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Texas Tech basketball: Examining whether Kyler Edwards has improved this year

By Matthew Conner

LUBBOCK, TEXAS - NOVEMBER 24: Guard Kyler Edwards #0 of the Texas Tech Red Raiders flexes after scoring through a foul during the second half of the college basketball game against the LIU Sharks on November 24, 2019 at United Supermarkets Arena in Lubbock, Texas. (Photo by John E. Moore III/Getty Images)
LUBBOCK, TEXAS - NOVEMBER 24: Guard Kyler Edwards #0 of the Texas Tech Red Raiders flexes after scoring through a foul during the second half of the college basketball game against the LIU Sharks on November 24, 2019 at United Supermarkets Arena in Lubbock, Texas. (Photo by John E. Moore III/Getty Images) /
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Starting for the first time this year, sophomore Kyler Edwards numbers are up across the board but is he a better player for the Texas Tech basketball team than he was in year one?

They say that the greatest jump any college athlete makes, regardless of the sport, comes in his sophomore season thanks to a year of experience and all those extra months in the weight room.  That’s why so many expected Kyler Edwards to be a star this season.

The Arlington, Texas native had a promising freshman year that saw him average 5.5 points off the bench last year.  He was especially solid towards the end of the year when he gave Tech his best basketball of the season during the NCAA Tournament.

That included 12 big points, his second-most in a game last year, against Virginia in the National Title game.  Therefore, we all thought he was ready to become this program’s next sophomore star a la Jarrett Culver and Davide Moretti who both increases their scoring by around seven points per game in their second year as Red Raiders.

But thus far, Edwards just hasn’t been the type of driving force that most expected him to be.  Don’t get me wrong, he’s been solid.  But it is fair to wonder whether he’s appreciably better than he was a season ago.

Because his minutes per game have gone from 17.8 to 31.7, his stats are increased in almost every category that matters.  He’s averaging 9.8 points, 4.9 rebounds, and 3.5 assists which are nice numbers.

Still, he’s yet to truly take over a game the way we thought he might have to as one of only two rotations pieces from last year to return.  Rather, he’s been the model of consistency as he’s scored no fewer than six points and no more than 14.  He’s had six double-digit games out of 11 with all of them coming in a row beginning with the Houston Baptist game and ending with the OT loss to DePaul.

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To illustrate how much of a secondary piece hie’s been on offense, just think about the fact that he scored just 9 points in Tech’s upset of Louisville.  Entering this year, if we had been told that Tech would knock off the No. 1 team in the nation on a neutral court without Jahmi’us Ramsey, we would have thought that Edwards would have had to of played a much larger role than he did.

When you break his stats down by averages per minute, it becomes clear that he’s essentially been the same player as he was in 2018-19.

This year, he’s averaging 0.3 points per minute, exactly the same that he averaged last year.  He’s grabbing 0.15 boards per game, up slightly from the 0.12 he averaged as a freshman.  And his assists sit at 0.11 as compared to 0.06 from last season.

When we dive into some deeper analytics, the question of whether he’s improved continues to be worth considering.

His offensive rating, an estimation of the points he would either score or produce for his team per 100 possessions, has fallen from 102.9 last year to 93.6.  Likewise, in offensive box plus/minus, which is an estimation of how many points more or less than the average player on the average team in the nation, is well below last year.  He’s contributing 0.8 points less per 100 possessions than the average player whereas as a freshman he averaged 0.9 points more per 100 possessions.

It all extrapolates out to an average of 12.4 points, 6.2 rebounds, and 4.5 assists per 40 minutes this year versus 12.3 points, 5.0 rebounds, and 2.5 assists per 40 minutes last season.  What’s more, his turnovers per 40 minutes have increased to 2.6 after being at 1.9 in 2018-19.

The reality is that Edwards has been far less efficient this year with the ball in his hands.  His usage percentage (the percent of offensive plays for this team that end with him shooting, assisting, or turning the ball over) is up about 3% so he should have markedly better scoring and assist numbers per 40 minutes but he does not.

That’s because he’s shooting just 34.9% from the floor after being a 41.3% shooter in his debut season.  And perhaps most disappointing is that he’s relying even more heavily on the 3-point shot this year.  That’s an area where we hoped he would improve because as players mature, they figure out how to get more offense off the dribble, which is a key for a guard.

But so far, 49.5% of his shots from the field have been 3s.  That’s up from 40.1% a year ago.  The problem is he’s making only 24.1% of those looks which is surprising given that he shot 44.9% from deep last year.

This isn’t to suggest that Kyler Edwards isn’t a good player.  In fact, his wins shares per 40 minutes, an estimation of how many wins a player contributes to per 40 minutes when compared to the average player, is at 0.111, which is above the standard average of 0.100.

But so far, we haven’t seen the type of improvements from Edwards that we did in the sophomore years of Jarrett Culver and Davide Moretti in 2018-19.  But what is exciting to think about is where this team could go if the light does come on.  I still believe there is another level to Edwards’ game and if he can get there this season, the Red Raiders will be hell to deal with come March.

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