photo by: Nick Krug

Kansas forward Carlton Bragg Jr. celebrates a late bucket by forward Landen Lucas during the second half, Saturday, March 12, 2016 at Sprint Center in Kansas City, Mo.

A look at the statistical profiles of past highly recruited power forwards who played for Bill Self at Kansas University forecasts a season of significant improvement for sophomore Carlton Bragg Jr., who showed promise in limited action as a freshman.

Bragg played fewer freshman minutes (338) than Darrell Arthur (721), Julian Wright (663), Marcus Morris (610), Markieff Morris (534) and Perry Ellis (503) and more minutes than Thomas Robinson (236).

The wide disparity in playing makes comparing game averages misleading, which is why calculating a college basketball player’s production per 40 minutes has become a popular statistic.

Since most starters play much closer to 30 than 40 minutes on average, I prefer to calculate production per 30 minutes.

Based on that measure, the most typical improvement for the talented power forwards in their second season has been in scoring, and those gains can be traced to higher field-goal percentages.

The aforementioned half-dozen Jayhawks, as a group, averaged 2.7 points per 30 minutes more in their second seasons, 0.5 more rebounds and actually averaged 0.1 assists fewer per 30 minutes.

It’s not surprising that sophomores show the biggest gains in scoring and shooting accuracy. It speaks to the struggles that even talented freshman encounter making the adjustment to the speed of the game. Night in and night out they are guarded by older, quicker players than as high school superstars, and it results in freshmen hurrying shots even when not necessary. In time, the game slows down for them, and their field-goal percentages improve.

Ellis, the Morris twins and Robinson all missed more field-goal attempts than they made as freshmen and all made far more than they missed as sophomores.

Bragg shot .561 from the field, Wright .571 and Arthur .538 as freshmen.

Provided Bragg can reduce his personal-foul frequency (5.4 per 30 minutes), he could earn about 30 minutes a game as the roster stands now. Based on his production as a freshman, if he followed the average change of the Self-recruited power forwards who preceded him, he would average 14.3 points, 8.8 rebounds and 1.4 assists, outstanding numbers and easily achievable.

A 6-foot-10 native of Cleveland, Bragg has such a soft touch he routinely gets the shooter’s bounce. He seldom shot three-pointers, making four of seven, but looked comfortable when he did. He very well could make that part of his game, improve defensively and become an all-conference player next season.