Some interesting UCLA hoops numbers, Pt. 2
Here's part two of a closer look at UCLA's basketball numbers this season...
Tyler Honeycutt
* No UCLA player fills out a stat sheet like Honeycutt, for good or for bad. Honeycutt's scoring is up five points from last year, from 7.5 ppg to 12.5, but his shooting has been brutal after a good freshman year, falling from 49.6 percent field-goal shooting to 41.2 percent. His body has been pretty banged up all year, affecting his shot to an extent, but his shot selection hasn't been the best.
* Honeycutt's rebounding numbers almost offset his prolonged shooting slump, though, as his eight rebounds per game rank fifth in the conference. The twosome of Honeycutt and Nelson ranks second in the Pac-10 in combined rebounds, to USC's Nikola Vucevic and Alex Stephenson, and third place isn't even close.
* Then there's Honeycutt's other defensive stats, blocks and steals, and those two are kind of intertwined. His blocks are up to a conference-leading 1.96 per game, from 1.2 last season, but his steals have gone from 1.5 per game to .8. Not coincidentally, his fouls have dropped from 60-43 in nearly 100 more minutes. That tells me Honeycutt is playing off his man more (and that has been an issue), but then catching up extremely fast. I can't help but wonder how much his sore shoulder is affecting his ability to man a guy up and take a risk, but I also can't help but wonder how much one more offseason in the weight room could do for a guy like him at the college level. We'll have to wait and see.
* ....Turnovers. There really isn't a pretty way to introduce it, but until a seven-turnover performance against Oregon State, it looked like the sophomore small forward had turned a corner. He had just five turnovers in his four previous games, all wins for UCLA, and there seemed to be a calm setting in that he hadn't displayed earlier in the season. Then it came back, in spades, with the seven turnovers matching his season high (the third time this year with seven). The first time, though, game one, was followed by 17 in his next four games. The key for Honeycutt will be to learn from his one-game flare-up and correct the mistake today against Stanford.
Joshua Smith
* Because there really are no relevant stats from last year for Smith, the comparison here really is between fouling Smith and non-fouling Smith. When Smith gets in foul trouble, no surprise, his scoring has been hard to come by. The decision to plug screens instead of hedge, coupled with the move to the bench, both to prevent foul trouble, has paid off greatly for Howland and Smith. Smith has scored eight points or better in 15 of 17 games; has scored four points in six minutes against Cal at home and five in 14 minutes in a win last Thursday over Oregon.
* Smith's rebounding numbers, meanwhile, have remained relatively steady, though UCLA fans probably expected a little more after a four-game stretch in early December. The freshman behemoth had three double-doubles in four games, averaging 10.1 boards in that small frame. Since then, Smith has eight rebounds or more six times, but none over 10.
* Back to good news: Smith's turnover numbers, while poor for the season at 1.5 per game, have been pretty good as of late. After an eight-game stretch with five games of more than three turnovers, Smith had one or less hiccup in six-of-seven.
Leave a comment