The Five Most Important Players to OSU’s Success This Season

The Cowboys and Mike Boynton have been on an interesting if not wild ride this season. First years can be tough but this one’s brought a new meaning to that cliche in a lot of ways. For starters, Boynton’s had to remove two rotation players from an already thin roster. But a couple of players have stepped up in a big way.

Now 20 games into the season, we’ve learned a lot about this roster and how Boynton’s rotations have shaken out — as well as how they’ve worked out.

So let’s look at the five most important players to OSU’s success so far. These aren’t all starters and there could definitely be a case made for a couple guys I left out. For this list, I started with some advanced metrics showing both usage and effectiveness and then went from there.

Here’s my five and a brief description of what each stat means below.

For reference, percentage of minutes played is just that, the percentage of available minutes a player logs per game. Possession percentage refers to the number of team possessions that end with that player (for good or bad) with a made shot, missed shot that’s not rebounded by his team or a turnover. Percentage of a team’s shots taken (while a player is on the court) paints a pretty accurate picture of a player’s usage within the offense. Box plus/minus numbers show a scoring value above or below zero while each player is on the floor and win shares represent the estimated number of wins a specific player adds to his team.

Let’s get to each player, in no particular order.

Jeffrey Carroll

This one is so obvious that I almost overlooked him. Carroll is Oklahoma State’s best player. The senior received plenty of preseason buzz as the Big 12’s leading returning scorer but had to miss some time early and struggled to find his rhythm once he did see the court.

He’s also had to adjust to life without a dynamic playmaker like Jawun Evans to play off of and to being numero uno on every opposing team’s scouting report.

Carroll saw his possession percentage jump from 22.6 percent behind Evans to 26.7 percent so far in 2017-18. And his percentage of shots taken went from 24.9 (a hair above Thomas Dziagwa) last year to 28.9.

Bonus point: Jawun took 33.1 percent of OSU’s available shots when he was on the floor last year. That’s the highest at OSU since KenPom started keeping track of that stat all the way back to the 2001-02 season. The only other Cowboy to ever take over 30 percent of those shots was James Anderson at 31.3 in 2009-10.

I’d be lying if I said Carroll has played up to my expectations or what I think his potential is from an efficiency standpoint — his field goal percentage dropped from 54 percent to 41 percent and from 44 to 30 percent on 3s — but the effort is there and he’s able to light it up on any given night. The Cowboys will only go as far as their most talented player can take them.

Kendall Smith

The graduate transfer walked into Stillwater with a starting point guard job in-hand but after a 1-3 stretch to start Big 12 play, Smith was relegated to a backup role behind sophomore Brandon Averette.

But Smith didn’t pout and according to Boynton even came to his head coach looking for instruction on how to get better. It paid off for the senior — and for OSU — as Smith provided a huge spark off in his third game off of the bench. With 20 points on 16 shots including two end-of-half buzzer beaters, Smith helped lift the Cowboys past Oklahoma. He’s still a massive part of this team’s success.

Brandon Averette

Averette usurped Smith in the starting lineup ahead of the Texas game and has not disappointed with his increased minutes load. He’s probably the better defender between the two point guards (although box plus/minus numbers are even) and has a higher assist rate (25.9 percent).

Averette probably doesn’t have the scoring potential that Smith boasts but he’s been effective in the short game with an improving Jawun-lite floater and has shown the ability to know down a 3-pointer when called upon.

It’s also important to point out that Boynton’s gone small a lot. His second-most used lineup over the last five games features both Smith and Averette playing off of each other with Jeffrey Carroll, Lindy Waters and Mitchell Solomon.

Tavarius Shine

Maybe the biggest addition to Mike Boynton’s roster was someone who has been in Stillwater for four years. A back injury and ensuring surgery limited Shine to just six games last season. But after a tough and speedy recovery, the wing has had an impressive start to his junior season.

Shine is the Cowboys’ second-leading scorer and has scored in double digits in six of the last eight games. He’s No. 2 in win shares, first in offensive box plus/minus, second in defensive plus/minus and second in net plus/minus.

By both usage and effectiveness, Shine has been OSU’s most versatile player and definitely one of its most important. Having him back next year will be huge for Boytnon who will say goodbye to Mitchell Solomon, Jeffrey Carroll and Kendall Smith at the end of this season.

Mitchell Solomon

Solomon was declared the team MVP back in November by his head coach. But that wasn’t just a kind gesture aimed at a veteran leader, and Solomon’s more than just a glue guy. The senior is Oklahoma State’s best player on defense and his defensive box plus/minus is No. 5 in the Big 12.

Solomon’s offensive rebounding percentage (13.7 percent) is No. 2 in the league this year. Last year he led the conference and was No. 2 in the country. He leads the team in win shares and plus/minus while taking only 13.9 percent of the team’s shots. For reference, only Yankuba Sima and Lucas N’Guessan take a lower percentage of shots when on the floor.

Intangibles do matter and Solomon has proven invaluable in the box score as well as in the locker room.