We measure the two-point density correlations and Voronoi cell distributions of cyclically sheared granular spheres obtained with a fluorescence technique and compare them with random packing of frictionless spheres. We find that the radial distribution function g(r) is captured by the PercusYevick equation for initial volume fraction φ = 0.59. However, small but systematic deviations are observed because of the splitting of the second peak as φ is increased towards random close packing. The distribution of the Voronoi free volumes deviates from postulated Γ distributions, and the orientational order metric Q6 shows disorder compared to numerical results reported for frictionless spheres. Overall, these measures show significant similarity of random packing of granular and frictionless spheres, but some systematic differences as well. The packing of spheres is one of the enduring problems in physics, and a basis to understand the structure and strength of granular matter. Assuming dominance of steric interactions, dense packing of steel spheres was first used to understand structure of simple liquids with the radial distribution function g(r) and the orientation order metric Q 6 [1]. However, experimental measurements at boundaries [2] and computer simulations in the bulk [3] have since shown that inter-particle friction can affect granular packing. Friction between particles changes the fundamental stability condition at contact from the frictionless case, causing a packing to be protocol dependent and the system to be out-of-equilibrium.The difficulty of accurately measuring significant number of particle positions in the bulk away from the influence of boundaries has also stymied progress. Recent experimental studies [4,5] have examined packing of granular spheres and find that the associated free volume distributions are described by a Γ distribution with two fitting parameters which were then given a thermodynamic interpretation [5]. These results are puzzling in light of earlier analytical work in one-dimension and simulations in two and three dimensions that show a Γ distribution with 3 fitting parameters is needed to describe a broad range of volume fraction for elastic particles [6].Here, we discuss new experiments with spherical granular particles which enable us to directly determine statistical measures to understand the effect of friction, test the effect of shear, and perform a rigorous comparison with frictionless hard sphere packing. Using a fluorescence technique [4,7,8], we obtain the packing of glass spheres before and after application of cyclic shear, and compare with random packing of frictionless spheres. We find that the overall shape of g(r) for volume fraction φ ∼ 0.6 is captured by the Percus-Yevick equation [9] which assumes random packing of spheres without angular correlations. But, systematic deviations are observed because of the splitting of the second peak as φ is increased toward random close packing, Q 6 shows partial hexagonal order, and the distribution of the Voronoi free T...