RealGM

Posted: **Fri Jul 5, 2013 4:16 am**

This week the Boston Celtics announced Brad Stevens as their new head coach. It was a move that made a lot of sense for Stevens. The former Butler coach loves the X’s and O’s of the game, but doesn’t have nearly the same love for recruiting battles. In the NBA, for better or worse, he will have to deal with the talent he has on hand. His job will be to maximize that talent, not to attract it to town.

Speaking of recruiting, that was a topic I wanted to talk about today, at least tangentially. Today I am updating a table I first presented 18 months ago. The table shows D1 coaches in major conferences and how willing they are to give minutes to freshmen. To no one’s surprise, John Calipari and Rick Barnes show up at the top of this list. Both coaches have been willing to give major minutes to first-year players. On the flip side coaches like Bruce Weber, Bo Ryan, Mike Brey, and Buzz Williams have been unwilling to use freshmen in their rotation. When I ran this table 18 months ago, I called it the “anti-recruiting tool” because for these coaches the lack of commitment to fist year-players could be a detriment on the recruiting trail.

Elite recruits want to showcase their game for NBA scouts, and a large part of recruiting is promising elite players the chance to play right away. When a coach like Bo Ryan has been known to red-shirt McDonald’s All-Americans, that likely prevents Wisconsin from competing for some of the top high school athletes.

The following table shows major conference coaches with at least 5 years of D1 coaching experience and the average number of minutes they have given to freshmen during the last 11 seasons. I include all schools where the coach was employed as a head coach. I.e. this table includes John Calipari’s time at Memphis as well as his time at Kentucky.

Team	Coach	Conf	PctMinFr	PctMinSo	PctMinJr	PctMinSr
Kentucky	John Calipari	SEC	37%	23%	22%	19%
Texas	Rick Barnes	B12	31%	25%	22%	22%
Wake Forest	Jeff Bzdelik	ACC	27%	23%	25%	25%
Purdue	Matt Painter	B10	27%	23%	24%	26%
Santa Clara	Kerry Keating	WCC	27%	23%	27%	23%
Duquesne	Jim Ferry	A10	27%	28%	25%	20%
Michigan	John Beilein	B10	26%	29%	25%	21%
Florida	Billy Donovan	SEC	26%	27%	27%	20%
Mississippi	Andy Kennedy	SEC	26%	21%	24%	29%
South Carolina	Frank Martin	SEC	25%	22%	32%	21%
Indiana	Tom Crean	B10	25%	28%	27%	20%
Providence	Ed Cooley	BE	25%	31%	26%	18%
George Mason	Paul Hewitt	A10	25%	28%	24%	22%
Loyola Marymount	Max Good	WCC	25%	29%	27%	19%
Boston College	Steve Donahue	ACC	24%	26%	25%	25%
Seton Hall	Kevin Willard	BE	24%	27%	23%	26%
Iowa	Fran McCaffery	B10	24%	25%	26%	25%
Evansville	Marty Simmons	MVC	24%	22%	26%	28%
Fordham	Tom Pecora	A10	24%	26%	27%	23%
San Francisco	Rex Walters	WCC	24%	25%	33%	18%
Oklahoma St.	Travis Ford	B12	23%	22%	31%	24%
Kansas	Bill Self	B12	23%	24%	26%	26%
Portland	Eric Reveno	WCC	23%	28%	27%	22%
Villanova	Jay Wright	BE	23%	28%	25%	24%
Washington	Lorenzo Romar	P12	23%	25%	28%	24%
Alabama	Anthony Grant	SEC	23%	29%	23%	24%
Colorado	Tad Boyle	P12	23%	20%	29%	29%
South Florida	Stan Heath	AAC	22%	24%	29%	24%
Drake	Ray Giacoletti	MVC	22%	32%	25%	21%
Duke	Mike Krzyzewski	ACC	22%	24%	27%	26%
San Diego	Bill Grier	WCC	22%	30%	24%	24%
North Carolina	Roy Williams	ACC	22%	30%	27%	20%
La Salle	John Giannini	A10	22%	24%	32%	23%
G. Washington	Mike Lonergan	A10	22%	21%	28%	29%
Arizona	Sean Miller	P12	22%	25%	26%	27%
Ohio St.	Thad Matta	B10	22%	23%	28%	27%
Arizona St.	Herb Sendek	P12	21%	29%	26%	24%
Georgetown	J. Thompson III	BE	21%	29%	29%	21%
Baylor	Scott Drew	B12	21%	24%	30%	25%
Vanderbilt	Kevin Stallings	SEC	21%	27%	29%	23%
Richmond	Chris Mooney	A10	21%	27%	25%	27%
DePaul	Oliver Purnell	BE	21%	26%	31%	23%
Nebraska	Tim Miles	B10	21%	21%	32%	27%
Georgia Tech	Brian Gregory	ACC	20%	26%	28%	25%
Virginia	Tony Bennett	ACC	20%	20%	30%	30%
North Carolina St.	Mark Gottfried	ACC	20%	27%	30%	23%
St. Louis	Jim Crews	A10	20%	25%	34%	21%
Creighton	Greg McDermott	BE	20%	29%	32%	19%
Texas Tech	Tubby Smith	B12	19%	23%	30%	28%
Syracuse	Jim Boeheim	ACC	19%	28%	30%	23%
Illinois	John Groce	B10	19%	27%	24%	30%
Saint Joseph's	Phil Martelli	A10	19%	27%	29%	24%
Michigan St.	Tom Izzo	B10	19%	29%	27%	25%
Louisville	Rick Pitino	AAC	18%	28%	29%	24%
Georgia	Mark Fox	SEC	18%	29%	26%	27%
Texas Christian	Trent Johnson	B12	18%	24%	28%	30%
Central Florida	Donnie Jones	AAC	18%	26%	31%	25%
Florida St.	L. Hamilton	ACC	18%	23%	30%	29%
Oregon St.	Craig Robinson	P12	18%	24%	33%	25%
Southern Illinois	Barry Hinson	MVC	18%	29%	27%	27%
Colorado St.	Larry Eustachy	MWC	18%	22%	33%	27%
San Diego St.	Steve Fisher	MWC	17%	23%	31%	29%
Stanford	Johnny Dawkins	P12	17%	31%	25%	27%
Tennessee	Cuonzo Martin	SEC	17%	21%	31%	31%
Loyola Chicago	Porter Moser	MVC	17%	25%	35%	22%
Cincinnati	Mick Cronin	AAC	17%	20%	32%	31%
Pittsburgh	Jamie Dixon	ACC	17%	22%	29%	31%
Gonzaga	Mark Few	WCC	17%	25%	32%	26%
Auburn	Tony Barbee	SEC	17%	26%	36%	21%
West Virginia	Bob Huggins	B12	17%	25%	28%	29%
Northern Iowa	Ben Jacobson	MVC	17%	25%	28%	30%
UCLA	Steve Alford	P12	17%	27%	32%	25%
Brigham Young	Dave Rose	WCC	16%	22%	30%	31%
Maryland	Mark Turgeon	ACC	16%	30%	28%	26%
Arkansas	Mike Anderson	SEC	16%	21%	37%	26%
Miami FL	Jim Larranaga	ACC	15%	24%	32%	28%
Missouri	Frank Haith	SEC	15%	25%	30%	30%
Massachusetts	Derek Kellogg	A10	14%	32%	25%	28%
Wichita St.	Gregg Marshall	MVC	14%	23%	32%	31%
Oregon	Dana Altman	P12	14%	17%	33%	36%
Texas A&M	Billy Kennedy	SEC	14%	22%	33%	32%
Clemson	Brad Brownell	ACC	14%	26%	32%	28%
St. Mary's	Randy Bennett	WCC	14%	23%	33%	31%
California	M. Montgomery	P12	14%	27%	32%	28%
St. Bonaventure	Mark Schmidt	A10	14%	24%	34%	29%
Kansas St.	Bruce Weber	B12	13%	27%	31%	28%
Louisiana St.	Johnny Jones	SEC	13%	17%	37%	33%
Wisconsin	Bo Ryan	B10	13%	27%	29%	31%
Oklahoma	Lon Kruger	B12	13%	19%	34%	34%
Washington St.	Ken Bone	P12	12%	22%	37%	29%
Notre Dame	Mike Brey	ACC	11%	22%	35%	32%
Bradley	Geno Ford	MVC	10%	15%	39%	36%
Utah St.	Stew Morrill	MWC	10%	18%	39%	34%
Temple	Fran Dunphy	AAC	9%	24%	28%	38%
Marquette	Buzz Williams	BE	8%	16%	37%	39%

There are a lot of things one can learn from this table. For example, this is one of the reasons Bo Ryan, Mike Brey, Stew Morrill, and Buzz Williams are able to churn out elite offenses year-after-year without superior athletes. Their teams simply avoid freshmen mistakes. Mike Brey has traditionally had some of the lowest turnover numbers in the nation and utilizing a mature lineup allows his team to avoid wasted possessions.

The reason I am looking at these numbers again is to see whether I should add these type of coaching roster choices into my predictions model. Can I use these numbers to say something about whether prized freshmen recruits are likely to play a lot of minutes? Looking at this table, I think we can be confident that Florida’s prized freshman PG Kasey Hill is going to start right away and play major minutes. But what about Top 100 PG recruit Duane Wilson who is headed to Marquette? Given incumbent PG Derrick Wilson’s shooting troubles last year, Duane Wilson seems like the type of freshman who should play a big role next year. But that would go strongly against Buzz Williams track record.

RealGM

Freshmen Playing Time Part 1

Freshmen Playing Time Part 1