Player Feature: Antonio Pena: The Next Curtis Sumpter?

Antonio Pena - Forward - #0 - RS Freshman

Ht: 6'8
Wt: 235lbs
From: Brooklyn, NY
School: St. Thomas More (CT)
Key Stats: 5.3ppg - 2.8rpg in 11mpg - .4923EFF/M (4th on Team)

Background: Antonio Pena comes to Villanova from St. Thomas More in Connecticut where he prepped after a ballyhooded career at Lincoln Highschool in Brookyln, NY. While at Lincoln High, Pena was a key player on the famed Sebastian Telfair teams. He has a several cameos in the movie "Through the Fire" in various game highlights where he can be seen dunking the ball on the fast break wearing #41. He was listed as the #75 overall prospect in the 2006 graduating class and given a 4 star recruit ranking by Rivals.com

Villanova: Pena came into Villanova in August of 2006 and it was decided that he would be redshirted after he experienced a nagging minor knee injury that required surgery. He took the redshirt year to expand his game and get even stronger than he already was. The redshirt year paid off.

Pena began the 2007-2008 season a bit shaky but in the month of December he posted averages of 8.7 ppg and 3.7 rpg in 15mpg shooting 61% from the field. These numbers have translated into great efficiency ratings for the month of December: 10.000 EFF and .6742 EFF/M (just behind team EFF/M leader Casiem Drummond) . His minutes should increase significantly with the extended loss of Villanova's starting Center Casiem Drummond. So far this season Pena has shown great finishing ability, constantly dunking the ball whenever he is even close to the rim, something that Villanova has not had in recent seasons. I absolutely love Pena's post game and Coach Wright is beginning to showcase his skills more as evidenced by the various post up plays called for Pena in the LaSalle game. Pena is a do it all type combo forward in the Curtis Sumpter or Ryan Gomes mold and his contributions will be key to the success of this season's team.

Comparisons: I have been looking at Pena's stats closely this season and decided to compare them to Curtis Sumpter's freshman year to get a feel for how well he is progressing. I plan to keep this comparison going throughout Big East play (I will update this article periodically). So far the comparison is quite telling:

Sumpter's Freshman Year:
31 Games: 6.2PPG, 4.12 RPG on 43% from the field 6.806 EFF .3588 EFF/M

Pena's Freshman Year:
11 Games Overall: 5.3 PPG 2.8RPG 5.818EFF .4923 EFF/M
For 6 Games in December: 8.7PPG, 3.7RPG 61% and 10.000EFF .6742 EFF/M

Pena is actually more efficient thus far than Curtis Sumpter was as a freshman, if he keeps his play up he has a chance to be a great forward during his career here.

Season Stat Projections: Pena has been very good in limited minutes thus far and he figures to pick up many of the front court minutes that were left behind by Casiem Drummond 's injury in addition to his usual role of backing up Dante Cunningham. Based on this I expect Pena to get about 17-20 minutes per game and continue his highly efficient play. He is currently scoring .4818 points per minute and grabbing .2545 rebounds per minute based on his season stats. Using this we can project his contributions to be near 8.1ppg and 4.3 rpg in 17+ minutes per game for the rest of the season while keeping his efficiency toward the top of the team rankings.