Every player wants to play. This time of year, so many prospects will make their college decisions based on many factors, potential playing time factoring in almost all of them. In a small sample size of 2012 players, I have averaged the minutes of McDonald All-Americans and the last ten players in the Top 300 according the reputable Dan Olsen's Collegiate Report.
Many of the Top 300 players in the country have both major and mid-major college opportunities. In my quest to see if the 290th ranked player played more than the 9th ranked prospect during their freshman year, I was surprised to learn the following.
2012 McDonald Americans averages:
Minutes played- 18.9 min
Points per game- 6.6 pts
Team Wins - 28 wins
(Imani McGee-Stafford stats were unavailable online. Her significant minutes would have help push the average minutes played to over 19. Jordan Adams and Katie Collier were not included due to being injured the majority of the season. Also, by not including USC(Adams) Washington(Collier), and Texas(Stafford) in the win total, the win average is higher. Factoring in Stafford's win total of 12 at UT, the MDAA teams won average 27 games)
Now averaging the numbers of players ranked in the bottom of the Top 300, here's how they stack up.
2012 players ranked 290-300 on Dan Olsen Collegiate Report:
Minutes played: 17.34
Points per game: 4.71pts
Team Wins- 16.3
Comparing the two groups, here are some things that standout:
- Both groups played less than half a game on average.
- All- Americans played an average of 2 min more per game. They also averaged approximately 2 more points a game.
- The biggest difference between groups was in the win total. All- Americans played for teams that won 11 more games on average.
- Only two players on both groups averaged at least 30 minutes a game as freshman: Notre Dame's Jewell Lloyd earned 31.1 minutes for the All-Americans and Maryland's Chloe Pavlech led the other group with 30.2 minutes. Duke's Alexis Jones fell a few minutes short and finished with an average of 29.5 minutes.
- The top two scorers for both groups averaged 13 points a game. UConn's Breanna Stewart led the All-Americans with a 13.8 average. ULL's Ke'Alana Veal led the other group with an average of 13.1 a game.
- The 3 players from the non-All American group that chose BCS schools averaged 18.3 minutes a game, or about the same as the All-Americans. Everyone of the All-Americans chose BCS schools.
Using the average of these two groups, the rule of thumb seems to be that freshman, regardless of grouping, sit more often than not!The question then becomes, do you sit and win or do you sit and lose?
Undoubtedly, the reason that many of the All-Americans played so sparingly was due to the fact that they chose schools with past All-Americans already on the roster. Using that same logic, did players 290-300 do the same? More thoughts on this soon to follow.......
