Ja'Queze Kirby

[75Fan]

I am perplexed as to why Kirby is not getting more playing time.

Kirby's Offensive Rating is 120.7 - #2 on the team. (Gilmore is #1 with 133.0)
Kirby's Defensive Rating is 78.3 - #1 on the team.

Kirby's Player Efficiency Rating is 28.3 - #1 on the team. (Williams is 27.0 and Brown's is 19.2)

Kirby's True Shooting % is 67.1 - #2 on the team. (Gilmore's is #1 with 70.5)

Kirby's Free Throw Rate is 33.3% - #7 on the team.

Kirby's ORB% is 13.4 - #2 on the team. (Williams has 11.8 and Gilmore has 10.0)

Kirby's DRB% is 31.3 - #2 on the team. (Williams has 24.2 and Gilmore has 20.3)

Kirby's AST% is 15.7 - #5 on the team and #1 among our non-guards.

Kirby's STL% is 5.1 - #1 on the team.

Kirby's BLK% is 6.4 - #1 on the team. (Robinson has 5.1, Williams has 2.6)

Bostick and Robinson have a higher TO% than Kirby.

His Box +/- is -1.0 - # 6 on the team.




If Kirby played average starter's minutes he would be on pace for 250 points - 3rd on the team.



Despite all this, Kirby has only played 1.33% of our minutes this season.


His foul rate IS the highest on the team, but the stats suggest he could give us 21 minutes of top-tier production before fouling out and this is easily worked on by watching game film and making the necessary changes to stay out of foul trouble.

IMO we are missing out by not playing him more - especially when we have a large lead.

Just my

[02Racer]

How accurate are those numbers with such a small sample size, especially with almost all of his minutes coming in garbage time?

[JoeD]

Kirby is in the same role that Gilmore plays. That is the matchup that he would see minutes.

[smidge34]

Yeah I don’t see what comparing his turnover rate with a PG really gets you either, the ball is running through the PGs hands every play, continually. It stands to reason their TO rate would be greater. You have to look at A/TOs with PGs to get an accurate picture on that.

[Tick21]

While I don’t think he’s ready for prime time minutes, as a fan, I am very curious about him. For me, I haven’t seen him enough to even determine what position he plays. He looks shorter than I thought he would be, but his athleticism is off the charts. In what little I’be seen of him, it doesn’t look like he is a very good ball handler, but in one game, the first time he touched the ball he knocked down a three without hesitation. Is he a good shooter? Truthfully, I didn’t think he probably was until I saw him shoot that three, and it’s not because it went in that makes me think he might be a pretty good shooter, but because his form on the shot looked good and he didn’t think twice about letting it fly. My guess is there is a lot of upside in his game, but his game (like many freshmen) needs some more polishing before he sees important minutes. And with bench minutes on the decline, I don’t think we’ll see much of him except at mop up time.

[JoeD]

While I don’t think he’s ready for prime time minutes, as a fan, I am very curious about him.

Yeah me too. Im excited to see what he can develop into.

[racernut69]

Yeah...if he doesn't transfer out

[JoeD]

That is a risk for everyone, every year.

[murraygrad05]

Another big factor of his playing time is that he plays the same position as a first team all OVC and considerable All American (when his shot is on) defensive machine Tevin Brown.

I don’t think his play has been that bad by any means, it’s just the luck of the draw.

[75Fan]

How accurate are those numbers with such a small sample size, especially with almost all of his minutes coming in garbage time?

Not enough minutes to prove out what I believe he can do but certainly eyebrow-raising enough to put him in some meaningful minutes, say 10 minutes against Peay, JSU, Morehead & Belmmont to see if those numbers hold true or go up or down accordingly.

[75Fan]

Yeah I don’t see what comparing his turnover rate with a PG really gets you either, the ball is running through the PGs hands every play, continually. It stands to reason their TO rate would be greater. You have to look at A/TOs with PGs to get an accurate picture on that.

It's to show that turnovers can't be the lion's share of the reason why he can't see more minutes.

[75Fan]

Yeah...if he doesn't transfer out

I see a beautiful diamond in the rough in Kirby and THIS is my biggest fear.