In the first post on Basabe, I looked at the kind of freshman year he is having. With this post, I want to look at what he could develop into. To do that, I want to compare his freshman year, with the senior year's of Greg Brunner and Reggie Evans. This should be able to give us an idea of where his development could go.
Let's start with playing time:
Unsurprisingly, Brunner and Evans got more playing time their senior campaigns, than Basabe has in his freshman season. Part of that has also been a little bit of foul trouble for Basabe too.
Next, shooting:
Basabe is a pretty damn good free throw shooter for a big man. Already, much better than Brunner and Evans.
Basabe, has also had a better year shooting than both Evans and Brunner. (Oddly enough, Brunner had a much worse shooting year as a senior, than he did as a freshman) His 57.07% effective FG% is good enough for eighth in the Big 10 right now. In his freshman year, Basabe is already a more efficient scorer, than Evans or Brunner. If he improves upon that number, he is going to be out of this world. But, even if he just stays consistent, he's going to be damn good.
After shooting, we move to scoring:
Basabe is also scoring at the same pace both Evans and Brunner did their senior year. Right now, Basabe's points per minute average, is tied for thirteenth in the Big 10.
Basabe's free throw rate is good, but it's not quiet as good as Brunner's, and nowhere close to Evans'. Reggie Evans was ridiculous at getting to the free throw line. Crazy enough, his Junior year was better than his senior year in this regard.
Anyways, back to Basabe. If he was playing 34 minutes a game like Evans did, and he continued to put up 0.45 points per minute, he would average about 15 points per game. If he can get up to the magical 0.50 points per minute mark, he would average 17 points per game. Once again, even if Basabe shows no improvement, he's going to be damn good.
Now, on to rebounding:
Right now, Basabe is slightly ahead of Evans in offensive rebounding. Though, that could easily change, considering, there are at least three more games left. Though, he seems to be legitimately better on the offensive glass than Brunner was. On the defensive glass, Basabe is close to Brunner, but pretty far off of Evans.
In his freshman year, Basabe already ranks second in offensive rebounding percentage, and sixth in defensive rebounding percentage in the Big 10. If Basabe kept grabbing rebounds at the 0.28 rebounds per minute pace that he is currently at, but played 34 minutes per game, he would go from about 6.7 to 9.5 rebounds per game. So, if Basabe shows no improvement over his next couple of years, but his minutes increase, he will pretty much average a double-double every game.
Finishing up with the rest: Assists, Turnovers, Blocks, Steals:
As you can see, Basabe is already a better shot blocker than the other two. If he keeps blocking opposing team's shots at the same rate he is now, then if he averages 34 minutes per game, he would average 1.92 blocks per game (he averages 1.39 per game now).
Neither Brunner or Evans, were any good at taking the ball away from their opponents, and neither is Basabe. You could probably expect him to increase a tad bit more over his career, but this is something that just isn't real important.
Moving onto two things Basabe could stand to get better at. First, assists. Brunner and Evans had better shooting teams around them at the time, so that can skew a player's assist percentage. However, Basabe does need to learn how to pass out of double teams and get an open man a shot. I would have to figure that he could at least get up to around where Reggie Evans was his senior year. Brunner, is probably a little too much to ask for. The man was a good passer.
Turnovers are my biggest problem with Basabe's game so far. It was on full display against Illinois, as he was holding the ball too long, getting trapped by the double team, and then turning it over. If he continues at this pace, if he averages 34 minutes per game, he would turn the ball over 2.86 times per game, on average. Even if he brought his turnovers down to Brunner's pace, he would still average 2.62 turnovers per game, in 34 minutes played. I'm not sure how much improvement we will see in this category, but we should see at least a little bit, as Basabe gets more comfortable dealing with double teams.
Overall, we can see that if Basabe doesn't take any steps back during his time at Iowa, he is going to be an awesome player. Even if he doesn't improve at all, his numbers be great with more playing time. However, if he does improve, and he has all the skills to, he should be putting up double-doubles almost every game. It's been a long time since Iowa had a player of this caliber, that wanted to stay all four years. Since Basabe was Fran's recruit from Siena, this should be the first time in years, that our best scorer hasn't transferred at the end of the season. So, get excited Hawkeyes fans, he's going to be a good one.
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