Doing a season in review for football was easy, at least organizationally.
Start with one position, then move to another, then another, then another. Simple as that.
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But with basketball, you have almost as many players as a football team has units. So a player-by-player rundown seemed like a good idea.
But how to structure it? In what order? Etc.
Well, the order chosen is the reverse in scoring average. As for structure, well, that will be a little better defined once we can get into guys with enough of a statistical sample size to make comparisons to the past (both inside and outside the program).
Trouble is, guys playing a dozen minutes a game don’t lend themselves to finding someone similar. So anything extended will have to wait.
Instead, such a player warrants a comparison to himself. And that’s what David Pearman receives here.
The sophomore walk-on (when a guy arrives as a walk-on, it’s always sort of OK to continue referring to him as such regardless of his scholarship situation) got into nine games this season, playing a dozen minutes.
| Year |
G-GS |
Min. |
FG |
Pts. |
Reb. |
Ast. |
| 2007-08 |
2-0 |
5 |
0-0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
| 2008-09 |
9-0 |
12 |
0-4 |
0 |
2 |
1 |
A garbage time stat-stuffer, he is not. But that’s OK, because in-game numbers aren’t really what a guy in Pearman’s role is supposed to provide.
His production can be measured in the improvement of the guys who play on the wing a decent amount.
Greivis Vasquez got better. Adrian Bowie got better. Eric Hayes probably got a little better, especially in the final month of the season. At times, it looked like Cliff Tucker got better. Ditto Sean Mosley.
So while it’s a little presumptive to say Pearman did his job, it’s probably true.
Pearman’s plus-minus for the season —- unenlightening though it is because of the limited minutes —- was +6. And here is the full rundown of how that happened:
+4: at North Carolina (Feb. 2)
+4: vs. Georgetown (Nov. 30)
+2: Bryant (Dec. 27)
0: American (Dec. 22)
0: George Washington (Dec. 7)
0: vs. Gonzaga (Nov. 28)
0: Bucknell (Nov. 14)
-2: at Duke (Jan. 24)
-2: Elon (Dec. 30)
Of course, loyal readers like to see the oddball charts they’ve come to expect here, and chances are a few of you would be disappointed if somehow there wasn’t one to illustrate something more than plus-minus about the Terps’ 12th or 13th man.
So with the help of the highly bookmarkable Terrapinstats.com, here’s one for you:
Career games before recent Maryland walk-ons scored their first basket.
Obviously, Pearman is still waiting after nine games. But that’s not entirely atypical.
So by my count, there have been seven other true walk-ons in the last dozen years, and all of them scored by their 10th game. Of course, five of them (the last five, actually) broke out for their first points in a December home game.
So, to sate whatever curiosity there is out there, here are the scoring debuts for recent Maryland walk-ons:
| Player |
Game |
Date |
Opponent |
Matt Hahn
|
1st |
11-26-96 |
Howard |
Atman Smith
|
1st |
11-26-96 |
Howard |
Norman Fields
|
2nd |
12-23-95 |
American |
| Darien Henry |
3rd |
12-23-02 |
UMBC |
Jason McAlpin
|
6th |
12-13-06 |
UMKC |
Earl Badu
|
9th |
12-11-01 |
Monmouth |
Gini Chukura
|
10th |
12-7-05 |
Western Carolina
|
Coming next (likely at some point this weekend): Steve Goins.
—- Patrick Stevens
