Kyle Bowen: The Blueprint On Mastering The Intangibles And Knowing Your Role
How do you measure the ability of a player who does not excel in traditional statistical categories? This is the dilemma author Michael Lewis looks to unpack in his 2009 New York Times article “The No Stats All-Star.” The Odysseus of this analytical epic is Shane Battier, a long-time NBA role player with the Memphis Grizzlies, Houston Rockets, and Miami Heat.
The 6–7 wing was the quintessential glue guy, combining above-average defense with astute shot selection and accurate three-point shooting en route to a 13-year career and a pair of NBA titles. Players like Battier are easy to overlook because often it feels like they are just there, another body on the court neither benefiting nor harming their team.
Lewis summarizes this sentiment, declaring:
Battier’s game is a weird combination of obvious weaknesses and nearly invisible strengths. When he is on the court, his teammates get better, often a lot better, and his opponents get worse — often a lot worse. He may not grab huge numbers of rebounds, but he has an uncanny ability to improve his teammates’ rebounding. He doesn’t shoot much, but when he does, he takes only the most efficient shots. He also has a knack for getting the ball to teammates who are in a position to do the same, and he commits few turnovers. On defense, although he routinely guards the N.B.A.’s most prolific scorers, he significantly reduces their shooting percentages. At the same time he somehow improves the defensive efficiency of his teammates.
Ironically enough, Shane Battier was a collegiate star at Duke. The 6–7 wing averaged nearly 20 points/game his senior season and led a Blue Devils team with five future NBA players to an NCAA Championship game victory.
The Memphis Grizzlies selected the consensus First Team All-American with the 6th overall pick in the 2001 NBA Draft. As a rookie, Battier earned NBA All-Rookie First Team honors while scoring 14.4 PPG — a scoring benchmark he would never reach again in his NBA career. Despite playing 30 minutes per game for the rest of his career, Battier’s best year in terms of rebounds, assists, and even steals also came in his debut season.
Thus, the moniker “The No Stats All-Star” was born. Battier thrived in the NBA by shunning traditional statistical success, instead focusing on the team’s triumphs. Toiling in such a manner is a thankless trade as one becomes almost invisible on both ends of the court.
“Gritty, not pretty” is another phrase that could describe Battier’s selfless game. The motto was a term coined by Saint Mary’s College guard Logan Johnson during the 2021–22 season to characterize the Gaels’ slow, grinding style of play that, while often not pleasing to the eye, was effective. SMC earned five seeds in the 2022 and 2023 NCAA Tournament — the best in school history — as the team methodically broke down opponents during their 40 minutes on the court.
At the heart of these Saint Mary’s teams was forward Kyle Bowen, a high-effort player who took this combination of offensive infrequency and defensive prowess even further last year. In 33.5 minutes per game for the Gaels in 2022–23, Bowen attempted an average of 4.5 field goals to the tune of 5.3 PPG, causing some to doubt why opponents would even guard him on the court.
Yet Bowen was the best defender in the West Coast Conference by any statistical measure: defensive box plus-minus, defensive rating, and defensive win shares.
One of the most unsung players in college basketball, the Australian amassed a 90–34 record during four years in Moraga, CA. Here’s how Kyle Bowen exemplified the role of “The No Stats All-Star” during his tenure at Saint Mary’s.
Role players were not always secondary guys, but at some point, there is a shift. The talent around them gets better, and they must survive by carving out a role. From then on, the value of these auxiliary athletes is primarily found not in the points they score but rather in their other contributions on the hardwood: deflections, charges drawn, securing loose balls — stats that do not show up in the box score but are often reflected in the final scoreline.
Kyle Bowen was once a star for the underage Australia National Basketball Teams, averaging 13 points and 10 rebounds per game at the Asia Cup for the U-18 side and once scoring 36 points in an Under-17 Oceania Championships semifinal.
The Aussie transformed his game in Moraga, CA, becoming a high-effort defensive menace who made the team better when he was on the floor. The 6–8 big man finished his career with more rebounds than points, often avoiding the box score altogether. Bowen was scoreless in five games during the 22–23 season, even finishing one without attempting a field goal (although he did miss two free throws). Yet the Gaels were 4–1 in these contests.
Despite Bowen’s lack of scoring (just 5.3 PPG), EvanMiya’s Bayesian Performance Rating considered the Aussie the 43rd most valuable men’s college basketball player in the country during the 2022–23 season. EvanMiya also ranked the Gael lineup of Augustas Marciulionis, Logan Johnson, Alex Ducas, Kyle Bowen, and Mitchell Saxen as the best quintet in the nation in terms of adjusted efficiency margin.
Bowen saved his most impactful performance for the First Round of the 2023 NCAA Tournament. The senior forward finished with 4 points on 1–6 shooting to go with four rebounds, two blocks, two steals, and a pair of assists — hardly a noteworthy state line. Yet the Aussie led the Gaels with a plus-minus of +17 in the 38 minutes he was on the floor.
To truly understand his on-court impact, we will go beyond the box score and pivot to the film.
A Knack For Being In The Right Spot
While teammate Logan Johnson — with his quick hands and penchant for highlight-reel blocks, won West Coast Conference Defensive Player of the Year in 22–23 — Kyle Bowen led the Gaels and the WCC in Defensive Box Plus-Minus.
Though Bowen is a sound rebounder and did lead the team in the Hakeem stat (blocks plus steals), many of his contributions do not show up in the box score. Among these are deflections and drawing charges.
In the first half alone Against VCU, Bowen totaled three deflections out of bounds, nabbed a pair of steals, drew a charge (should have been two), blocked a shot, and forced a jump ball. This all occurred without the veteran big man scoring a point.
First Half
His impact was felt in the very early minutes of the game. On the third SMC possession, Bowen grabbed an Alex Ducas miss that caromed toward the far corner. Dribbling out, he found Aidan Mahaney up top for a wide-open three.
Mahaney missed the shot, and the Rams were on the run the other way. Bowen was one of the first players back in transition and expertly read the potential 3v2, sliding and blocking the shot at the rim by VCU’s Brandon Johns.
A few seconds later, the Aussie found himself with the ball at the free-throw line. He faked the pass to Mahaney on the wing and fed the ball to an open Mitchell Saxen down low, who could not finish the opportunity.
Bowen generated three impactful plays, with only a block and an offensive rebound appearing in the box score. The Australian continued his work on the boards before the first media timeout, corralling another Ducas miss before dishing to Mahaney, who also could not find the bottom of the net.
While not a prevalent playmaker, Bowen found open shooters throughout the first half. On a rare drive, three defenders converged around the Gaels’ big man, who passed to an open Ducas behind the arc. Again, his Aussie companion could not convert.
Bowen’s efforts on the offensive end did not lead to points, but he continued his dogged defense to keep the Gaels in the game.
The forward drew a charge to start the proceedings. Then, in four minutes in the second stanza of the half, the scraggly senior made a series of plays that would make Battier himself proud.
The sequence began with Bowen diving on the floor to force a jump ball to keep possession for the Gaels.
Then came a key help-side deflection to prevent what would have been an easy layup, with the shaggy-haired Gael popping up from the weak side to send the ball out of bounds.
He followed that effort up with some gritty work on the offensive glass, forcing the defender to misplay the rebound — again earning the Gaels an extra possession.
Kyle Bowen’s third deflection of the half prevented another open layup. The Australian hedged the VCU screen, then dropped quickly to tip away the pass before it could reach the awaiting Rams big man.
On the next defensive possession, Bowen twice thwarted the VCU attack by getting his hands on the ball. The first came defending a much quicker Rams guard. The Saint Mary’s senior did well to move his feet and beat the driving Jayden Nunn to the baseline, then seized the ball for a near-steal before stepping out of bounds.
After the inbounds play, VCU’s Brandon Johns posted up on Bowen. Johns backed down the Aussie but could not outmuscle him, and Bowen ripped the ball away Aidan Mahaney picked up the loose sphere, and the Gaels embarked on a rare fastbreak that resulted in a Logan Johnson dunk.
Sandwiched in between all of Bowen’s defensive exertion was his first assist of the afternoon. Off an inbounds play, Bowen initially set the screen for Ducas at the free-throw line and then rolled toward the low post. He received the entry pass from Logan Johnson, taking one dribble to post up before picking out a wide-open Ducas from behind the arc.
Bowen’s final contribution of the half was another textbook demonstration of his footwork, cutting off the drive and forcing an errant pass that Alex Ducas picked off.
Saint Mary’s went in halftime with just a one-point lead over the underdog VCU Rams, but not because of Kyle Bowen’s efforts. He consistently disrupted play on the defense end, and on offense, he earned extra possessions for his squad while setting up quality looks for his teammates.
Second Half
The second period was an offensive explosion for the defensive specialist. Bowen made his only field goal of the game and hit a pair of free throws, nearly propelling him to his season average of 5.3 PPG.
That lone basket came as Saint Mary’s still looked to find its offensive rhythm in the second half. Bowen’s defense overextended on the closeout, and the big man used a rare burst of acceleration to beat his opponent off the dribble and attack the tin. The blatant bump from behind turned what would have been a certain dunk into a mere layup, but it gave the Aussie an and-one opportunity.
Bowen kept the scorekeepers busy, as 90 seconds later, he recorded his second assist. This one was a freebie, as a VCU defended misjudged a long, contested pass by Augustas Marciulionis, allowing Bowen to find Mitchell Saxen wide open underneath the basket for an uncontested dunk.
Bowen’s statistical impact from that point on was minimal: an offensive rebound, a block, a steal, and a made free throw. But the Gaels slowly built their lead, and their final 12-point margin of victory represented a game played in Kyle Bowen’s style: slow and deliberate yet a suffocating and inescapable grind.
The Saint Mary’s big man saved his quintessential play until late in the second half. Mitchell Saxen contested and tipped up a missed Alex Ducas three-pointer. Bowen, sensing the carom, dashed in from the far corner, corralling the contested ball in the center of the paint. The forward took one dribble toward the wing before executing a dribble handoff with Ducas.
The move functioned flawlessly. Bowen screened Ducas’ man, and the VCU defense was slow to rotate, leaving Ducas with an open lane to the rim. The senior wing made the contested finish off the glass through contact and nailed the ensuing free throw.
The and-one gave the Gaels an insurmountable 11-point lead with a little over six minutes remaining and encapsulated Bowen’s immense value to this team.
How many players track down an offensive rebound from the opposite side of the court, then, recognizing their shortcomings, set up a teammate rather than go up with a shot in the lane?
In short, it is a sense of knowing where to be and what to do, of playing within yourself and for the team. Players with an aptitude for unselfishness raise the sum of the parts around them while seemingly doing very little themselves. The presence and proper usage of such athletes strongly correlate with teams not just winning basketball games but obtaining championships.
“There is a tension, peculiar to basketball,” author Michael Lewis writes, “between the interests of the team and the interests of the individual. The game continually tempts the people who play it to do things that are not in the interest of the group. The player, in his play, faces choices between maximizing his own perceived self-interest and winning. The choices are sufficiently complex that there is a fair chance he doesn’t fully grasp that he is making them.”
Players like Kyle Bowen and Shane Battier have overcome the urge to play selfishly and in doing so, uncovered a basketball nirvana — a land free from the constraints of box scores, where winning as the team is the ultimate and only objective.
Even in such a numbers-driven sport, we struggle to categorize the importance of a player with such low visibility on the court. They contribute in ways that cannot be tracked in the basic box score and are not even fully understood by modern analytics.
This type of player, “seems one step ahead of the analysts,” Lewis says, “helping the team in all sorts of subtle, hard-to-measure ways that appear to violate his own personal interest.” This idea of fortifying the team through incalculable actions is best summarized by former Houston Rockets general manager and current president of basketball operations for the Philadelphia 76ers, Daryl Morey.
“I call him Lego,” Morey says of Shane Battier, in a comparison that could easily extend to Kyle Bowen, “When he’s on the court, all the pieces start to fit together.”
As with a grouping of Lego pieces neatly combined to hide the connecting holes and nubs, the on-court chemistry of a productive lineup is inconspicuous.
In Saint Mary’s First Round NCAA Tournament game against VCU in March 2023, Kyle Bowen played 38 minutes, scoring four points, and grabbing a couple of rebounds, yet led the team with a plus/minus of +17 in a do-or-die contest.
Mitchell Saxen and Alex Ducas led the way that day with 17 points apiece, Logan Johnson added 12 points, while Augustas Marciulionis chipped in 13 more off the bench. This balanced blueprint worked all season for the Gaels, who finished the year at 27–8.
Saint Mary’s enters 2023–24 ranked 65th in Bart Torvik’s Projected Effective Talent Metric. The team moves on from key glue guys in Bowen and Johnson — both of whom graduated and turned pro. Yet the Gaels begin the season at #23 in the AP Poll.
As important as Bowen and Johnson were, the beauty of building a balanced team means that any individual is replaceable. This duo makes way for Marciulionis and big man Joshua Jefferson — who will lead a new group of role players in Moraga, CA. The pieces are different, but expect the fit to stay the same.
There are always going to be role players that no one remembers — the Kyle Bowens and Shane Battiers of basketball. As statistical anomalies in an era driven by analytics on one end and highlight-reel plays on the other, these players go unrecognized. Yet it is in this anonymity that they are able to succeed. They wouldn’t have it any other way.
