NAIA Division 2 All-America
Court Side Newspaper is proud to bring you the 2016/2017 season NAIA Division 2 All-America Team. We base our selection process only on the advanced statistic of Player Efficiency Rating (PER). This is a one-number measure of a player’s per-minute (and per possession) productivity. It is an overall efficiency statistic that sums up a player’s positive accomplishments, subtracts the negative accomplishments, and returns a per-minute rating of a player’s performance. Until recently only the NBA used this advanced statistic. It has never been used at NAIA 2 level.
BRYAN MCGRIFF IS NAIA DIVISION 2 PLAYER OF THE YEAR
Brian McGriff, a 201 cm (6’7) forward from Eastern Oregon University, has the highest PER at NAIA D2 level with 35.2. He also averaged almost 10 rpg and 22 ppg while connecting on more than 60% his 2-point Field Goals and 40 % from three-point land. Warren Hall, an 188 cm (6’2) guard from Warner was the POY choice of the NABC, but his PER was only 24,9, which did not rank him among the top-20 in that category.
NAIA DIVISION 2 ALL-AMERICA STATISTICAL FIRST TEAM
G- Ryan Atkins, 188 cm (6’2), West Virginia Tech
G/F-Cameron Hunt, 191 cm (6’3), Southwestern
F- Kyle Steigenga, 198 cm (6’6’), Cornerstone
F/C-Kyle Solvine, 203 cm (6’8), St. Francis
F/C- Chandler Folkerts, 203 cm (6’8), Concordia
All the above players have a PER of 31 or more. Except for Kyle Steigenga, our list is very different than the NAIA Division 2 All-America as chosen by the NABC. On their list, Gerrard Newby (Union College) had the highest PER with 28,3.
RAHEEM BOWMAN IS THE “KING OF THE BOARDS.”
Raheem Bowman (210 cm, St. Thomas) was a real beast on the glass this season. He grabbed 23,8% of all available rebounds while he was on the floor. As far as traditional statistics are concerned, Jay Mayernik led the NAIA D2 with an average of 11,7 rpg but his rebounding rate was of 23% was slightly lower than that of Raheem Bowman. Why is there a difference? Because Jay Mayernik averaged more minutes per game and had more time to collect his rebounds, but Raheem Bowman was effectively more dominant at pulling down boards, at least relative to the amount of time he spent on the floor. Other dominant rebounders were Ron Henderson (198 cm, Midland) and Willie Holloway (201 cm, Thomas).
GILBERTO SHOJGREEN IS THE “BOSS OF THE BLOCK.”
Gilberto Shojgreen (203 cm, Dickinson State ) had a block percentage of 13.7%. While he is on the floor, Gilberto swats almost one in every seven opponent field-goal attempts. He also ranked 3rd in the traditional statistic of average blocked shots per game (2.4). In Block percentage, nobody came close to him.
DIFFERENT TYPE OF PASSERS
Mike Bush (170 cm, Huntington) had an assist percentage of 44.7% which means that while he was on the floor, he assisted 44.7 % of all his teammate field goals. Another player adept at “dropping dimes” was Christian Cantu (175 cm, Trinity Christian). His assist ratio was 40.7 (40.7 assists out of every 100 possessions he used). Mike Bush also led the traditional statistical ranking with an average of 10,3 assists per game.
These are just some of the advanced statistics that we have available. For more, please visit our Game Center.