Coming into Wake's big time game against UNC tonight, I decided I'd run a special feature matching up 2 players, one from each team, and comparing and contrasting them. The most natural matchup that occurred to me was Wake's Travis McKie vs. UNC's Harrison Barnes, so that's the matchup we're going to look at in this feature. Everything from size to stats will be looked at in this feature.

Gerry Broome - AP

HEIGHT/WEIGHT

McKie: 6'7"/210

Barnes: 6'8"/215

Edge: Barnes, but barely. There's not much of a difference here.

PPG

McKie: 16.3

Barnes: 17.5

Edge: Again, Barnes, but barely, and this is particularly interesting given another stat I'll get into later.

RPG

McKie: 7.1

Barnes: 4.6

Edge: McKie by a healthy margin on the boards. Of course, UNC has more of a front line so it might be deceptive, but it is indeed possible that McKie is more of a board-crasher in general than Barnes.

DEFENSIVE REBOUND PERCENTAGE

McKie: 14.5%

Barnes: 10.1%

Edge: Healthy edge to McKie percentage-wise, as well.

OFFENSIVE REBOUND PERCENTAGE

McKie: 8.9%

Barnes: 7.2%

Edge: Again, the edge goes to McKie.

APG

McKie: 1.1

Barnes: 1.0

Edge: Virtually even, though McKie has the smallest edge possible here.

BLOCKS (TOTAL)

McKie: 14

Barnes: 8

Edge: McKie

FG%

McKie: 47.5% on 261 attempts

Barnes: 49.1% on 271 attempts

Edge: Slight edge to Barnes here.

3 POINT SHOOTING

McKie: 34,9% on 63 attempts

Barnes: 45% on 60 attempts

Edge: Healthy edge to Barnes on this one.

eFG%

McKie: 51.7%

Barnes: 54.1%

Edge: Slight edge to Barnes here. Without that 1-13 game, the edge would probably go to Travis.

FT%

McKie: 70.6% on 102 attempts

Barnes: 73,5% on 102 attempts

Edge: Barnes by a little, though it's fascinating to me that they've taken exactly the same number of free throws. For the record, the difference in percentage is a measly 3 makes.

MPG

McKie; 34.7 minutes

Barnes: 26.3 minutes

Edge: McKie gets significantly more minutes. This is worth considering when you factor things like number of shot attempts, but I'll get to that.

% OF POSSESSIONS USED

McKie: 25.5%

Barnes: 26.5%

Edge: Barnes gets used even more than McKie, which is interesting to me particularly because McKie gets significantly more minutes, so you'd think it would be the other way around. However, it's a very slight difference regardless.

BOTTOM LINE

Statistically, when you put everything together and factor it all in, it's almost eerie. McKie and Barnes are, in most ways, virtually identical players. McKie seems to be a more "blue-collar" player with more rebounds (by a large margin) and blocks, while Barnes is significantly more of a threat outside. All considered, though, everything is so close in most other categories, they're virtually interchangeable. If we were in bizarro world and Barnes was a Deac and McKie was a Tar Heel, if the pure stats are anything to go by, there probably wouldn't be a particularly significant difference in the standings of the teams.

I was actually surprised how similar these two are. We've seen it before, but it'll definitely be cool to see these two amazing players battle again on the court.

As always, comments encouraged and appreciated. Go Deacs.