Charting experience over the years

Every once in a while I get feel the need to crunch the hell out of some statistics and share them. Not to mention my obsession with historical comparisons... This is one of those times.

Admittedly, I may have been a little bit harsh on this team after the loss to Fresno State, but I was most definitely furious over that. Since then though, I've taken a little time to think a bit more about this team, where they've been, where they're going... and such as.

First off, just want to point out one encouraging thing that deserves mention.

FIELD GOAL PERCENTAGE
After Thursdays win over LA Tech, the Aggies rank as the 37th best team in the country in field goal percentage. To compare, last year's team finished the year No. 28 in that department. A team that had Tai Wesley, Nate Bendall, Brady Jardine and Brian Green (OMG how awesome was he!??)

Even though USU had ranked in the top three in the country in FG% in five of eight seasons prior to this year, for a team this young, I think finishing any category in the top 50 nationally is a promising sign.


NOW TO ANALYZE THE YOUTH
After losing Brady Jardine for the year, the Aggies had a grand total of ONE player on the active roster who had ever played significant minutes in Division-I (Brockeith Pane)

Everyone else in the rotation of this year's team had either only seen very limited time in previous D-I seasons (Grim, Medlin, Farris), had only played junior college (Reed, Berger, Bruneel) or were freshmen (Clifford, Stone).

Compare that to last season's roster: Wesley, Newbold, Williams, Green, Bendall, Jardine and Pane had all played major minutes for a team (Pane's being with Houston as a freshman) for at least one season prior to 2010-11.

Let's set the bar at 11 minutes per game for a season and chart the year-by-year numbers of players who had returned after a year of contributing that many minutes per game.

2011-12:   1
2010-11:   7
2009-10:   6
2008-09:   4
2007-08:   3
2006-07:   4
2005-06:   5 

So you see, it's almost rare that you get a team with a ton of returning talent who played significant minutes the year before, and one has to think that having those returners helps bring along all the new guys that much quicker. The 2008 team managed to still have success, despite the second lowest number of returners on this list. They had three eventual WAC Players of the Year on that roster though, and even still, that team struggled in a lot of close games that season.


LOOKING AHEAD
As it stands, the Aggies will likely have six guys returning next year who will have averaged 11 minutes per game. E.J. Farris isn't averaging 11 minutes per game on the year yet, but based on the last few weeks, he will be by year's end. That's not counting Jarred Shaw either, who didn't reach 11 minutes per game in either of his years at Oklahoma State, but will probably be a starter next year.

Given how Stew develops talent (which is better than pretty much anyone), You've got to think that this team puts it all together next year for a full-fledged return to glory. The team isn't undersized or undertalented, they're just grossly underexperienced this year. Inexperienced teams, no matter how talented they are, will struggle, especially to win close games. Don't forget that USU has already won as many games this year as Nevada won all of last season, when they were the ones lacking the experience. The Wolf Pack also only had one guy return last year who had played 11+ minutes the prior year. This year, they returned EIGHT!

For USU, experience can grow a whole lot in one offseason, as evidenced by the 2008-09 year. Four of the five starters that season only had one year of D-I experience, and the other was a JUCO transfer. Still, they won close games, dominated the WAC and were a hose-job away from the second round of the NCAA's against Marquette.

Give Stew time to put some muscle on Berger and Clifford, teach Reed a few new tricks down low, work his magic on Shaw and maybe tap into some consistency from Bruneel, and suddenly you've got a solid supporting cast to go with Medlin plus a ton of experience to help break in Marcel Davis at point guard.

Times are a little bit rough right now, but they will get better. And before we get too far ahead of ourselves, if this team manages to win three straight games in March, it'd be tough not to call this season a success. If they win four games in March, it'd be an epic tale of triumph. Stay tuned.