I guess you’ve heard by now the stat from yesterday’s first half:
With Terrence Jones in the line-up, Kentucky was a -8. In other words, the Tide outscored UK by 8 points with Jones on the floor.
It’s probably nothing staggering, but he had such a rough first half yesterday, it was worth noting. Besides, he played great in the second, and the team wouldn’t have won without him, so it doesn’t matter anyway.
But that got me wondering about +/- (plus/minus, which is the difference in points scored vs. points allowed while a particular player is on the floor) on the team, so I dug around and found a wonderful site called [URL=”http://statsheet.com/”]Statsheet.com[/URL], which breaks down pretty much every statistic you can think of. By game, by half, by season, you name it.
Why am I concerned with +/-? Because, at the end of the day, it shows how the team does when that player is on the floor. Points, rebounds, and assists can be misleading due to minutes played, although they are a good overall indicator of a player’s performance. But it still doesn’t show how the [I]team[/I] performs. Plus/minus does just that. A player may not statistically be great, but a good +/- means they make a difference.
So I played around for a minute, and found this little nugget: Marquis Teague [URL=”http://statsheet.com/mcb/players/stats/plus_minus?games=1&conf=&season=2011-2012&min=”]leads the country[/URL] in plus/minus.
I’ll let that sink in for a minute.
Marquis Teague, he of the single assist in 38 minutes yesterday, has a +/- of 361 on the year, for an average of +18 points a game. He was +6 yesterday.
It’s no secret that Teague is a bit maligned this year. But here’s another nugget for you: through the same number of games his freshman year, [URL=”http://statsheet.com/mcb/players/player/kentucky/john-wall/plus_minus”]John Wall had a +294[/URL], for 14.7 a game. (NOTE: three games didn’t have available data, so it’s actually the first 20 games that could be figured in.)
[URL=”http://statsheet.com/mcb/players/player/kentucky/brandon-knight/plus_minus”]Brandon Knight had +304[/URL] (15.2) in the same time frame.
That tells me that even though Teague isn’t a prolific scorer, or a consistent player, he is still a key to Kentucky’s success. But, we all knew that.
Since Kentucky has 5 guys in the top 10 nationally, including #1 and #2 (Anthony Davis, +339, +16.95/game), Teague himself may not be the difference. But he certainly isn’t detrimental.
Now, I’m not saying he’s a better player than John Wall and Brandon Knight. But he may actually be a better point guard than either of them. (For what it’s worth, Terrence Jones is 34th at +241, +13.8/game).
Here’s another neat little chart that gives a good overall view of what each player contributes. Again, minutes played aren’t factored in:
At this point in the season, none of this means a thing. At the end of conference play, we’ll take a closer look. But in the meantime, it’s some food for thought.
On an unrelated note, am I the only person who doesn’t really care about Kentucky being ranked #1 again? The last two times this happened, they wet the bed the next time they took the floor. But, with this group having been top-ranked (and beaten) once already this year, I think they’ll respond much better. They don’t have a choice. (Trivia: the last time Kentucky was ranked #1 twice in a season was 1995-96, and we know what happened then. [I]H/t to @UKBIGBLUENATION for the info[/I]).
Have a good week.
