I think Phil jumps to 12 ppg, 4 assists and 4 rebounds to go with 2.25 steals. It's the hard working kids that come back as legit BE players after their freshman year. Garrett, Pointer and DLo all seem like they will return stronger.
2.25 steals seems a bit ambitious and if he plays mostly point with our depth and weapons 12 pts may also be a little high. Would be happy with 9pts, 4 assists, 3 rebs, 1.2 steals.
I don't really see his steals dropping from his 1.26 last year. With Branch missing the 1st chunk of the season before being eligible, I expect Phil will play MORE minutes thru December (as the ONLY PG on the roster) than he did last year, when he averaged 31.1 minutes - and that should keep his full year minutes pretty close to last years total...
I think given the maturity and experience of a soph, his shooting % will go up (not tough to do from last year's 37% FG, 28% 3s!) - If he's close to the same minutes that that's easily 1 more make and maybe 1 more FT per game - and that Does put him near that 12 pt mark....
I've been thinking about this for awhile, and CR you're probably as good a person to ask as any; what's "typical" improvement from freshmen to sophomore year look like?
It's a more complicated question than it may seem, because our guys played a ton of minutes as freshmen, so theoretically they may have improved more as the season went on; compared to the avg player who sees that bump in performance during his sophomore year.
But do shooting percentages (for example) actually go up? A noticeable amount?
I know it's a broad question, but personally I'm not sure how much guys shooting really improves. I think that may be exaggerated a little. Maybe their shot selection improves. But I wanted to see what other people's take was on that.
Do players really improve noticeably and statistically? Or are you more or less the same player when you graduate as you were as a frosh?
As you know, my historical expertise is with a certain west coast team
- I hope to survive long enuf to develop a similar perspective for all things SJU as well. But, notable Bruins frosh to soph, since the first Frosh Eligibles (at UCLA, that was Marques Johnson and Richard Washington in 1974):
Marques Johnson: 7.2pts/3.3 rebs - 11.7pts/7.1 rebs
Rich Washington: 4.1/2.8 - 15.9/7.8
Ray Townsend: 1.9/0.7 - 7.9/2.1
David Greenwood: 4.9/3.7 - 16.7/9.7
Roy Hamilton: 1.2/0.6 - 11.9/2.2
Kiki Vandeweghe: 3.6/1.8 - 9.0/4.4
Mike Sanders: 1.7/1.5 - 11.8/5.9
Darren Daye: 5.0/1.9 - 12.0/4.3
Kenny Fields: 10.1/4.9 - 14.1/5.9
Reggie Miller: 4.6/1.5 - 15.2/4.3
Trevor Wilson: 6.2/4.8 - 15.4/9.4
Tracy Murray: 12.3/5.5 - 21.2/6.7
Ed O'Bannon: 3,6/3.0 - 16.7/7.0
Tyus Edney: 5.6/2.8asst - 13.6/5.6asst
Toby Bailey: 10.8/4.5 - 14.8/4.3
JR Henderson: 9.2/4.2 - 14.4/7.0
Jerome Moiso: 10.8/5.8 - 13.6/7.4
Earl Watson: 5.8/3.7 - 13.3/3.7
Dijon Thompson: 4.5/2.1 - 14.0/4.7
Arron Afflalo: 10.8/3.3 - 15.8/4.2
Russell Westbrook: 3.4/0.8 - 12.7/3.9
Darren Collison: 5.5/2.3assts - 12.7/5.7assts
Malcolm Lee: 3.2/1.5 - 12.1/4.4
Tyler Honeycutt: 7.2/6.5 - 12.8/7.2
Travis Wear: 3.5/2.2 - 11.5/5.9
David Wear: 2.9/1.7 - 10.2/6.3
So, yeah - usually the big jump is Frosh to soph.