Just found this on the Uconn Wbb website....

[pap49cba]

Plus/minus for yesterday's game

 

[HuskyNan]

Veeeeery interestink.

Final Plus/Minus
Faris: +38
MOSQUEDA-LEWIS: +36
Dolson: +34
DOTY: +27
JEFFERSON: +16
HARTLEY: +12
BANKS: +8
TUCK: +6
Stokes: +3
Buck: -10
Stewart: DNP

 

[iri10]

Oooh, I didn't know the UConn site kept track of those. Here's the Notre Dame +/-. Doty, KML, and Jefferson had positive numbers for that game.

 

[pap49cba]

Oooh, I didn't know the UConn site kept track of those. Here's the Notre Dame +/-. Doty, KML, and Jefferson had positive numbers for that game.

Those numbers look totally messed up. Trial run perhaps?

 

[iri10]

Hard to say. Wish they added a bit of extra information, like the actual game times for the various ins/outs the players had.

 

[Fiftyish]

OK.....I gotta ask. What are we looking at? I thought they were the game times of when a player entered and left the game. So how can there be negative times?

 

[doggydaddy]

OK.....I gotta ask. What are we looking at? I thought they were the game times of when a player entered and left the game. So how can there be negative times?

It's not time played.

It's what the score differential was while that player was on the court.

 

[Fiftyish]

It's not time played.

It's what the score differential was while that player was on the court.

Cool! I knew I was missing something. Thanks.

 

[stamfordhusky]

One problem with +/- figures is that a player's number is so dependent on who was on the floor with her - and also who was on the floor for the other team.

A walk-on would have a good +/- for UConn if always paired with KML, KF, SD, and BH.

 

[Olde Coach]

Cool! I knew I was missing something. Thanks.

Statistics are as often misleading as they are informative.

In the case of the Marquette game, the players who were on the floor for the last 8 minutes (when the UConn offense went impotent) were, like Heather Buck, all minus 10 for that time period. Some of the younger players who had a lot of minutes earlier in the game (Banks and MoJeff are good examples) would have had scores ten points higher if they had been on the bench with KML and Dolson) for the last ten minutes.

How does one assign "blame" for the lousy play in the last 8 minutes? Was it all Heather Buck's fault (she was -10)? Did she "drag" all the other players down (including those who had strong + scores when playing with stronger teammates)? Or did all the players on the floor late in the game have equal responsibility for the groups collective failure?

There is no good way to evaluate all the possible answers to these questions.

Over long periods of time statistics tend to level out and become more informative. But, this said, the +/- analysis tells as much about the talent level of the 4 other players that any single player is on the floor with.

So -- the +/- stats are interesting; but they are subject to large influences that are hidden from view.

 

[Samanthabrown3]

A walk-on would have a good +/- for UConn if always paired with KML, KF, SD, and BH.

I would have a good +/- if on the court with KML, KF, Steven Krajewski, and BH. And especially CD.

 

[Scotter]

In the NBA where the environment is more competitive and sample sizes are much larger with 82 games and 48 minutes games, there has been quite a bit effort put into plus-minus and making the appropriate adjustments. One of the common adjustments is eliminating periods where the score is lopsided and non-competitive from the sample size. It is never going to be a perfect measure and takes someone with some training to properly interpret the numbers, but it has done a service of recognizing players who consistently help their team on the scoreboard more than their box score stats indicate and players who hurt their team more than the box score statistics indicate.

Statistics are as often misleading as they are informative.

In the case of the Marquette game, the players who were on the floor for the last 8 minutes (when the UConn offense went impotent) were, like Heather Buck, all minus 10 for that time period. Some of the younger players who had a lot of minutes earlier in the game (Banks and MoJeff are good examples) would have had scores ten points higher if they had been on the bench with KML and Dolson) for the last ten minutes.

How does one assign "blame" for the lousy play in the last 8 minutes? Was it all Heather Buck's fault (she was -10)? Did she "drag" all the other players down (including those who had strong + scores when playing with stronger teammates)? Or did all the players on the floor late in the game have equal responsibility for the groups collective failure?

There is no good way to evaluate all the possible answers to these questions.

Over long periods of time statistics tend to level out and become more informative. But, this said, the +/- analysis tells as much about the talent level of the 4 other players that any single player is on the floor with.

So -- the +/- stats are interesting; but they are subject to large influences that are hidden from view.

 

[Mike144]

Those numbers look totally messed up. Trial run perhaps?

Those numbers are messed up. The probable correct numbers are Doty +7, Jefferson +5, Lewis +3, Dolson -1, Faris -1, Hartley -2, Tuck -4, Banks -5, Stewart -7. The ND site erred where they had (In -2 Out -1) = -1. It should be (In -2 Out -1) = +1. Same error on 4 different players.

 

[Bestiarius]

Another factor not taken into consideration is what the opposition is doing when the in/outs occur. At a given time during a game, both teams might clear the bench making the resulting stats somewhat meaningless. I consider reviewing these stats a harmless pass time that provides meaningless ammunition to be used to praise or denigrate a given player.

 

[Phil]

Another factor not taken into consideration is what the opposition is doing when the in/outs occur. At a given time during a game, both teams might clear the bench making the resulting stats somewhat meaningless. I consider reviewing these stats a harmless pass time that provides meaningless ammunition to be used to praise or denigrate a given player.

As with any stat, it needs to be interpreted carefully, but you make an excellent point. Maybe my mistaken impression, but Mitchell seemed to leave more of her starters in than some coaches. In many cases, I would expect our last five to be much better than their last five (for almost every instance of "their"). So, over the course of a season, you might have some deep bench players who rack up impressive +/-, which is one of the reasons why Scotter notes the removal of some lopsided scores. (The other reason is that odd things can happen in very lopsided games).