Should Tracy Smith Get More Of Ben McCauley's Minutes?

Tracy Smith's 31 points against Towson in just 23 minutes got me thinking: Should Tracy Smith get more of Ben McCauley's minutes?

My gut says yes. Certainly 31 points is a guady number, but I didn't want to give it too much weight because it came against Towson, a team not nearly of the caliber State will face during the conference season. Nevertheless, he always seems to be playing at a high level whenever he's in the game, regardless of the opponent.

So why is it that Smith is averaging 13.0 MPG to McCauley's 27.2? Let's look at their numbers to see how they stack up.

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(NOTE: These charts can be a little tough to read with all the lines active. You can disable individual lines by clicking their respective checkmarks in the legend.)

OFFENSIVE:



Offensive Rating - Advantage: McCauley
The offensive rating formula is: Offensive Rating = (Points Produced / Individual Possessions) x 100. Tracy made a big leap forward in catching up to Ben in this regard, but Ben still leads 120.3 to 117.5.

Assist Percentage - Advantage: Smith
This was the one that surprised me. I thought for certain that Smith would've trailed McCauley here, but while Ben started the year hot and Smith essentially a black hole (h/t Slack), Smith has obviously made a point to get the ball to his teammates. He currently leads McCauley 14.5 to 12.6 in this category. Smith's numbers here are boosted by the limited time he's in the game--more minutes make it harder to maintain this ranking. It's questionable whether Smith would perform at this high a level were he getting the same minutes McCauley is currently.

Effective Field Goal% - Advantage: McCauley
Big Ben holds a slight edge here (56% to 55.1%) but both players are shooting the ball at a high level in the paint.

Offensive Rebounding % - Advantage: Smith
Here's where Smith's effort is yielding some tangible results. He's smoking McCauley on the offensive boards, snagging 22.6% of the possible offensive rebounds against McCauley's 10%. Smith doesn't have anyone close to him in this regard; great for Smith, and a sad statement for the rest of the Pack squad.

DEFENSIVE:



Defensive Rebounding % - Advantage: McCauley
Big Ben owns Smith here, which is somewhat surprising given how much of an advantage Smith has over McCauley rebounding on the other end of the court. Ben is grabbing 22.9% of the defensive rebounds up for grabs versus Smith's 9.7%--almost an exact reversal of the offensive rebounding percentage stats.

Steal % - Advantage: McCauley
McCauley has the edge here again, though he's losing ground to Smith. McCauley was at 3.5% versus Smith's 1.1% back on the 29th of December. Since that time Smith has closed the gap--3.2% to 1.7%.

Block % - Advantage: Smith
Smith started the season with a huge advantage over McCauley here (at one point 4.2% to 0.9%), but his numbers are starting to slide over time. This could be at the urging of Sidney Lowe to stop focusing so much on getting the big block at the detriment of his low post defense. McCauley is holding steady, still at 0.9%, but it's evident that Smith is the better of the shot blockers on the court.

So what can we glean from these numbers? McCauley leads Smith in four of the seven categories. Smith's limited minutes played could be skewing things, however, since most of these stats are so dependent upon time played. It'd be an easier comparison to make if Smith played roughly equal minutes per game.

Which brings us back to the original question: Should Smith be getting more minutes? I'd love to see all three big men on the court at the same time--just to see what they can do--but Sidney's stated before that he doesn't want to play all three of his bigs (Costner, McCauley and Smith) at the same time, at least not for extended periods of time. Not to mention it wouldn't make sense against smaller, more athletic teams.

I'd like to see McCauley and Smith's minutes split more evenly than they currently are because I think the team responds to Smith's high effort level when he's out on the court. It's tough to argue against McCauley's production so far, though. He leads the team in points per game, which at the end of the day, there's not much more you can ask for. Ben is a better interior passer at this point in his career, as well.

Let me know what you think. My gut says yes, but I'd like to know what you think.

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This Just In: Tracy Smith is Awesome. 31 points in State's 88-68 win

Stats by StatSheet.com

Stats by StatSheet.com

GoPack.com

At some point it starts sounding like a broken record, but in just 23 minutes of action today, Tracy Smith poured in 31 points, including a perfect 11-for-11 mark from the free throw line, to lead State to a 88-68 win over Towson.

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Even going back to last season, you could see that Smith was one of the guys on the team whose motor was always churning at a high level. He's continued that play to start this year; he was at or near the top in offensive rating nearly every game so far. Today, it all fell into place.

Brandon Costner continued his unselfish play of late with 10 assists. Towson played zone most of the first half and Costner attacked it like a veteran, driving into the weak spots, waiting for the collapse and then dishing to a wide open Pack player, often Smith, for an easy bucket. He also chipped in 15 points for another double-double.

The scoring was pretty evenly spread out from there: Dennis Horner in a starting role had 10, along with Ben McCauley, and Courtney Fells had 11.

The Pack struggled at times in this game, however, with Towson jumping out to an 11-point lead in the first half behind the shooting of Josh Thornton who nailed four quick threes in a span of a few minutes to put the Tigers out in front big.

But from there Smith went to work, finishing the half with 19 points as the Pack continued to feed him down on the blocks.

Hopefully Smith will continue to get more and more minutes as the conference season approaches. He'll get to see a stout test against the Florida Gators up next; if he produces against a tough SEC team just two years removed from a national title, then it'll be almost impossible to justify keeping him off the court as conference play approaches.

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So close...

...yet so far away.

(apologies for the Hall 'N Oates reference)







DUKE 87
NC State 86

Man, there's nothing that hurts more than losing a home game to Duke by one point. Especially when you've led most of the game and--after shooting ridiculously well from the free throw line the first 3/4 of the game--you suddenly go cold from the free throw line trying to seal the deal.

Three-for-six down the stretch when Duke was charging like a roided-up bull just didn't get it done. You have to play nearly perfect in all phases of the game to pull off that kind of upset. We did it in 1998 against Carolina in the Dean Dome; we didn't do it today.

Two of those three crucial misses were on Javier Gonzalez, but it's tough to get too down on the guy after his gutty performance today. Ben McCauley's 19 points bested his 18 by one, but he had three assists to only one turnover against a Duke defense known for its tenacious D. He repeatedly brought the ball up the court against tough pressure and didn't fold. Kudos to you, young man...here's hoping you use this game to propel you into a productive offseason.

Tracy Smith and Trevor "Turd" Ferguson had good games again. Smith made the most of his 22 minutes in a starting role, scoring 14 on 4-5 shooting and a perfect 6-6 from the line. Turd chipped in with another nine, giving him 37 over the last three games. These two could be the cornerstone, along with Gonzalez, of the rebuilding project Sidney faces next season if Hickson leaves for the pros.

Speaking of Hickson, he pitched in eight in 18 minutes, along with five rebounds. He just hasn't taken over games over the back half of this season like I thought he would. I'm not sure if it's freshman fatigue or just an increased level of competition, but his resume for an early exit at this point looks pretty sparse. I think he needs to return for another year to get stronger physically and more mature mentally. He still breaks down defensively too much in trying to crush an opponent on his way to the basket. Once he learns how to play a tough defensive game within the overall defensive scheme, the blocks and highlight-reel defensive plays will come to him.

I was encouraged to see State play some matchup zone tonight. It kept Duke from beating our players off the dribble repeatedly, preventing the drive-n-kick threes that break a team's will. And offensively, the team played well enough throughout most of the game to get even ol' coach K to play a little zone to slow down our attack.

But at the end of the day, an "L" is an "L." As good as I felt about certain parts of this game, the inability to close it out, when up as much as 13 in the second half and up eight with under 4:00 to go, makes this a tough loss to swallow. It's indicative of how young and inexperienced our guards are. While Duke was surging late in the game, we turtled up and turned off the killer instinct that earned us the lead for most of the game. It's been shown time and time again--when you play not to lose, you almost invariably do. And the two misses by Gonzalez late in the game were probably a function of some freshmen nerves, as well.

Give Duke a ton of credit. They made every big shot and free throw they needed down the stretch to win it. They are an embodiment of their tough-as-nails coach. Beating them is no small feat.

The question for this team now is, "What do you take from this game?" Will they respond to the almost-coulda-shoulda that came as a result of their much higher effort level? Or, will their spirit--already fragile at this point--crumble in their final games of the season?

We shall see...

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