In the continuing effort to bring you things you don’t get anywhere else, I’d like to give you a sneak peek into what the 2008 season will bring for this site. It will be about measuring things that have never before been measured (at least publicly) in the college game.
A scratch-the-surface example of this is plus/minus data. Just like its hockey counterpart, a player gets a point for each point his team scores while he on the court, and one taken away for each point allowed. Plus/minus has plenty of limitations, especially when it’s confined to just a single game. But ideally it helps us measure the little things that don’t show up in the traditional stats.
Let’s take a look at a couple of intriguing games played last weekend through the plus/minus lens. First up is Baylor at Texas, an 84-79 Longhorn win.
Texas PF PA +/- Baylor PF PA +/-
Atchley 47 33 +14 Rogers 61 60 + 1
Abrams 81 69 +12 Dugat 48 48 0
Mason 71 64 + 7 Lomers 25 25 0
Augustin 74 72 + 2 Diene 11 11 0
James 43 41 + 2 Shepherd 21 22 - 1
Durant 72 72 0 Jerrells 68 70 - 2
Winder 3 8 - 5 Hurd 2 4 - 2
Lewis 17 21 - 4 Carter 60 64 - 4
Pittman 12 15 - 3 Bruce 67 74 - 7
Bush 32 42 -10
Connor Atchley comes out the big winner, which might make you wonder about the value of such an analysis. But when you look at Atchley’s line, you can see that it isn’t so surprising he was a contributor to success while he was on the floor. Harkening back to the Line o’ the Night days…
FG 3pt FT Reb
Min M-A M-A M-A O-T A F S TO BLK Pts
Connor Atchley 22 3-5 0-2 3-4 4-6 2 2 1 0 2 9
It was an active night for Atchley, and it’s nice to see it reflected in the plus/minus. Honestly, I didn’t see the game. (I was working on a contraption to spit out this kind of data in a few seconds.) But if I had the tape, I’d go back and examine Atchley’s performance more closely.
Another interesting thing is that even though Kevin Durant scored 34 points, he had a plus/minus of zero. Compare that to AJ Abrams, who also played 36 minutes, scored 22 points and had a +12 rating. The problem with this analysis is that you are basically comparing these guys based on the 4 minutes they were on the bench, and obviously that is a ridiculously small sample.
The game of the weekend in retrospect was Virginia at Clemson, a game won by the Cavaliers, 64-63. Here’s how the plus/minus shook out in that one.
Clemson PF PA +/- Virginia PF PA +/-
Potter 29 19 +10 Singletary 41 31 +10
Mays 57 53 + 4 Joseph 43 34 + 9
Hammonds 52 53 - 1 Meyinsse 7 2 + 5
Booker 35 36 - 1 Reynolds 62 59 + 3
Sykes 8 10 - 2 Harris 24 22 + 2
Powell 17 19 - 2 Tucker 13 13 0
Perry 25 27 - 2 Mikalauskas 4 5 - 1
Rivers 43 46 - 3 Cain 35 36 - 1
Hamilton 49 57 - 8 Soroye 35 37 - 2
Tat 22 27 - 5
Diane 34 49 -15
It’s comforting to see what most would consider the best player on the floor, Sean Singletary, come out on top in this one.
Dave Leitao gets the coaching move of the century. With 5:05 to go, and Virginia trailing by 14, Leitao sent Mamadi Diane to the bench. UVA would proceed to the score the next 13 points. Obviously, the run wasn’t totally or even mostly due to Diane’s absence, but his -15 rating was built on watching that run. Leitao did bring Diane back in for Virginia’s final, and game-winning, possession.
The possibilities are endless with this kind of data. Over the next few weeks, I’ll explore some of those possibilities.