Assist Tracker: Dec. 28

Halil Kanacevic (F, St. Joseph’s) — This isn’t the first time that the Hawks’ big man has showed up on the assist tracker. It’s obvious that he’s got a knack for passing that most 6’8″ guys just don’t. Right now Kanacevic leads the team in rebounding and is second in assists. That’s a nice combination. He had 12 assists in St. Joseph’s 81-50 win over Morgan State on Wednesday. They broke down pretty evenly into four dunks, four jumpers, three threes and a layup. Langston Galloway scored 14 points on 6-8 shooting and three of them were off Kanacevic assists.

Lawrence Alexander (G, NDSU) — Half of Alexander’s 10 assists in the Bisons’ 96-69 win over Oakland on Wednesday night went for threes. As a team NDSU was shooting well from beyond the arc, going 12-20 overall. Taylor Braun scored 21 points to lead the Bison. Three of his baskets came off assists from Alexander.

Anthony Marshall (G, UNLV) — The rout was on last night as UNLV took it to Central Arkansas 124-75. Marshall had 10 assists in the game. Five of Marshall’s 10 assists were for threes. He had three assists each to the Runnin’ Rebels’ leading scorers Mike Moser (18 points) and Chace Stanback (29 points). Marquette transfer Reggie Smith saw 11 minutes of action in the game and Marshall gave him as assist on one of his three three-pointers in the game. UNLV shot 18-32 from distance.

Pe’Shon Howard (G, Maryland) — Apparently Howard was happy to have Alex Len in the lineup as the the Ukrainian import got two of Howard’s eight assists in the Terrapins’ 83-72 win over Albany. Predictably both of Howard’s assists to Len went for dunks.

Gerardo Suero (G, Albany) — The Great Danes got a balanced scoring effort in the loss to Maryland it shows in Suero’s assists. Of his eight, two went to Logan Aronhalt, two to Mike Black and two to Luke Devlin. There were four threes, three layups and one jumper in the eight assists.

Peyton Siva (G, Louisville) — Siva had six assists in the Cardinals’ first loss of the season to Georgetown, 71-68. All six were for either threes (3), layups (2) or dunks (1). Apparently Louisville could’ve used one at least one more.

Assist Tracker: Dec. 20

Jesse Sanders (G, Liberty) — I’m not really sure playing a game against Montreat College should even count in the assist tracker, but Sanders had 16 assists in the 91-73 win. Three of those assists went to his younger brother John Caleb Sanders. He scored 20 points. The assists were very evenly split amongst layups, dunks, jumpers and threes. The 16 assists were an arena record at the Vines Center.

Vincent Council (G, Providence) — Council had one nice double-double with 17 points and 12 assists for the Friars in his first game after being inexplicably left off the Bob Cousy Award watch list. He helped Providence to a 67-52 over New Hampshire. Half of his assist went to Gerard Coleman, who led Providence with 20 points. Seven of Council’s 12 assists went for layups and just two were for threes.

Matt Carlino (G, BYU) — Carlino also had a double-double with 10 points and 11 assist. He wasn’t done yet though, also recording seven rebounds in BYU’s 93-78 win over Buffalo. Carlino did a nice job of distributing his assists to a bunch of players. Anson Winder and Noah Hartsock each got three, Brock Zylstra two, and Nate Austin, Josh Sharp and Charles Abouo one. Winder had 20 points in 19 minutes off the bench, including 6-7 of three-point shooting, and Carlino certainly helped sparked him.

Jason Brickman (G, Long Island) — Another guy with a bunch of assists, another double-double. Brickman played what might’ve been his best game of the season against Texas State with 12 points, 11 assists and just three turnovers. Four of Brickman’s assists went to Julian Boyd, who scored 22 points. Two of Michael Culpo’s five threes came off assists from Brickman as he got back on track as well. All of that helped LIU put up 100 on the Bobcats.

Will Weathers (G, Troy) — He played 36 minutes and shot 1-7 from the field, but Weathers helped the Trojans to an 80-72 win over Southern Utah thanks to 10 assists. Every assist by Weathers was either a three (3) or a layup (7). He really spread the love around too as no player converted more than three of his passes into buckets. Troy had a super balanced scoring offensive effort as seven players scored between eight and 13 points.

Michael Alvarado (G, Manhattan) — The Jaspers moved to 8-4 overall with an 81-62 victory over Towson and part of it was thanks to Alvarado’s eight assists. The sophomore guard also had six steals in the game. Because Manhattan plays exactly like Louisville it’s no surprise that all of Alvarado’s assists were for either threes, layups or dunks. The one dunk went to George Beamon, who led the team with 21 points. Also, two of Liam McCabe-Moran’s four threes (on 4-4 shooting) were from Alvarado as well.

Scott Wood (F, N.C. State) — Wood is our token big man of the night as the Wolfpack survived at St. Bonaventure 67-65 on Tuesday night. Wood led the team with 20 points and he also had six assists in 36 minutes. Three of his six assist came on jump shots though, so I don’t expect to see him on this list often.

Peyton Siva (G, Louisville) — The Cardinals had to work pretty hard to take down College of Charleston 69-62. The Cougars dropped to 9-2 with the loss. Siva had six assists in the win, including assists on all three of Chris Smith’s threes. Siva had one assist that wasn’t a dunk or a three; it was a jumper by Kyle Kuric.

Assist Tracker: Dec. 17

You might know that I’ve been fascinated with assists this season and have been working on tools to make capturing and analyzing them even better. Well, I thought to help promote that I’d do a daily assist tracker. My goal here is to take a quick look at all the players in the country that had more than 10 assists on the night and then maybe highlight a few others on light days. I’ll look at who they’re passing too, what the resulting baskets are and any other interesting trends we might be able to pull out of the data. Most of these I posted on Twitter before coming up with this idea.

Kendall Marshall (G, North Carolina) – Four more “jumper” assists for Marshall today against Appalachian State out of 13. Five assists went to Tyler Zeller, leading to 10 of his 31 points. Marshall also sets John Henson up for a lot of dunks.

Lorenzo Brown (G, N.C. State) – Six of Brown’s 13 assists against Syracuse went to C.J. Williams. Three of his assists came in a four-possession span in the first half as the Wolfpack took an early 12-4 lead.

Neil Watson (G, Southern Miss) – He was just one of two players off the bench for the Golden Eagles in their 86-82 victory over Ole Miss. Only 10 of his 13 assists are available in the ESPN play-by-play, but five of those came on jumpers.

Michael Bizoukas (G, Missouri State) – The former DePaul guard is playing well with the Bears and had 11 assists against Kennesaw State in a 78-55 victory. Four of his 11 assists went to Kyle Weems. Christian Kirk was the only other player to receive more than one, he got two. Of Bizoukas’ assists nine were either threes (5) or jumpers (4).

Junior Cadougan (G, Marquette) – I know that someone liked the fact that Todd Mayo was inserted into the starting lineup. Five of Cadougan’s nine assists went to the freshman, including three threes and 13 points in total. Cadougan’s typical favorite target, Jae Crowder, only completed two buckets from the Marquette point guard.

Peyton Siva (G, Louisville) – Continuing with his trend, all of Siva’s nine assists in Louisville’s 95-87 win over Memphis were either threes (6) or layups (3). He distributed the assists pretty equally between Russ Smith (3), Rakeem Buckles (3), Chris Smith (2) and Kyle Kuric (1).

Brian Voelkel (F, Vermont) – He had eight assists for Vermont in a 73-72 loss to Iona. Four went for threes, three layups and one jumper. All the layups went to Luke Apfeld. Voelkel was the only forward to finish in the Top 10 in assists during a busy day of college basketball.

Who does more? Looking at assists

Everyone thinks they know the best way to rack up a bunch of assists: Play fast, surround yourself with a bunch of talented scorers and let the dimes pile up like Scrooge McDuck’s vault. The best playmakers though don’t just benfit from the talent around them. They also raise their teammates up. Who is doing that this season?

Let’s take a look at the top eight players in assists per game from BCS conferences and try and figure it out. The list: Kendall Marshall, North Carolina; Jordan Theodore, Seton Hall; Tim Frazier, Penn State; Vincent Council, Providence; Peyton Siva, Louisville; Myck Kabongo, Texas; Shabazz Napier, Connecticut and Junior Cadougan, Marquette.

PlayerAssistTendencies — Looking at the individual tendencies of the Top 8 BCS assist men

Marshall leads the group at 10.2 assists per game, but he’s getting a bunch of help from his teammates. Of the eight players in the survey Marshall has the highest percentage of his assists that result from jumpers at 31.4%. Combining that with the 23.5% that have resulted in threes thus far this season means he’s needed a teammate to knock down a shot 54.9% of the time.

Surprisingly, that isn’t the highest mark of the eight point guards. Drive-and-kick guards like Kabongo, Cadougan and Frazier have very high percentages of their assists result in threes. Since 56.3% of Frazier’s assists have ended up being to shooters behind the arc, he’s actually helped out in some way on almost 60% of the Nittany Lions’ points this season. Thus PSU is incredibly reliant on their junior point guard, which is probably why he’s played fewer than 34 minutes in just two games.

Frazier has another quality that makes him stand out as well; no point guard on this list spreads the ball around to different teammates as much as he does. Thus far this season Cammeron Woodyard has gotten 21.3% of Frazier’s assists. That pales in comparison to the percentage Jae Crowder has gotten from Cadougan (44.9%) or Bryce Cotton (43.8%) has received from Council.

Another player that does a good job spreading the ball around is Texas’ Kabongo and he’s a freshman. While J’Covan Brown gets 31.1% of the Canadian’s assists, six other players have also received at least eight percent.

Then there’s the fascinating case of Napier. The Connecticut point guard is 18^th in the nation in assists at 6.2 per game. The best part is a whopping 32.1% of those have gone for dunks. Consider that no other player has had more than 16.7% of their assists go for dunks (Marshall, mostly thanks to John Henson) and it’s even more stunning. That’s the benefit of playing with Andre Drummond, Alex Oriakhi and Jeremy Lamb.

Siva though tops Napier’s close basket percentage. This is a product of the Louisville system and the finishers he plays with. If it’s not a three or something near the rim Rick Pitino doesn’t want it. And really, who on the Cardinals is going to be dunking on a regular basis? That means Siva has the highest layup percentage amongst his peers at 43.5%. Interestingly enough he doesn’t have the lowest jumper percentage. That belongs to Theodore at a miniscule 6.1%. The Seton Hall point guard is putting his teammates in great positions to make plays with the basketball.

Because Marshall is relying so much on jump shots from his teammates, it’ll be interesting to see if he can sustain a double-digit assist total throughout the season. At some point the shooters are bound to go cold. Then the UNC point guard will have to rely on the pace at which the Tar Heels play and the elite finishing talent he has around him, like Henson, Tyler Zeller and Harrison Barnes, to get easy assists. He’s got enough talent to sustain it.

What about the players like Frazier, Theodore and Council that don’t have the elite talent around them? Well, Theodore (37.9% to Herb Pope) and Council (Cotton) have done a good job of identifying the elite scoring talent around them and getting the ball to those guys. Frazier doesn’t have that luxury and whether or not he can sustain the ridiculous do-everything pace he’s on going into Big Ten play remains to be seen. Still, he’s certainly a special talent that is doing more with less.

This post is going to be cross posted on College Hoops Journal.