Earlier this week, I introduced "Warden's Plus/Minus" to the RockChalkTalk community and THE WORLD. Going through the numbers for this year's team brought out some interesting thoughts and comments, especially from sherronsthebestevaimhisnumberonefanboi. Anyway, one of the main problems with the plus/minus was Sherron's number for the Cornell game. Without Sherron, the Jayhawks have a loss, plain and simple. So how could he only score slightly higher than Cole Aldrich when he carried the team to victory? The answer is, I don't know. There is an admitted "gunner" tax in the plus/minus and this led to a few comments mentioning the system favoring bigs.
Something Joe Posnanski (if you don't know who he is, just quit reading please) always like to say whenever he shares a number/stat he made up is that it has to pass the smell test. For example, if he comes up with an offensive stat in baseball and Albert Pujols isn't in the top 3 or 4, something's obviously wrong. Does the Plus/Minus pass that smell test? At first, I'd have said no because of the Sherron issue. However, in an effort to evaluate further, I took the season stats from the 2007-2008 National Champion Kansas Jayhawks and applied the Plus/Minus formula to see who it said were the biggest contributors. Lets see if those numbers back up what we know about that squad.
NAME | GM | FGA | FTA | PTS | TOT | AST | TO | STL | BLK | PF | Plus/Minus | Per Game |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Team Totals | 40 | 2314 | 852 | 3221 | 1547 | 721 | 529 | 356 | 235 | 706 | 1679 | 41.98 |
Mario Chalmers | 39 | 318 | 130 | 498 | 120 | 169 | 75 | 97 | 23 | 99 | 285 | 7.31 |
Darnell Jackson | 40 | 273 | 149 | 447 | 267 | 43 | 51 | 31 | 19 | 90 | 244 | 6.10 |
Brandon Rush | 38 | 414 | 86 | 507 | 195 | 81 | 69 | 32 | 32 | 60 | 218 | 5.74 |
Russell Robinson | 40 | 198 | 113 | 291 | 113 | 162 | 83 | 79 | 16 | 75 | 192 | 4.80 |
Darrell Arthur | 40 | 394 | 114 | 510 | 250 | 33 | 75 | 20 | 53 | 118 | 165 | 4.13 |
Sherron Collins | 34 | 251 | 58 | 315 | 74 | 105 | 68 | 39 | 3 | 54 | 105 | 3.09 |
Cole Aldrich | 40 | 83 | 38 | 112 | 119 | 5 | 21 | 11 | 34 | 48 | 91 | 2.28 |
Sasha Kaun | 40 | 176 | 122 | 284 | 154 | 12 | 32 | 17 | 49 | 97 | 89 | 2.23 |
Rodrick Stewart | 33 | 71 | 28 | 92 | 74 | 47 | 27 | 13 | 2 | 29 | 73 | 2.21 |
Tyrel Reed | 23 | 35 | 1 | 47 | 10 | 21 | 4 | 7 | 1 | 8 | 38 | 1.65 |
Conner Teahan | 21 | 27 | 2 | 46 | 9 | 6 | 7 | 2 | 1 | 6 | 22 | 1.05 |
Jeremy Case | 30 | 45 | 2 | 47 | 10 | 28 | 6 | 7 | 0 | 12 | 27 | 0.90 |
Brennan Bechard | 12 | 9 | 4 | 14 | 3 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 5 | 0.42 |
Matt Kleinmann | 20 | 7 | 3 | 7 | 13 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 5 | 7 | 0.35 |
Brad Witherspoon | 12 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | -2 | -0.17 |
Chase Buford | 13 | 9 | 0 | 2 | 5 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 4 | -5 | -0.38 |
*TOT= Rebounds
I love these results. Super Mario leading the way at 7.31, such a complete player. Darnell Jackson coming in second at 6.10. Then, Brandon Rush and Russell Robinson. Pass the smell test? Is Cole just really that damn good and we don't realize it because he does so much on the glass and defensive side?