2025 Player Profile - Bennett Stirtz

(February 12th) There was, last time, virtually no room for improvement in Bennett Stirtz’s profile.  He was basically maxing out every single statistic we presented, and he was even okay in a few things like rebounding and shotblocking that were outside of his general role.

That’s still just as true as it was before – in many regards no one has been better nationwide.  But in this profile, we want to highlight Stirtz’s drastic improvement in three-point efficiency, going from the 34th percentile to the 71st.  In fact, over the last month, Stirtz is shooting 44% from three-point range on a healthy volume of 4.1 attempts per game.  Shooting still likely won’t ever be his best skill, but he does appear to be an outright good shooter now without having to provide any reasoning behind his numbers.  And if that hole in his game is gone, it’s not really clear what valid complaints teams could possibly have.

(January 6th) Bennett Stirtz’s profile shows one of the most dominant players in college basketball – someone who is arguably the single best offensive player in the country (100th percentile OBPM) while also being an elite contributor on the defensive end (97th percentile).

Usually, player statistics are limited by trade-offs.  The more you score for yourself, the less you play-make for others.  The more you play-make for others, the more likely it is you turn the ball over.  The more you push towards scoring volume, the less efficient you’ll be because the extra shots you pick up tend to be of lower quality.

Stirtz’s profile only barely reflects those trade-offs.  Points vs. Assists?  He’s in the 97th percentile for both.  Assists vs. AST:TOV?  He’s in the 97th percentile for one and the 98th for the other.  Points vs. True shooting?  97th percentile for one, 98th percentile for the other.  You can technically see the slight presence of trade-offs in his slightly lower, but still elite, 88th percentile shot possessions and his 39th percentile, out of context turnover rate (Which is absolutely elite when put into context).  In the most accurate sense, though, the only thing that Stirtz is really being bound by on these is the upper limit of the percent rank distribution.  I.e. you can’t get higher than better than 100% of your peers.  And that’s a pretty phenomenal place to be.