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The first couple of days of looking at players comparable to current Musketeers were enjoyable and interesting. Today we will look at the team's rising seniors, which has turned out to be a little bit more challenging. I mean, what do you do to find analogous players to a guy who can score but doesn't seem to be dead set on doing so and a former pick-and-pop four who has reinvented himself as the immovable object in the middle against which stoppable forces find themselves dashed? Start with the big man, I guess.
Aside from feasting on UC like he was built in a lab for just that purpose, James Farr had a pretty forgettable offensive season on his way to 4.2/5.3/0.4 on .427/.289/.469 shooting. Your friend and mine Ken Pomeroy struggled to come up with good comps for Big Game James, largely because you don't usually find someone who rebounds like he does but still shoots so many threes and has so much trouble scoring around the basket. The top two comps were Grandy Glaze, who missed his senior year due to a shoulder injury, and Eric Moreland, who declared for the draft after his junior season. Beyond those two guys, what you're about to read are the three closest things to James Farr that college ball has seen in the KenPom Era:
The best comparison: Steve Zack, La Salle (807)
| Season | GP | MPG | PPG | RPG | APG | FG% | 3FG% | FT% | BPG | SPG |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Freshman | 32 | 9.5 | 1.4 | 2.2 | 0.5 | 36.4 | 0.0 | 54.5 | 0.5 | 0.1 |
| Sophomore | 27 | 22.3 | 6.4 | 6.4 | 1.0 | 54.5 | 0.0 | 71.1 | 1.3 | 0.3 |
| Junior | 31 | 30.3 | 8.8 | 9.5 | 0.9 | 47.4 | 0.0 | 69.2 | 1.9 | 0.4 |
| Senior | 33 | 31.2 | 8.6 | 9.2 | 1.8 | 44.6 | 16.7 | 68.4 | 1.8 | 0.7 |
If you've been following along, you know that 807 is not a very solid comparison score. In fact, it's pretty tenuous, but it's what we have. Zack was a solid performer in the A-10, but he never really grew into the focal point of the Explorers' attack. He could really rebound and he was capable of stepping out and shooting it a little bit, but his game on the post was not such that you could throw him the ball and let him go to work.
The paint monster: Marshall Moses, Oklahoma State (807)
| Season | GP | MPG | PPG | RPG | APG | FG% | 3FG% | FT% | BPG | SPG |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Freshman | 23 | 6.0 | 1.5 | 0.8 | 0.1 | 51.9 | 33.3 | 50.0 | 0.2 | 0.1 |
| Sophomore | 32 | 19.5 | 7.0 | 6.1 | 0.3 | 56.2 | 0.0 | 63.0 | 0.5 | 0.1 |
| Junior | 32 | 24.5 | 8.8 | 8.1 | 0.8 | 52.1 | 0.0 | 62.9 | 0.4 | 0.6 |
| Senior | 34 | 29.6 | 14.1 | 7.3 | 1.0 | 55.7 | 50.0 | 72.9 | 0.4 | 0.6 |
After a promising sophomore campaign, Marshall Moses sort of stagnated at that same (still fairly productive) level as a junior. Then he exploded as a senior thanks to getting a few more minutes and a few more touches. Realistically, James may get a few more minutes this year, but the touches are not likely to come.
Nope: Mike Moser, Oregon (805)
| Season | GP | MPG | PPG | RPG | APG | FG% | 3FG% | FT% | BPG | SPG |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Freshman | 15 | 4.7 | 0.6 | 0.5 | 0.3 | 20.0 | 9.1 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.2 |
| Sophomore | 35 | 31.4 | 14.0 | 10.5 | 2.3 | 45.0 | 33.1 | 78.0 | 1.0 | 1.9 |
| Junior | 28 | 21.3 | 7.1 | 6.1 | 1.4 | 36.9 | 26.7 | 76.0 | 0.7 | 0.8 |
| Senior | 34 | 28.4 | 13.2 | 7.7 | 1.6 | 45.9 | 37.8 | 76.7 | 0.7 | 1.1 |
Moser was a top recruit out of high school, but he transferred after just one year at UCLA. Then he transferred again as a grad student to end his career at Oregon. The reason his stats as a junior are superficially similar to Farr's is because he was playing through an elbow problem, namely that the elbow kept dislocating. Unless James has been nursing a severe injury we don't know about since about a third of the way through his sophomore year, I don't think Moser is a solid comparison for him.
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What of James Farr then? He's not really like any of these guys, as evidenced by their low comparison scores. Instead, he's a massive center who doesn't protect the rim quite as well as you might hope but makes up for it by being one of the nation's best rebounders. He's a former pick-and-pop guy who doesn't seem quite sure what to do with himself on offense when his jumper goes south. I guess what I'm saying is that, when you watch James Farr this season, enjoy the fact that you're seeing one of the era's unique college basketball players finish out his career at Xavier.