As has been mentioned plenty of times throughout the season, plus-minus is a far from infallible statistic.
A great example from last night’s Maryland game: Greivis Vasquez shuttled in for offensive possessions for several minutes, while Sean Mosley was inserted on defense.
SEE RELATED:
So in what is absolutely no shock at all, Vasquez broke even in the second half while Mosley was minus-8 in that stretch.
That’s a reason why a one-game sample is not always insightful, and the reason why a raw plus-minus number isn’t a statistical holy grail.
Of course, there’s a little sagacity I picked up from reading Football Prospectus (I think it was Football Prospectus, anyway): The best is the enemy of the better.
So is this the best stat out there for analyzing the value of a player? Heavens, no. Is it better than throwing darts or guesswork? Sure.
And if someone can build a time machine so I can go back 11 years and decide to pursue a more statistical line of work rather than look into a business whose mode of operation is increasibly collapsing upon itself, I’ll come back with the ability and the time to produce some more refined data.
But back here in the reality of the present day, here’s the full rundown of yesterday’s game:
|
Player
|
DU
|
ACC
|
Per Min.
|
Season
|
Per Min.
|
|
1-Milbourne
|
-13
|
-79
|
-0.19
|
+33
|
0.04
|
|
4-Dupree
|
DNP
|
-23
|
-0.48
|
-33
|
-0.14
|
|
5-Hayes
|
-8
|
-24
|
-0.07
|
+122
|
0.15
|
|
11-Kim
|
-2
|
+9
|
0.18
|
+21
|
0.16
|
|
14-Mosley
|
-13
|
-62
|
-0.21
|
-35
|
-0.07
|
|
21-Vasquez
|
+3
|
-57
|
-0.13
|
+92
|
0.10
|
|
22-Bowie
|
-12
|
-57
|
-0.18
|
+101
|
0.15
|
|
23-Pearman
|
DNP
|
+2
|
0.50
|
+6
|
0.50
|
|
24-Tucker
|
-3
|
-32
|
-0.21
|
-23
|
-0.07
|
|
25-Goins
|
DNP
|
-2
|
-0.67
|
+5
|
0.42
|
|
32-Burney
|
DNP
|
-1
|
-0.05 |
+18
|
0.26
|
|
33-Gregory
|
-2
|
-48
|
-0.23
|
+32
|
0.08
|
|
35-Neal
|
-5
|
-20
|
-0.06
|
+87
|
0.14
|
—- Patrick Stevens
