Trevor Cooney's +\- stats...yikes

[690West]

http://sujuiceonline.com/2013/01/24/syracuse-advanced-statistics-show-interesting-trends/

Interesting article by Nate Federman this morning. I'd love to hear millhouse's take on the whole +/- stat and it's relevance.

I love the rautins freshman year analogy with cooney which is why I wish we could go back and figure out rautins +\- stats for his freshman year

 

[texascpa]

-14 over 6 games, that's only a little over 2 points a game. Or am I not looking at what he's doing correctly?

 

[pfister1]

Interesting stuff. Wouldn't have guessed that Coleman's +/- is so high to the + side. Maybe we wouldn't get killed if he left him in and forced fed him some minutes.

 

[dasher]

Misleading. When Cooney comes in, it means that either bt or mcw goes out. That alone hurts the +- . When Coleman goes in or out, he is replacing a guy that like him, has almost no bearing on the +-.

 

[Libero2]

Misleading. When Cooney comes in, it means that either bt or mcw goes out. That alone hurts the +- . When Coleman goes in or out, he is replacing a guy that like him, has almost no bearing on the +-.

The point is how gigantic the drop-off is from one guy to the next. Obviously Triche and MCW are better players, this stat shows just how much better they are then Cooney. He has been horrendous most of the year. Time to time he puts together a solid stretch, but for the most part he is our worst player, by and far.

 

[All4SU]

The point is how gigantic the drop-off is from one guy to the next. Obviously Triche and MCW are better players, this stat shows just how much better they are then Cooney. He has been horrendous most of the year. Time to time he puts together a solid stretch, but for the most part he is our worst player, by and far.

He's going to play an important role down the stretch. Good that he's getting the minutes now, because we're going to need him come tournament time.

 

[BlackSquirrels]

Drawing conclusions about an individual player using raw plus-minus data over such a small sample size is a bad idea.

 

[Libero2]

He's going to play an important role down the stretch. Good that he's getting the minutes now, because we're going to need him come tournament time.

We certainly will. But it would be encouraging if he was putting some positives out there, and most of the time he just isn't right now. Hopefully, we can get James back, so that so much isn't dependent on Cooney in March

 

[Libero2]

Drawing conclusions about an individual player using raw plus-minus data over such a small sample size is a bad idea.

Using the eye-test, does it really shock you that Cooney grades out statistically as our worst player? It doesn't surprise me, he struggles mightily on the offensive end, and while active defensively, is often out of position. We need him to step it up in a big way, and right now he just is not doing that on either end of the floor

 

[armory]

Drawing conclusions about an individual player using raw plus-minus data over such a small sample size is a bad idea.

Bingo. 3-4 of Cooney's 3s go in and it totally changes everything because of how few minutes he's had. Essentially this tells us Cooney is in a slump. Breaking news.

 

[JOC44]

Drawing conclusions about an individual player using raw plus-minus data over such a small sample size is a bad idea.

Correct. Plus-minus is very context driven. I saw a stat where an NBA player (can't remember who) was statistically his team's best defender last year and this year is its worst, based on how many points per possession the team gives up when he is in and when he isn't. The real story is that this year, the team's rotation almost always had him in with a bunch of crappy defenders and last year the rotation had him in with all good defenders. He is basically the same guy he was last year.

Coleman gets almost all of this minutes with MCW, Triche, and Fair on the court. Cooney is often put in at a time when we are not only missing the guard he is replacing, but also resting some of the other starters because he is coming in at a time when the starters are tired.

 

[stuckinbig11]

Correct. Plus-minus is very context driven. I saw a stat where an NBA player (can't remember who) was statistically his team's best defender last year and this year is its worst, based on how many points per possession the team gives up when he is in and when he isn't. The real story is that this year, the team's rotation almost always had him in with a bunch of crappy defenders and last year the rotation had him in with all good defenders. He is basically the same guy he was last year.

Coleman gets almost all of this minutes with MCW, Triche, and Fair on the court. Cooney is often put in at a time when we are not only missing the guard he is replacing, but also resting some of the other starters because he is coming in at a time when the starters are tired.

I always thought the +/- stat was misleading and rather useless.

 

[upperdeck]

plus minus has some serious flaws.. it all based on minutes and points. cooney played a ton of minute sat during a game we got outscored for most of that stretch. is that his fault that no one on the team could shoot for the 15 min he was in?

say i play 5 min in a game.. say i steal the ball 10 times in those 5 min and the other team scores 10 pts and our team misses 10 shots and . did i play poorly for -10 +/- pts?

Almost the entire plus/minus numbers for cooney equate to the low scoring Cinci game were he played pretty well. he had 8 pts and 4 steals in 18 min and SU was a negative plus minus during his time..

the stat is useless.

 

[JOC44]

Two other (related) things:

1. If you believe (as I do) that MCW and Triche are either our two most effective players or two of our three most effective players, consider that Cooney plays almost ALL of his minutes with one of our most effective players on the bench. I suspect most teams in a tough conference run a negative plus-minus for the period when their best player is sitting. By contrast, I daresay that every other scholarship player on the SU team plays at least 75% of his minutes with both MCW and Triche on the court.

2. It's also really dangerous to compare plus-minuses for guys who don't play the same position. When Coleman is in, that means neither Christmas nor Keita is playing center. Christmas and Keita are nice players but they aren't the best players on the team. Cooney is always replacing one of our most effective players, so the bar is pretty high for Cooney to replciate the plus-minus we are losing when Triche or MCW sits. Why is Grant second-to-last? In large part because when he is in, either Fair or Southerland is out. Also, he got his biggest minutes in two of our toughest games, games we won by two points each.

 

[Bornorange]

Leave the +/- stuff to the Hockey fans, they know how to abuse that data.

 

[690West]

Leave the +/- stuff to the Hockey fans, they know how to abuse that data.

Is that where the whole +\- stat was first introduced?

 

[jordoo]

+/- is pointless without looking at a wide variety of other things to get the complete picture. Its much easier to use your eyes to figure out which players are good at what.

Triche and MCW are better on both ends than Cooney right now so off course his +/- is bad. He's not a bad defender and in fact has hood hands and instincs to get deflections but like most 1st year gaurds in our system he struggles with screens and maintaining defensive position. He works hard and hudtles and will be a fine defender for us just not there yet. Shot selection and confidence are his bigggest issues on offense imo.

 

[IthacaMatt]

Using the eye-test, does it really shock you that Cooney grades out statistically as our worst player? It doesn't surprise me, he struggles mightily on the offensive end, and while active defensively, is often out of position. We need him to step it up in a big way, and right now he just is not doing that on either end of the floor

Yes, he is active, and he gets some steals, but the problem I see (apart from being out of position on some rotations ...) is that when he closes out on a shooter, he is ineffective at it. He doesn't get close enough to affect the shot attempt.

 

[realorange]

Bottom line is: We are fortunate the last player off the bench is doing as well as he is.

 

[tbonezone]

mike hopkins anyone? sure he was "scrappy" and a "floor burner" but frankly just not a top guard here imo.

 

[OttoinGrotto]

I think Cooney has actually been playing his best basketball of late.

I have no idea what he ends up being by the time he's done. I could see him being a guy that never starts. I could see him finishing 2nd in three pointers made. I could see both of those things being true. :noidea:

 

[Bornorange]

Is that where the whole +\- stat was first introduced?

First place I remember seeing that data.

 

[rstone7727]

+\- is statistic abuse, doesn't incorporate variables. Who is playing on the other team? What is the game situation?