Who Compares? Top Three Ex-Indiana Players Who Produced Like Kanaan Carlyle

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – Incoming guard Kanaan Carlyle just barely qualified for inclusion in this series. To qualify, a player had to have played at least 25 minutes per game in the 2023-24 season. Carlyle played 25.1 for Stanford.

The smaller the sample size, the harder it is to find some comparisons. Add in the fact that Carlyle didn’t play in Mike Woodson’s system and with the same caliber of teammates in 2024, and that’s another degree of difficulty.

However, Carlyle plays a common position as an off-guard, and he also has a common body type for a guard at 6-foot-3 and 185 pounds.

His role at Indiana is still to be determined. He’ll be fighting for minutes in a crowded backcourt with Myles Rice, Trey Galloway, Gabe Cupps, Jakai Newton and Anthony Leal.

So we’re going to keep our minds open on comparisons.

Tale of the tape

Carlyle’s traditional statistics: 11.5 points, 2.7 rebounds and 2.7 assists at Stanford. He converted 38.6% of his shots and 32% of his 3-point attempts. He is listed at 6-foot-3 and 185 pounds.

Carlyle’s advanced statistics, as used by sports-reference.com: Carlyle had 0.5 win shares and an 11.5 Player Efficiency Rating. He had a 27.7% usage percentage, a 19.5% assist percentage, a 6% total rebounding percentage and a minus-0.5 defensive box plus-minute rating.

Some of the advanced statistics are explained below.

Honorable mention

The traditional statistics brought a lot more “comps” than the advanced statistics did. Carlyle’s low 0.5 win share total dragged him below most of the players he compared to otherwise.

By traditional stats, Quinn Buckner ’73 is in range at 10.8 points, 2.9 assists and a 40.9% shooting percentage and he is also 6-3. Buckner was a far more effective rebounder, however.

Robert Vaden ’05 is much like Buckner in that sense. Vaden averaged 10.2 points, 2.1 assists and converted 37.6% of his shots. The freshman did average 4.3 boards per game and was two inches taller than Carlyle.

Armon Bassett ’07 was 6-foot-2 and 180 pounds, relatively close to Carlyle. Bassett and Carlyle shot an identical 38.6% from the field and were close in rebounds (2.7 for Carlyle, 2.4 for Bassett) and assists (3 for Bassett, 2.7 for Carlyle). Bassett was a better 3-point shooter (40.9%), however.

3. Verdell Jones III ‘09

Jones makes another appearance in the comparison series. Purely by statistics, Jones is a very good match. He averaged 11 points, 3.1 rebounds and 3.6 assists for Tom Crean’s 2009 Hoosiers. They also shot an almost identical 3-point percentage – Jones at 32.8%, Carlyle at 32%.

Jones is closest in win shares too at 1.1. They have a similar usage rate at 27.7% for Carlyle and 25.7% for Jones.

So why isn’t Jones higher on the list? For one thing, he’s 6-5. For another, Jones shot six percentage points better than Carlyle at 44.5% and was a much more prolific distributor. Jones had a 31.5% assist percentage. Carlyle was 19.5% at Stanford.

2. Robert Johnson ‘15

Unlike Jones and our top choice, Johnson is not a good match via traditional statistics, at least in terms of scoring. Johnson averaged 8.9 points. However, Johnson did average 2.9 rebounds and 2.3 assists, both of which are close to Carlyle’s numbers.

Advanced stats paint a closer portrait. Johnson had 1.6 win shares, a 6.3% rebounding percentage and wasn’t too far off at 15.5% assist percentage. Johnson is also nearly the same frame at 6-3 and 195 pounds and he averaged just two minutes more than Carlyle did.

1. Damon Bailey ‘91

This one surprised us. Bailey was, after all, the 1991 Big Ten Freshman of the Year. He would later be first-team All-Big Ten, but purely based on the numbers? The first seasons for Carlyle and Bailey are really tight.

Bailey averaged 11.4 points, 2.9 rebounds and 2.9 assists for the 1991 Hoosiers. Those are all within a percentage point or two off of Carlyle’s averages.

Bailey was also 6-3, though he was a bit heavier at 201 pounds.

If you think Carlyle had a larger role? The numbers don’t back that up. Carlyle and Bailey played almost an identical amount of minutes – Bailey averaged 26 minutes in 1991. Bailey was Indiana’s third-leading scorer in 1991. Carlyle was Stanford’s fourth-leading scorer last year.

There are no advanced statistics available for Bailey, but there is one important difference between him and Carlyle. Bailey was a far better shooter at 50.6% from the field and 43.4% from 3-point range. That’s a major category to separate them, but as freshmen? They were much closer than one might think.

Rules

First, the basic rules. Players will only be compared to those who played roughly the same position. There’s little point in comparing Malik Reneau to Yogi Ferrell, for example.

There’s some leeway granted to shooting guards, whether they also handled the ball or whether they were big and could play small forward. Same for power forwards, some of whom are stretch forwards, others have manned the post.

This rule is important: players are only compared to those who were the same class. Seniors-to-seniors, juniors-to-juniors, etc.

With redshirt seasons, and particularly as it relates to current players, COVID-19 amnesty seasons, some current seniors can only be compared to seniors who exhausted their eligibility in their own period of time. Xavier Johnson had three senior seasons thanks to his injury waiver season – a true man of the times.

Criteria

Current Indiana players were compared to players of the past in three different categories – traditional statistics, advanced statistics and role.

One fundamental issue is that advanced statistics are only available starting in the mid-1990s – and that’s only the most basic ones. The full menu of advanced statistics we have today were only tracked starting in the 2009-10 season.

Even the full menu of traditional statistics weren’t accurately tracked until the 1980s.

Traditional counting stats and advanced stats create differences in comps. Traditional stats are subject to minutes played.

Players were considered a “comp” if they were within two points per game in scoring or within one win share in advanced statistics.

After that, the other statistics were used to form a close comparison. A good comp also needs to be roughly the same size, though that is difficult as players have steadily grown over time. Bill Garrett was a 6-foot-3 post player in the early 1950s, for example.

Ratings explained

Win shares: An estimate of the number of wins contributed by a player via their offense and defense. The higher the number, the better.

Player Efficiency Rating: A rating created by John Hollinger in an attempt to quantify a player’s overall contribution. An average rating is 15.

Usage Percentage: An estimate of the percentage of team plays used by a player when they’re on the floor.

Assist percentage: An estimate of the percentage of teammate field goals a player assisted on where they were on the floor.

Total rebounding percentage: An estimate of the available rebounds a player grabbed when they were on the floor.

Defensive box plus-minus: A box score estimate of the defensive points per 100 possessions a player contributed to above a league-average player. The higher the number, the better.