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.