Statistically speaking
April 8th, 2008, 11:52 pm · Post a Comment · posted by itsonlyagame
When we asked basketball coaches to enter their stats this year, a few said no. They didn’t just not do it, they came right out and told us no.
I’m not exactly sure why.
When we get stats every night, we get field goals, three-pointers, fouls (sometimes) and free throws made and attempted. We rely on coaches to fill out field goal attempts, steals, turnovers and rebounds. Several coaches — we refer to them as our “Varsity All-Stars” — did this for every game.
But again, there were those who declined. There were two reasons. Some said they didn’t want other teams to use the stats to scout their team. Other said they didn’t want to embarrass the players who weren’t doing so well.
The reason we put together lists of stats on the Web site is not so we can embarrass people. Our goal is to gain readers, not to chase them away. To our way of thinking, stats are one way for players who aren’t the stars to at least get some recognition. If they aren’t mentioned in the headlines, at least they’re mentioned somewhere for whatever they do contribute to a team — whether they score 1,000 points or one point or no points. We think being on the team — putting in the time and effort in practice day in and day out — is worth something. I know coaches think so, too.
Every single player who stepped on a basketball court this season did something that I never did in high school. I think they deserve credit for that.
As far as scouting is concerned, to find out who the top players are, all a coach has to do is check the box scores from each game in the paper, refer back to last year’s game film, or call another coach.
Cumulative stats do not tell an opposing coach who is playing well at a particular point in the season. In fact, they may do more harm than good, as far as a scouting report is concerned. Someone off the bench might be playing better than any of the starters on a given night. The point guard might have the flu. A coach might have just tweaked the offense to get the ball to his center more often. Cumulative stats would not indicate any of that.
Someone on the Web site, presumably a coach, said if an opposing coach wants to spend time looking through stats on the Web site instead of using that time to make his own team better, that would be fine with him. Makes sense to me.
It also must have made sense to the team that advanced further in the playoffs than anyone else in the area — the Routt girls’ basketball team. All of their stats were on our Web site. Thanks, Routt.
