Hokepoints: Leaders of the Class

Left: Harrison [Clay Jackson]. Center: [Fuller]. Right: Ennis and Jordan [Nate Shron/Getty]

Just about the most closely watched thing of this basketball season, right after McGary's clinical charts and forwards moving backwards on contact, has been the play of Derrick Walton. Reasons: here played Trey Burke, a couple of disappointing performances in the late non-conf schedule, Trey Burke used to play that spot, and because we read his recruiting profile and thought hey, freshman Trey Burke!

This weekend we got a chance to see Walton play against another of the highly rated point guards from his class. Granted, Bronson Koenig was on the floor for all of four minutes on Saturday, but that's 240 unheard-of seconds on a Bo Ryan team. It was also excuse enough to compare Walton's learning curve so far to the other 2013-14 freshman PGs.

Here's the class:

*star ratings from ESPN, Rivals, and Scout, respectively
**average national positional ranking from sites that ranked as a PG

The sites were in agreement that Walton belonged at the top of the consensus 4-stars; nobody threatened to add a fifth. I see one real standout above who isn't Just a Shooter™ at this stage. The closest comparisons around him are either riding bench or nearly a half-foot taller. Here's a closer look at those from above who've started at least a third of their team's games at PG:

I don't know how to read that except Tyler Ennis (NTTE) is pretty good, and 1.42 assists for every turnover isn't good but at least it's in line with two (Harrison and Jordan) of the four consensus 5-stars in his class. Mock drafts have Ennis from the end of the lottery to near the end of the first round. It is not freshman Trey Burke, nor does that show a guy whose role is dishing it to an array of sophomore scorers. Part of that is not having McGary to flip to inside for an easy two-from-the-elbow, part of that is the Stauskas-LeVert pick-and-roll game only asks Derrick to be a viable three-pointer threat on the opposite perimeter. But I can't hide my own disappointment that Walton has yet to find the keys to engage Lottery Pick Glenn Robinson.

Let's dig deeper into those things after…

[The Jump]

Level of Competition

The biggest knock-like-thing regarding Walton has been he's yet to make a major impact on a big game. He had two points and two assists against Wisconsin, a point and an assist versus Arizona, and seven points and one helper against Duke. You have to go back to Puerto Rico to find him taking more than nine shots, and since his seven vs. Coppin State he hasn't cracked four assists. That has a lot to do with Stauskas and LeVert keying the offense of late of course. But a lot of times usage is dictated by how the defense plays you, so it's valuable to see how other guys in his position fared against the same. Rather than make up new metrics I thought we'd eyeball how other blue chip true freshman PGs did against Michigan's tourney-likely opponents:

Player	Date	Result	Min	ORtg	Pts	A	TO	Stl	PF
Walton	Dec 14	L, 72-70	14	36	1	1	1	0	2
Williams-Goss (Wash)	Jan 4	L, 71-62	37	77	9	4	3	0	2
Player	Date	Result	Min	ORtg	Pts	A	TO	Stl	PF
Walton	Jan 18	W, 77-70	31	85	2	2	0	0	0
Kasey Hill (Florida)	Nov 12	L, 59-53	29	49	4	4	2	1	5
R. Jordan (StJohns)	Nov 8	L, 86-75	24	71	6	3	3	0	5
Player	Date	Result	Min	ORtg	Pts	A	TO	Stl	PF
Walton	Nov 22	W, 82-80	34	112	15	6	3	0	1
Roddy Peters (Md)	Jan 12	L, 85-61	19	69	7	1	3	2	1
Player	Date	Result	Min	ORtg	Pts	A	TO	Stl	PF
Walton	Dec 3	L, 79-69	26	75	7	1	3	0	1
Anthony Barber (NCSt)	Jan 18	L, 95-60	31	73	7	3	4	1	1
Player	Date	Result	Min	ORtg	Pts	A	TO	Stl	PF
Walton	Jan 2	W, 63-60	30	108	7	4	1	1	3
Bryson Scott (Purdue)	Jan 5	L, 82-79	13	86	6	1	2	1	5
Tyler Ennis (Syracuse)	Nov 25	W, 75-67	32	121	12	5	0	5	3
Player	Date	Result	Min	ORtg	Pts	A	TO	Stl	PF
Walton	Dec 21	W, 68-65	21	73	4	1	1	0	2
Williams-Goss (Wash)	Jan 18	L, 79-67	35	139	17	6	1	1	2

Note: Kasey Hill didn't play vs Florida State. Conner Frankamp had 1 minute vs Iowa State and Duke. Those games have been left off of the above.

So good: the other freshmen haven't been doing much against these teams either, with again the exception of Ennis. Also note the guards in foul trouble against Wisconsin (five fouls apiece) to none for Derrick. In Florida's case they were running a very raw Kasey Hill out there when senior starter Scottie Wilbekin was suspended, and played aggressively, getting Traevon Jackson to turn it over five times, and Dekker four. The St. John's game was the season opener, and Rysheed Jordan's first NCAA game.

That's what most popped out at me above: the differences between November numbers and January. That shouldn't be surprising: a freshman is supposed to get better as he gets more comfortable keying the offense and adjusts to the speed of the college game. So is Derrick's adjustment the same as his peers?

Trend Lines

Dark blue lines are Walton's games:

Better than. The top part just shows performance versus non-dregs, the second chart includes all games. Walton has a very positive trendline; the average of the others seems to not have moved so much. In fact it looks like Walton's ORtg has been steadily rising from average 4-star's to average 5-star's since the beginning of the season.

The assist-to-turnover tracking tells a similar story except Walton starts way back and has now climbed back among the average 4-star guys:

His 1:1 performance for the first six games of his career is still dragging that down. Like batting average charts, ATOr is going to be bouncy at first and less and less volatile as each game is a smaller percentage of the total.

On the ball

One thing your bloggers have been hammering about Walton is since he isn't, like Burke was, responsible for making the offense run, he can blow his energy on defense. Walton seems to be a guy with plus defensive skills, but at times he looks lost out there when it comes to switching. This is crude but we can compare how opponent point guards have fared against Michigan this year versus the rest of their schedules:

*SC State's freshman PG Jalen White didn't play vs M, is now starting.
**FSU started Devon Bookert at PG, but Ian Miller, their starting PG, played 37 minutes.
† Avg opponents' ORtgs are weighted by # of minutes Walton played vs. that team.

So on the whole Walton's been worse than the average defenders his opponents have faced. But in 10/17 games the guy across from him didn't hit his average ORtg; A/TO victories were just 8/17. It's that when he was bad—Nebraska, Holy Cross, Duke—he was really bad. After Arizona, in which Walton logged just 14 minutes, Ace charted up the possessions to determine Michigan was better off with Spike at the point.

Since then Walton's minutes have climbed back up to the low thirties. Justin Burrell had a huge day against Walton (as did Coppin State's Taariq Cephas earlier in the year), however the next game Minnesota's same-sized Deandre Mathieu was shut down; also the Hollinses were 4/19. Then Northwestern, versus larger clunker Jershon Cobb, was his best game yet (EDIT: Tai Webster is a low sample size; ignore). There is no pattern. There is only erratica.

Last week he mostly fell off the scoresheet again. Tim Frazier eviscerated him more than most, but Tim Frazier eviscerates freshman PGs. Traevon Jackson was fairly held in check.

We'll keep a lookout for a sign of a breakout, but at the moment I think it's fair to say Walton is a work in progress, which is exactly where he should be.