SWC75
Bored Historian
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I’ll continue doing a statistical analysis of games this year with some of the off-beat numbers I like to look at. I’ll post them after each game, probably the next day.
The first thing I’ll look at is “NET POINTS”. The idea is that each statistic in the box score is arguably worth a point, (that is, somewhere between 0.5 and 1.5 points). A point is a point. Teams score an average of a point per possession so anything that gets you possession is a point. A missed shot will more often than not wind up in the possession of the other team. Most baskets are for two points so if the passer who set up the shot is given half credit, that’s worth a point. One half of the blocked shots will likely have gone in and they are almost always two pointers, so that’s a point. If you add up the “positives”, (points, + rebounds + assists + steals + blocks) and subtract the “negatives”, (missed field goals, missed free throws, turnovers and fouls), you have a number that summarizes a player’s statistical contributions to a game. Then, by averaging the net points per 40 minutes of play, you factor out differences in playing time and have a look at the player’s rate of production. Both are important. The game is won based on what you actually did, not the rate at which you did it. But the rate is a better measure of the skills you can bring to the game.
Of course, there are things players do both on and off the court that contribute to victory. Leadership, hard work, keeping the team loose, scrambling for loose balls, (that could be a statistic: when neither team is in control of the ball, who winds up with it?), sneaker-sneaker defense, keeping the ball moving on offense, etc. etc. My experience is that with rare exceptions, the players who are the most statistically productive are the ones who grade highest in the things not measured by statistics, as well.
Here are the NET POINTS of our scholarship player in the most recent game and their averages per 40 minutes of play for the season, (exhibitions games not included):
Tyler Roberson……. 25NP in 40 minutes season: 169NP in 456 minutes per 40: 14.8
Rakeem Christmas 13NP in 40 minutes season: 390NP in 655 minutes per 40: 23.8
Trevor Cooney…… 13NP in 40 minutes season: 195NP in 744 minutes per 40: 10.5
Ron Patterson…….. 2NP in 19 minutes season: 23NP in 233 minutes per 40: 3.9
Michael Gbinije….. -1NP in 40 minutes season: 188NP in 624 minutes per 40: 12.1
Kaleb Joseph……….. -1NP in 21 minutes season: 127NP in 607 minutes per 40: 8.4
DNP-CD- none
Chinoso Obokoh….. 0NP in 0 minutes season: 16NP in 59 minutes per 40: 10.8
B. J. Johnson……….. 0NP in 0 minutes season: 55NP in 205 minutes per 40: 10.7
INJURED
DaJuan Coleman…. 0NP in 0 minutes season: 0NP in 0 minutes per 40: 0.0
Chris McCullough.. 0NP in 0 minutes season: 171NP in 450 minutes per 40: 15.2
SUSPENDED
None
Comment: Tyler Roberson is really starting to come on- right when we need him. When he came here people said he was a strong inside player and he’s starting to really assert himself. There are still defensive lapses and he has no confidence in his jump shot but he’s still become a very important player for this team.
Rakeem Christmas has led in net points 10 times, Chris McCullough 4 times, Mike Gbinije and Tyler Roberson 3 times, Trevor Cooney and BJ Johnson once.
POSSESSION
Before you can score you’ve got to get the rock. Syracuse had 10 offensive and 30 defensive rebounds. They had 7 offensive and 25 defensive rebounds. When we missed we got the ball 10 of 35 times, (28.6%). When they missed, they got the ball 7 of 37 times (18.9%). That 18.9% was the worst rebound performance by any SU opponent since Kennesaw State, who was at 18.4%. We’ve won the rebounding battle by this measure 14 times in 20 games but in our last six games we are only at 29.8%. For the year we’ve averaged getting 35.6% of our misses and our opposition has gotten 31.1% of theirs.
Effective offensive rebounding: Neither team did much offensive rebounding or did much with the ball once they got it. We got 8 second chance points off our 10 offensive rebounds, 0.80 points per reb. They got 13 for their 7, 1.86. So Miami took much greater advantage of their second chance opportunities- enough to win the game. For the year we’ve averaged 1.00 points per offensive rebound: they’ve averaged 0.85. We’ve led in this stat 12 times in 20 games.
Of our 13 turnovers, 7 were their steals and 6 were our own miscues. Of their 8 turnovers, 6 were Syracuse steals and 2 were their fault. We’ve had fewer turnovers in 14 of 20 games with one even and fewer unforced turnovers in 9 games with 4 even. Last year we had fewer turnovers in 29 of 34 games with 2 even. We are averaging 12 turnovers, 6 unforced, Our opposition is averaging 14/6.This was the first game in which we lost the turnover battle since Villanova, another game that got away from in part because of turnovers.
If you add our 40 rebounds to their 8 turnovers, we had 48 “manufactured possessions”. They had 32 + 13= 45, so we were +3, our biggest deficit of the year. We have won that battle 15 of 20 times with one even. For the season we’ve averaged 53 to 47 (+6).
SHOOTING
It’s still what the game is all about. It’s what this game was all about, for sure. We were 18 for 38, (.474) inside the arc, 6 for 16, (.375) outside it and 8 for 19, (.421) from the line. They were 13 for 27 (.481), 10/29 (.345) and 10/14 (.714). We’ve led in two point field goal percentage in 12 of 20 games, (but haven’t hit 50% since the Cornell game, despite the efforts of Rakeem Christmas), and in free throw percentage in 9 games (but only three times in the last 13). We’ve led in three point field goals percentage, believe it or not, in 13 games, (our opposition isn’t exactly filling it up, either). For the season we are .481/.318/.650. Our opposition is .433/.290/.692.
We had 30 points in the paint, 8 off turnovers, 8 “second chance” points, 7 fast break points and 3 from the bench. Our opposition had 20 points in the paint, 13 off turnovers, 13 “second chance” points, 4 fast break points and 15 from the bench. We also had 45 of Pat’s “first chance points” (Total points minus second chance points, fast break points and made free throws) to 39, meaning that those second chance points killed us. .
We’ve led in PIP 13 times, POTO 13 times, FCP 13 times SCP 12 times, FBP 11 times with 3 ties and BP 9 times, with a tie. For the season we are averaging 32-23 PIP, 16-12 POTO, 32-29 FCP, 12-10 SCP,9-6 FBP and 10-13 BP. We have 18 bench points in the last 6 games.
We had 62 points, 30 in the paint, 18 from the arc and 8 from the line so we had 24 ”POP”, (points outside the paint: 62-30-8) and scored 6 points, (24 POP-18 from the arc), from what I’ll call the “Twilight Zone”: that area between the paint and the arc that is the land of the pull-up jump shot, a lost art but a great weapon. It was a weapon both teams used to very good effect in this game. They had 66/20/30/10= 36 POP with 6 from the Twilight Zone. We’ve only led in POP 8 times but we’ve led in TZ points 12 times in 20 games. For the year we are averaging 23 POP and 8.5 TZ, our opposition 26/7. The game is so much easier when you don’t have to go to the basket for all your points.
16 of our 24 baskets were assisted (.667) and also 17 of their 23 (.739). For the year we are assisting on 63.9% of our baskets to 64.5% for the opposition, who have had a higher percentage in 8 of 20 games, with one tie. Assists tend to come more often from jump shots than lay-ups or dunks so the more assists you get, the more you are settling for jump shots to try to win the game which is often a bad strategy. I think it’s interesting that we have a high assist percentage with our “point guard by committee” situation. The team is at least sharing the ball well.
You compute “Offensive Efficiency” by taking field goal attempts – offensive rebounds + turnovers plus 47.5% of free throws attempted and dividing that into the number of points. We were 54 FGA - 10 OREBs + 13TOs + (.475 x 19) = 66.025 possessions. They were 56 -7+ 8+ (.475 x 14) = 63.65 possessions. Since possessions shouldn’t be more than one off, I’ll count that as 65 possessions in which we scored 62 points, (0.954) and 64 possessions in which they scored 66 points, (1.031). We have, of course, led 14 of 20 games in offensive efficiency since the winning team always leads in that stat. For the year we are averaging 1.021 points per possession to 0.895 for the opposition.
We had 129 combined possessions in this game. We’ve averaged 132 this year. We averaged 122 last year, so the pace appears to be better than it was last season.
Hubert Davis once told us to “Get an offensive dude”. I decided to name an “Offensive Dude Of the Game, or an O-Dog, and use the hockey concept of points + assists. In this game Rakeem Christmas was scored 23 points with 1 assists for 24 “hockey” points and thus was our ODOG. Rakeem Christmas has been the O-Dog 9 times, Trevor Cooney 5 times, Michael Gbinije 4 times, BJ Johnson, Kaleb Joseph and Chris McCullough once each.
Every other level of basketball plays quarters. To check the consistency of our performance, I look at what the score was at the 10 minute mark of each half to see what the quarterly scores would be. At a minimum, I think we want to score at least 15 points in each quarter and try to hold the opposition to less than that. The quarterly breakdown for this game 14-19, 12-7, 15-23, 21-17. For the season we have an average of 16-12.5, 17-13, 15-15.5, 18-17. We’ve won 49 of 80 quarters with two even. We’ve scored 15 or more in 52 quarters and held the opposition under that 43 times.
I also like to keep track who sits us down in each half. Besides being fun it gives an indication of who Coach B likes to design plays for since opening possessions are more likely to be scripted. Tyler Roberson sat us down in both halves with a jumper at 14:58 of the first and a dunk at 19:30 of the second. The first was the longest we’d had to wait this year (5:02). The two previous longest waits were in the Boston College game. We’ve got stop these horrible starts to these games. The average time we’ve had to wait is 1 minute 26 seconds. Rakeem Christmas has sat us down 13 times, Trevor Cooney 7 times, Michael Gbinije 6 times, Kaleb Joseph and Chris McCullough 5 times and Tyler Roberson 4 times.
Another fun fact is the “Taco Bell MVP”: the guy who gets us to 75 points so people can free, (or is it discounted?) tacos at Taco Bell. No tacos in this one. Rakeem Christmas, Trevor Cooney, Michael Gbinije, BJ Johnson and Ron Patterson have each got us Tacos once. (I wonder how many point we have to score to get real meat in the tacos?) The longest we’ve had to wait after getting close to 75 points is 3:31.
FOULS
My theory about fouls is that the team that attempts the most two point shots will tend to get fouled the most. If the numbers are as predicted or close, there’s nothing to be read into them but if there’s a big disparity, it makes you wonder about how the game was called.
In this game, we attempted 38 two point shots to 27, scored 30 points in the paint to 20 and got fouled 19 times to 13, attempting 19 foul shots to 14. The ratio of two point attempts to times fouled was 2.0 for us and 2.1 for them. The ratio of points in the paint to times fouled was 1.6 for us to 1.5 for them. The ratio of free throw attempts to fouls called on the other team was 1.0 for us and 1.1 for them. So the numbers suggest an evenly officiated game. But if you watched it Miami was getting away with a lot more than we were physically In an evenly officiated game, they’d have been called for mnay more fouls than we were.
Last year we attempted 1368 two point shots to 993 for the opposition and scored 1028 PIP to 753. We committed 546 fouls to 598 and went to the line 720 to 607 times, suggesting that there should be a relationship between two points attempts and points in the point and how many fouls are called on the other team and how many times you got to the line. The ratio of two point attempts to times fouled was 2.3 for us and 1.8 for them. The ratio of points in the paint to times fouled was 1.7 for us to 1.4 for them. The ratio of free throw attempts to fouls called on the other team was 1.2 for us and 1.1 for them.
This year we have taken 844 two point shots and scored 642 points in the paint. We’ve been fouled 354 times and taken 404 free throws. Our opposition has taken 679 two point shots and scored 460 points in the paint. They’ve been fouled 297 times and taken only 332 free throws. The ratio of two point attempts to times fouled has been 2.4 for us and 2.3 for them. The ratio of points in the paint to times fouled has been 1.8 for us to 1.6 for them. The ratio of free throw attempts to fouls called on the other team has been 1.1 for us and 1.1 for them. So the officiating overall has been pretty even-handed.
“MY MAN”
A reporter once asked Casey Stengel how come he won so many games with the Yankees. He said “Because I never play a game without “my man”. The reporter wondered who his man was. Casey suggested “You could look it up.” The reporter did look it up and found that Yogi Berra had played in every game that season at some positon: catcher, left field, pinch-hitting, something. He was the player Stengel had the highest regard for and the most trust in, so he didn’t want to do without him.
Who is Jim Boeheim’s “man” this season? The only way to tell is to see who plays the most minutes each game. In this game, Rakeem Christmas, Trevor Cooney Michael Gbinije and Tyler Roberson all played all 40 minutes. We’ve had at least one player play the full game in each of the last 9 games and a a total of 16 players have done so in that span. Trevor Cooney has been the “Man” 12 times, Michael Gbinije 6 times, Rakeem Christmas 5 times, Chris McCullough and Kaleb Joseph 4 times each and Tyler Roberson once. . Cooney still leads the team in minutes played with 744, 89 more than any other player. Encouragingly, the guy in second place is Rakeem Christmas, who earlier had a problem staying in games because of excessive fouling.
The first thing I’ll look at is “NET POINTS”. The idea is that each statistic in the box score is arguably worth a point, (that is, somewhere between 0.5 and 1.5 points). A point is a point. Teams score an average of a point per possession so anything that gets you possession is a point. A missed shot will more often than not wind up in the possession of the other team. Most baskets are for two points so if the passer who set up the shot is given half credit, that’s worth a point. One half of the blocked shots will likely have gone in and they are almost always two pointers, so that’s a point. If you add up the “positives”, (points, + rebounds + assists + steals + blocks) and subtract the “negatives”, (missed field goals, missed free throws, turnovers and fouls), you have a number that summarizes a player’s statistical contributions to a game. Then, by averaging the net points per 40 minutes of play, you factor out differences in playing time and have a look at the player’s rate of production. Both are important. The game is won based on what you actually did, not the rate at which you did it. But the rate is a better measure of the skills you can bring to the game.
Of course, there are things players do both on and off the court that contribute to victory. Leadership, hard work, keeping the team loose, scrambling for loose balls, (that could be a statistic: when neither team is in control of the ball, who winds up with it?), sneaker-sneaker defense, keeping the ball moving on offense, etc. etc. My experience is that with rare exceptions, the players who are the most statistically productive are the ones who grade highest in the things not measured by statistics, as well.
Here are the NET POINTS of our scholarship player in the most recent game and their averages per 40 minutes of play for the season, (exhibitions games not included):
Tyler Roberson……. 25NP in 40 minutes season: 169NP in 456 minutes per 40: 14.8
Rakeem Christmas 13NP in 40 minutes season: 390NP in 655 minutes per 40: 23.8
Trevor Cooney…… 13NP in 40 minutes season: 195NP in 744 minutes per 40: 10.5
Ron Patterson…….. 2NP in 19 minutes season: 23NP in 233 minutes per 40: 3.9
Michael Gbinije….. -1NP in 40 minutes season: 188NP in 624 minutes per 40: 12.1
Kaleb Joseph……….. -1NP in 21 minutes season: 127NP in 607 minutes per 40: 8.4
DNP-CD- none
Chinoso Obokoh….. 0NP in 0 minutes season: 16NP in 59 minutes per 40: 10.8
B. J. Johnson……….. 0NP in 0 minutes season: 55NP in 205 minutes per 40: 10.7
INJURED
DaJuan Coleman…. 0NP in 0 minutes season: 0NP in 0 minutes per 40: 0.0
Chris McCullough.. 0NP in 0 minutes season: 171NP in 450 minutes per 40: 15.2
SUSPENDED
None
Comment: Tyler Roberson is really starting to come on- right when we need him. When he came here people said he was a strong inside player and he’s starting to really assert himself. There are still defensive lapses and he has no confidence in his jump shot but he’s still become a very important player for this team.
Rakeem Christmas has led in net points 10 times, Chris McCullough 4 times, Mike Gbinije and Tyler Roberson 3 times, Trevor Cooney and BJ Johnson once.
POSSESSION
Before you can score you’ve got to get the rock. Syracuse had 10 offensive and 30 defensive rebounds. They had 7 offensive and 25 defensive rebounds. When we missed we got the ball 10 of 35 times, (28.6%). When they missed, they got the ball 7 of 37 times (18.9%). That 18.9% was the worst rebound performance by any SU opponent since Kennesaw State, who was at 18.4%. We’ve won the rebounding battle by this measure 14 times in 20 games but in our last six games we are only at 29.8%. For the year we’ve averaged getting 35.6% of our misses and our opposition has gotten 31.1% of theirs.
Effective offensive rebounding: Neither team did much offensive rebounding or did much with the ball once they got it. We got 8 second chance points off our 10 offensive rebounds, 0.80 points per reb. They got 13 for their 7, 1.86. So Miami took much greater advantage of their second chance opportunities- enough to win the game. For the year we’ve averaged 1.00 points per offensive rebound: they’ve averaged 0.85. We’ve led in this stat 12 times in 20 games.
Of our 13 turnovers, 7 were their steals and 6 were our own miscues. Of their 8 turnovers, 6 were Syracuse steals and 2 were their fault. We’ve had fewer turnovers in 14 of 20 games with one even and fewer unforced turnovers in 9 games with 4 even. Last year we had fewer turnovers in 29 of 34 games with 2 even. We are averaging 12 turnovers, 6 unforced, Our opposition is averaging 14/6.This was the first game in which we lost the turnover battle since Villanova, another game that got away from in part because of turnovers.
If you add our 40 rebounds to their 8 turnovers, we had 48 “manufactured possessions”. They had 32 + 13= 45, so we were +3, our biggest deficit of the year. We have won that battle 15 of 20 times with one even. For the season we’ve averaged 53 to 47 (+6).
SHOOTING
It’s still what the game is all about. It’s what this game was all about, for sure. We were 18 for 38, (.474) inside the arc, 6 for 16, (.375) outside it and 8 for 19, (.421) from the line. They were 13 for 27 (.481), 10/29 (.345) and 10/14 (.714). We’ve led in two point field goal percentage in 12 of 20 games, (but haven’t hit 50% since the Cornell game, despite the efforts of Rakeem Christmas), and in free throw percentage in 9 games (but only three times in the last 13). We’ve led in three point field goals percentage, believe it or not, in 13 games, (our opposition isn’t exactly filling it up, either). For the season we are .481/.318/.650. Our opposition is .433/.290/.692.
We had 30 points in the paint, 8 off turnovers, 8 “second chance” points, 7 fast break points and 3 from the bench. Our opposition had 20 points in the paint, 13 off turnovers, 13 “second chance” points, 4 fast break points and 15 from the bench. We also had 45 of Pat’s “first chance points” (Total points minus second chance points, fast break points and made free throws) to 39, meaning that those second chance points killed us. .
We’ve led in PIP 13 times, POTO 13 times, FCP 13 times SCP 12 times, FBP 11 times with 3 ties and BP 9 times, with a tie. For the season we are averaging 32-23 PIP, 16-12 POTO, 32-29 FCP, 12-10 SCP,9-6 FBP and 10-13 BP. We have 18 bench points in the last 6 games.
We had 62 points, 30 in the paint, 18 from the arc and 8 from the line so we had 24 ”POP”, (points outside the paint: 62-30-8) and scored 6 points, (24 POP-18 from the arc), from what I’ll call the “Twilight Zone”: that area between the paint and the arc that is the land of the pull-up jump shot, a lost art but a great weapon. It was a weapon both teams used to very good effect in this game. They had 66/20/30/10= 36 POP with 6 from the Twilight Zone. We’ve only led in POP 8 times but we’ve led in TZ points 12 times in 20 games. For the year we are averaging 23 POP and 8.5 TZ, our opposition 26/7. The game is so much easier when you don’t have to go to the basket for all your points.
16 of our 24 baskets were assisted (.667) and also 17 of their 23 (.739). For the year we are assisting on 63.9% of our baskets to 64.5% for the opposition, who have had a higher percentage in 8 of 20 games, with one tie. Assists tend to come more often from jump shots than lay-ups or dunks so the more assists you get, the more you are settling for jump shots to try to win the game which is often a bad strategy. I think it’s interesting that we have a high assist percentage with our “point guard by committee” situation. The team is at least sharing the ball well.
You compute “Offensive Efficiency” by taking field goal attempts – offensive rebounds + turnovers plus 47.5% of free throws attempted and dividing that into the number of points. We were 54 FGA - 10 OREBs + 13TOs + (.475 x 19) = 66.025 possessions. They were 56 -7+ 8+ (.475 x 14) = 63.65 possessions. Since possessions shouldn’t be more than one off, I’ll count that as 65 possessions in which we scored 62 points, (0.954) and 64 possessions in which they scored 66 points, (1.031). We have, of course, led 14 of 20 games in offensive efficiency since the winning team always leads in that stat. For the year we are averaging 1.021 points per possession to 0.895 for the opposition.
We had 129 combined possessions in this game. We’ve averaged 132 this year. We averaged 122 last year, so the pace appears to be better than it was last season.
Hubert Davis once told us to “Get an offensive dude”. I decided to name an “Offensive Dude Of the Game, or an O-Dog, and use the hockey concept of points + assists. In this game Rakeem Christmas was scored 23 points with 1 assists for 24 “hockey” points and thus was our ODOG. Rakeem Christmas has been the O-Dog 9 times, Trevor Cooney 5 times, Michael Gbinije 4 times, BJ Johnson, Kaleb Joseph and Chris McCullough once each.
Every other level of basketball plays quarters. To check the consistency of our performance, I look at what the score was at the 10 minute mark of each half to see what the quarterly scores would be. At a minimum, I think we want to score at least 15 points in each quarter and try to hold the opposition to less than that. The quarterly breakdown for this game 14-19, 12-7, 15-23, 21-17. For the season we have an average of 16-12.5, 17-13, 15-15.5, 18-17. We’ve won 49 of 80 quarters with two even. We’ve scored 15 or more in 52 quarters and held the opposition under that 43 times.
I also like to keep track who sits us down in each half. Besides being fun it gives an indication of who Coach B likes to design plays for since opening possessions are more likely to be scripted. Tyler Roberson sat us down in both halves with a jumper at 14:58 of the first and a dunk at 19:30 of the second. The first was the longest we’d had to wait this year (5:02). The two previous longest waits were in the Boston College game. We’ve got stop these horrible starts to these games. The average time we’ve had to wait is 1 minute 26 seconds. Rakeem Christmas has sat us down 13 times, Trevor Cooney 7 times, Michael Gbinije 6 times, Kaleb Joseph and Chris McCullough 5 times and Tyler Roberson 4 times.
Another fun fact is the “Taco Bell MVP”: the guy who gets us to 75 points so people can free, (or is it discounted?) tacos at Taco Bell. No tacos in this one. Rakeem Christmas, Trevor Cooney, Michael Gbinije, BJ Johnson and Ron Patterson have each got us Tacos once. (I wonder how many point we have to score to get real meat in the tacos?) The longest we’ve had to wait after getting close to 75 points is 3:31.
FOULS
My theory about fouls is that the team that attempts the most two point shots will tend to get fouled the most. If the numbers are as predicted or close, there’s nothing to be read into them but if there’s a big disparity, it makes you wonder about how the game was called.
In this game, we attempted 38 two point shots to 27, scored 30 points in the paint to 20 and got fouled 19 times to 13, attempting 19 foul shots to 14. The ratio of two point attempts to times fouled was 2.0 for us and 2.1 for them. The ratio of points in the paint to times fouled was 1.6 for us to 1.5 for them. The ratio of free throw attempts to fouls called on the other team was 1.0 for us and 1.1 for them. So the numbers suggest an evenly officiated game. But if you watched it Miami was getting away with a lot more than we were physically In an evenly officiated game, they’d have been called for mnay more fouls than we were.
Last year we attempted 1368 two point shots to 993 for the opposition and scored 1028 PIP to 753. We committed 546 fouls to 598 and went to the line 720 to 607 times, suggesting that there should be a relationship between two points attempts and points in the point and how many fouls are called on the other team and how many times you got to the line. The ratio of two point attempts to times fouled was 2.3 for us and 1.8 for them. The ratio of points in the paint to times fouled was 1.7 for us to 1.4 for them. The ratio of free throw attempts to fouls called on the other team was 1.2 for us and 1.1 for them.
This year we have taken 844 two point shots and scored 642 points in the paint. We’ve been fouled 354 times and taken 404 free throws. Our opposition has taken 679 two point shots and scored 460 points in the paint. They’ve been fouled 297 times and taken only 332 free throws. The ratio of two point attempts to times fouled has been 2.4 for us and 2.3 for them. The ratio of points in the paint to times fouled has been 1.8 for us to 1.6 for them. The ratio of free throw attempts to fouls called on the other team has been 1.1 for us and 1.1 for them. So the officiating overall has been pretty even-handed.
“MY MAN”
A reporter once asked Casey Stengel how come he won so many games with the Yankees. He said “Because I never play a game without “my man”. The reporter wondered who his man was. Casey suggested “You could look it up.” The reporter did look it up and found that Yogi Berra had played in every game that season at some positon: catcher, left field, pinch-hitting, something. He was the player Stengel had the highest regard for and the most trust in, so he didn’t want to do without him.
Who is Jim Boeheim’s “man” this season? The only way to tell is to see who plays the most minutes each game. In this game, Rakeem Christmas, Trevor Cooney Michael Gbinije and Tyler Roberson all played all 40 minutes. We’ve had at least one player play the full game in each of the last 9 games and a a total of 16 players have done so in that span. Trevor Cooney has been the “Man” 12 times, Michael Gbinije 6 times, Rakeem Christmas 5 times, Chris McCullough and Kaleb Joseph 4 times each and Tyler Roberson once. . Cooney still leads the team in minutes played with 744, 89 more than any other player. Encouragingly, the guy in second place is Rakeem Christmas, who earlier had a problem staying in games because of excessive fouling.
