Henry's Statistical Take On The Freshmen

Henry Hirose follows Duke closely from Japan. He has offered to provide
some statistical information for us from time to time. Here's the first. 
Being statistics, there are always counterarguments, so feel free to send us your opinion
!

Thanks Henry!

 

I was watching again the tape of the Illinois game that Herron was kind
enough to bring here.  The casters brought up stats to compare this
freshman class to the one two years ago.  They both seem to be putting up
big numbers.  This seemed like a very intriguing topic so I looked into it.

 

      

You have to say that this is impressive.  These guys are undoubtedly
contributing more to the team than the famed class two years ago. Comparing the
W-L results to date for these two teams, the 98 team had the impressive win over
Zona at this point while this team lacks a comparable win.  But this team
has impressive wins over good top 25 clubs, a feat the 98 team lacked.  The
98 team also had an embarrassing loss at Michigan, one of the worst games for
that team, though no other losses.

Some observations:  Both frosh classes contributed especially heavily in
rebounding as they came into a team depleted of good interior players.  The
high assist numbers for this team shows the existance of a freshman PG where the
Avery did not start at point.  The very high contribution of TOs also
highligh this fact.  The 98 frosh were remarkably good in that respect. 
The high blocks for 98 is mainly Battier and Brand. But upon reflection, I think
the difference in the stats mainly show that Elton was missing for a lot of the
season in 98.  Had he been there for the entire season, the stats for both classes might even be closer.

Well, why don't I do that.  I have extrapolated Brand's average over the
entire season assigning him the same per game stats for all 36 games:

         

Here you have it.  The two freshman classes are both very remarkable and
special.  If the 98 class was rated one of the best ever, so should this
one.