I usually live in the land of cumulative season statistics
(I’m a sucker for large sample sizes), but it struck me today that it would be
interesting to go through the Individual
Game-by-Game Box Scores on the Calvin Sports page to try to get a glimpse
at how some of the players progressed throughout the season. You could pretty
much pick any range of games to do this, but I decided to stick with a simple
50-50 first half/second half approach (because small sample sizes tend to
frighten me). This is easy enough considering Calvin played an even number of
games (26).
I picked Tyler
Dykstra to profile first, but I’ll admit to not choosing completely randomly
(though his name immediately came to my mind). A quick glance at his numbers
confirmed my thought: although he was never a big scorer, he was a bigger part
of the offense as the year went on. He’s an ideal candidate to track
development though. He’s young, he played in nearly every game (25 of the 26),
and his length and athleticism leads to lots of potential.
32 - Dykstra
|
G
|
Min
|
MPG
|
Pts
|
PPG
|
1st Half
|
12
|
108
|
9.0
|
6
|
0.5
|
2nd Half
|
13
|
204
|
15.7
|
63
|
4.8
|
Total
|
26
|
312
|
12.0
|
69
|
2.8
|
As I said, he never became a huge part of the offense, but I was floored to realize that he only
accumulated six points through the team’s first 13 games (he only played in 12
after not appearing in the opener at Anderson). But this story isn’t about his
early season struggles; it’s about his strong finish to the season. Here are
his shooting numbers for the year:
32 -- Dykstra
|
FG
|
FGA
|
Pct
|
3FG
|
FGA
|
3 Pct
|
FT
|
FTA
|
FT Pct
|
1st Half
|
3
|
17
|
0.176
|
0
|
4
|
0.000
|
0
|
0
|
0.000
|
2nd Half
|
24
|
43
|
0.558
|
3
|
6
|
0.500
|
12
|
18
|
0.667
|
Total
|
27
|
60
|
0.450
|
3
|
10
|
0.300
|
12
|
18
|
0.667
|
It appears as though he shot the ball much more frequently
in the second half of the year (17 attempts to 43 attempts), but his minutes
per game was bumped up by nearly 75%, so he was probably only shooting about
25% more often than he was earlier in the year.
He was “forced” into more playing
time with injury/academic situation as it was, but he the numbers show that he
clearly made good on his increased role. He still wasn’t shooting the ball very
much (just 3.3 field goal attempts per game), but the efficiency in which he
turned shots into points was incredible.
I’m a big lover of using points
per weighted shot (PPWS) to determine an individual’s scoring efficiency.
It’s a simple way to combine two-point shots, three point shots, and free
thrown shooting to come up with one number that says how many points are gained
on an average attempt to score by a certain player (or team). During the second
half of last season, Dykstra put up a PPWS of 1.22.
That number doesn’t mean a whole
lot without context. The team average last season was 1.02, and Calvin’s
average as a program (since 1998) is 1.10. Dykstra’s 1.22 PPWS is equivalent (actually
slightly better if we carry the decimal one place further) to the scoring
efficiencies of the careers of Kevin Broene, Ricky Shilts, and Matt Veltema,
who are tied for fifth in career* PPWS at Calvin (minimum 100 field goal attempts).
*As always, the data I can gather on the internet only goes back to
1998, so whenever I mention “career leaders” it’s really career leaders since
1998.
There’s a lot to like in the
progression of these numbers. First of all is the apparent change in approach
to his offensive game. In the first half it was 23.5% three point attempts and
zero fouls drawn. This suggests a more passive approach to offense: deference
to teammates, settling for jump shots, and perhaps tentativeness with respect
to playing in the paint. The second half was quite a different story. The three
point attempts fell to 14%, and the number of fouls drawn grew sharply.
It’s not unreasonable or uncommon
for a freshman playing college basketball for the first time to display some
passiveness in the beginning, but you don’t want those types of patterns to
become habits, especially for a kid with a 6-8 frame. Tyler didn’t let that
happen. He’s going to find success by using his length and athleticism to
create shots, draw fouls, and get to the rim, and his ability to do just that
grew by leaps and bounds.
Here’s some anecdotal evidence.
Dykstra threw down four dunks over the course of the season, which was sixth
most in the conference (h/t:
Happy Calvin Guy). All four came in the second half of the year.
Of course, we can’t (or at least
shouldn’t) expect him to return as a Sophomore and keep this type of efficient
offense up (especially if he sees his role increase even further), but this
type of development could turn him into a scary-good player by the time his
career at Knollcrest comes to an end.
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