That’s simply just not true. There was a four game stretch in conference play in late Dec-early Jan where we went 1-3, and Franklin was averaging 17 minutes per game.
What? He played 30 against NIU, 31 against Utah, and 35 against Marquette. Those were games 3, 4, and 5. So what I said was true. He also played 29 against Iowa and 27 against UGA so he was getting plenty of minutes early in the season especially against the better teams. And he was getting by far the most minutes of our bigs early in the season as well. Howard averaged 13.5 mpg in the non con. Franklin averaged 22, and 27 mpg after the NIU game.
As far as the stretches of games, The first stretch he had the following.
14 minutes against Clemson going 7 points 0 rebs
22 minutes against UVA going 11 points and 9 rebs
14 minutes against miami going 0 points 2 rebs
18 minutes against FSU going 6 points 3 rebs
Keep in mind this stretch immediately followed him coming off a groin injury that had him miss the Alabama State game and was questionable for the Clemson game.
The second stretch, which is unclear because if you don't include Pitt then there is only 3 games he played before the duke game you're counting in the rest of the year. Here were those 3 games
NCSU - 5 points, 5 rebs in 19 minutes
Cuse - 2 points 2 rebs in 18 minutes.
Clemson - 12 points, 5 rebs in 30 minutes.
Yeah, in the last 8 games in the ACC, he's been much better. It just so happens those 8 games are the other 7 of the bottom 8 ACC teams and Pitt. So we're playing teams we're more likely with being able to get away with playing a 6-7 center and teams he more likely to be able to have success against.