Plus / Minus Player Analysis

Ever wonder what Coach Crean means when he talks about the Plus / Minus differential after each game? We did too, so we recreated his analysis, and provide it to you here after EVERY game!.

BtownBanners Store

Get #TheMovment, We're Back, HomeGrown, Purdouche, Purwho?, Kentucky Sucks, Hard Nosed, #iubb Gear Now!

Pre-Gaming

Join us for our Pre-Game party where we discuss upcoming games, campus activities and whatever else we want to talk about!

The Final Buzzer

Come on over to the Final Buzzer when the clock has hit Triple Zeros. We will discuss our Rapid Reactions and game analysis.

The Student Section

Stop by the Student Section for an Undergraduate point of view.

Showing posts with label Wildcats. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Wildcats. Show all posts

Monday, December 12, 2011

Gm 9: +/- Player Analysis - Kentucky Edition

Welcome back to another addition of the +/- Player Analysis for your 2011-2012 Indiana Hoosiers! It's going to be hard to say anything about this game that Hoosier fans don't already know.  IU basketball is officially back to the National Stage!  I have re watched the game twice now and have picked up on things you don't notice during the actual flow of the game.  For instance, Christian Watford practiced his Buzzer Beater shot EXACTLY earlier in the second half.  This game was one for the ages, an Instant Classic.

Key Players:
  • Christian Watford - Did he step up or what?  Watford was a man amongst boys in this game.  He scored, he completely shut down Terrence Jones (although Jones appeared to shut down himself), and Watford played Hero for the night.  This was one of Watford's best games of his IU career.  Christian came up big for IU hitting 4 of 6 from behind the arc.
  • Cody Zeller - A lot can be said about Dick Vitale's comments about the Hoosiers lack of effort in feeding Zeller all night.  From listening to Vitale, IU shouldn't have won that game since we didn't feed Zeller every trip down the court.  I do however agree with Vitale, IU has struggled at times this year to get Cody the ball down low.  Our future success will depend greatly on our ability to get Cody involved on the low blocks.
  • The Fans - That was deafening.  From 90 minutes before the game, to 90 minutes after the game, Assembly Hall was jumping.  If you don't think a crowd can influence a game, ask Kentucky's freshman what they thought.  This was a great crowd and hopefully we will continue to see the early arrival from all fans.
With that being said, let's jump into the +/- Player Analysis

+/- Player Analysis vs Stetson
*Just in case you forgot, here is a quick breakdown as to what the +/- Player Analysis is looking at.
Example: Here is a quick example of how the +/- stat is determined. Zeller, Watford, VJIII, Hulls and Sheehey start the game for IU. Therefore the score is 0-0. Coach Crean makes his first substitution at 15:00 with the score IU up 15-10. Oladipo comes into the game for Sheehey. For this stint in time, Sheehey would earn a +5 (while Sheehey was in, IU increased their lead by 5 points). The Lineup of Zeller, Watford, VJIII, Hulls and Sheehey also earned a +5. This will continue throughout the game.

Game Overall   

 Key Takeaways:
  • Close Game - This was the first single digit game the Hoosiers have been involved in.  It's interesting to see that 4 starters remained positive and the one starter in the negative was Cody Zeller.
  • Cody played a game high 37 minutes so he was on both sides of the big runs.  This would be expected.  The interesting thing of note with Cody is, during the 3 minutes he was on the bench, IU outscored Kentucky by +4.
  • Coach Crean didn't go very deep on his bench at all.  Only 7 players saw significant time.  Coach Crean did say in his post game press conference that Derek Elston was cleared to play medically, but he decided not to use him.  Hopefully Derek will be okay and can continue playing at the high level he was in the early season.
  • I cannot stress this enough, anything in the GREEN, means the player had a positive impact on the game and helped IU get to their blowout win.

Lineups of the Night:  

Key Takeaways: 
  • Here you can see the game flow throughout the night. The chart reads from the beginning of the game to the end from top to bottom.
  • This is where the analysis gets interesting.  IU had two stints in the game (+8, +10) where they dominated the Wildcats for a short period of time.  It was really only those two stints that won them this game.  They got beat during the rest of the game.
  • I'll discuss the stints in more detail below.
  • Overall, Coach Crean used 13 different combinations of players in the game (the fewest amount to date).  Of his 13 combinations,  5 were positive, 2 were neutral (0) and the remaining 6 were negative.
  • Of all the stints in this game (19), there were 6 positive, 4 neutral and 9 negative.
  • Only two units played multiple times tonight.
Best Lineup of the Night:
The best lineup of the night (+5) belongs to Hulls, Oladipo, Sheehey, VJIII, and Zeller. They only played together once Saturday night. They did their damage at the 8:13 minute mark of the first half where they went +5 in 1 minute 30 seconds. This was actually the 8th time all year Crean has used this lineup.  Only 3 other lineups are used more often.

Worst Lineup of the Night:
The worst lineup of the night (-4) consisted of Hulls, Sheehey, Jones, Pritchard and Zeller.  This lineup played in the first half immediately before the Best Lineup of the Night came in.  This game was back and forth, and judging from the chart above, there were plenty of groups who had some negative splits.

Season to Date:
As many people like to point out, looking at the +/- for one specific game is not entirely telling. Tracking this over the course of the year, will give a much clearer picture as to what each player brings to the team. Below is the updated season to date +/- for each player.

  • In a close game like this, there isn't going to be many huge misses.  This game was extremely close and you can see that from the plus/minus data.  
  • Every player in this games' Pts/Min decreased, which is expect able.
Lineup Combinations
Here are some quick stats related to the Lineups Tom Crean has used through the three regular season games:
  • Coach has used 131 different lineups this year.
  • Of those 131, only 41 are negative year to date. (Increased by 3 this game)
  • Best lineup is +45 (went -1 vs Kentucky;Crean's favorite unit (19 times) of Hulls, Oladipo, VJ3, Watford, Zeller)
  • 2nd Best Lineup is +22 (went -2 vs Kentucky: Consists of Hulls, Oladipo, Sheehey, Watford and Zeller)
  • Worst lineup is -6. (Consists of Hulls, Watford, VJIII, Sheehey and Pritchard)
  • 34 lineups have been used multiple times this year.
  • The top 4 used lineups contain these players: Hulls, Oladipo, Sheehey, Jones, Watford and Zeller.  Only Hulls and Zeller are in all 4 lineups together.
Lineup Creator!
Here is your chance to play Coach Crean!
What you can do is go to this link, "+/- Lineup Generator" and it will open an Excel file for you. Using the filters already on the page, you can filter the lineups for the year to see how all the different combinations of players play together.

For instance, if you wanted to see how the team does when Oladipo and Sheehey are in the game together, filter both their columns. This will return all lineups for the year that Oladipo and Sheehey have been on the floor together!

Overall
What an outstanding game this was.  I apologize for getting the +/- Player Analysis out late, but Kirkwood was calling my name Saturday night.  The hall was rocking, IU is back into the top 25, and Kentucky went home a loser.... What a great night!

+/- Player Analysis for Every Game!

Follow us on Twitter!

The Shot Heard 'round B-Town and the World

The Shot Heard 'round B-Town

Hoosier fans rush the court in celebration.
Where does a Hoosiers fan begin when they try and describe the events and feelings that occurred last Saturday night? Does the entire experience begin at 5:25 when the ball was tipped off? Does it begin when we as Hoosiers fans woke up Saturday morning to do all of our chores early, just to be sure we were on our couch, or in the bar, or, for those lucky enough, in our seat in Assembly Hall? If you were one of the 17,000 plus fans with a ticket to the game, I’m sure that at 5:25 you weren’t sitting. And as I’m sure that my blood bleeds crimson, I’m sure wherever you were, you were not sitting down as Christian Watford released one of the most beautiful shots in Indiana Hoosiers basketball history. But for this fan, the experience of Saturday night’s victory over the then top ranked Kentucky Wildcats began long before Saturday.

I often repeat in my head two words that Tom Crean said when he got hired on as Indiana’s basketball coach, “It’s Indiana.” To those who question why I’m a Hoosiers fan, to those who don’t know why a coach would leave a Final Four team in Marquette to take a job for a program that is suffering, to those who don’t truly know why I often times schedule my social life around IU basketball games, I just tell them what Coach Crean told so many: It’s Indiana. It’s Indiana.

Saturday night was what I needed in my life when it comes to sports, and as conflicted as it makes me feel, it’s what I needed in my life to move on as an Indiana born man. When Watford’s shot went in, and Indiana “upset” Kentucky, I felt a rush of emotion come over me that I thought I would save for the next time IU won a national championship. Some may think that all of that emotion stems from watching IU do so poorly the past three years. Those people are correct, to a certain extent. I can’t lie and say that the past three years have been easy to watch, but as a true Indiana fan I knew that it was just a part of the process. I had to stick by my team, and their coach, and one day it would all come back. One day Indiana would be Indiana again.

But the emotion I felt as that three point shot went through the net, and the emotion I felt after pinching myself to make sure I wasn’t dreaming, and the emotion I felt as I hugged my wife-to-be (proud to say a new Hoosier fan herself), that emotion stems from my bedroom closet when I was seven years old. When I was a kid (born in 1982, too young to remember the ’87 championship), I admit I was a bit of a trouble maker. More often than not I spent my time confined to my room for doing things I knew I shouldn’t be doing; hiding my report card from my parents, getting into trouble at school for taking the fish out of the tank and causing it to die, not doing my chores, etc. But even though I was told to go to my room after dinner, and not allowed to watch the Hoosiers play, I always had my radio that I would take into my big closet to set up shop with and listen to WOWO radio broadcast the game. In that closet is where I fell into a deep, never abandoning, never doubted love for Indiana basketball. In that closet is where Saturday night’s emotion stems from. That beautiful closet where my blankets where all laid out, where my stuffed animals kept me company and where my IU basketball calendar hung will forever be etched in my memory, right alongside a new memory I now have- the greatest shot I’ve ever seen taken by a Hoosier. Some say I’m living in the moment, and that’s fine. But I say, “No. I’m living in The Movement.”
 
-Kenneth Languell
@AskTheWho
 
Due to the amount of requests to post things, we can not post everything, but please know we appreciate your submissions! If you have a contribution to the site, please email us at BtownBanners@gmail.com! We would love to show off your work!

Sunday, December 11, 2011

Scenes from Bloomington after IU's Big Win

What a night! We'll have more posted today about the game and reactions from fans!

Kirkwood Goes Crazy!




Nick's English Hut



View from Behind Kentucky's Bench


View from the Student Section


View from Student Section Behind Baskets