In retrospect, it's somewhat funny to think that knowledgeable guys like wh and FWalum would think that a 15-3 Butler team returning everyone would some how not be any better in '09-'10.  Very surprising, given that FWalum claims to be a coach/former-coach.  I'm really surprised that he didn't expect his guys to improve year over year ... that's clearly not the expectation at a place like Butler.

More likely you've had this carefully filed in your memory bank, just waiting for the right moment to retrieve it and club us over the head with it. lol  In our defense how many more wins should we have projected for a team that won all but 6 of its games the prior year?  It's probably not the worst mistake I've ever made.     

Trust me ... I was digging through there to avoid boredom ... spend 4 days with in-laws and tell me what you do for entertainment.  I just brought up this thread because I thought it related to the "freshmen heavy" lineup comments. 

[LaPorteAveApostle]

I'm with LAA on this one (2nd time, for those keeping score.  )

THERE WAS A FIRST TIME?!?!?

[EddieCabot]

I'm with LAA on this one (2nd time, for those keeping score.  )

THERE WAS A FIRST TIME?!?!?

Out of 2470 posts, I'm sure I've agreed with at least one!  I'll do a search and get back to you!