Badgers' Plus/Minus And Efficiency

Earlier in the season I highlighted some plus/minus statistics for a couple of Wisconsin's Big Ten games. The data was not too useful on an per-game basis as I mentioned, but now that the season is winding down, there is a lot more data to work with.

A big thanks for this goes out to NuclearBdgr from the Buckyville forum for sharing his tempo-free individual player stats with me. He saved me a ton of time attempting to calculate the +/- and efficiency numbers you will see below. I applied the same "(On court - Off court) = Net" concept I used in January to this new gold mine of data. The results will live permanently on this site's Statistics page and will be updated regularly.

Because the available statistics include individual players' points-per-possession (PPP), I can calculate not only Net +/- but also use the efficiency margin for each player when playing vs. sitting to present a player's tempo-free Net Efficiency.

What I found is that Keaton Nankivil had the "best" numbers on the team across the board in Big Ten play. Wisconsin scores more efficiently when he is on the court by a fair margin. The Badgers are at their best defensively when Nankivil plays too:


During the 209 minutes Nankivil has been on the bench, Big Ten opponents have outscored Wisconsin by 14 points. Breaking it down by offensive and defensive efficiency, you can see why:


Then, when you subtract the data from when Nankivil is off the floor from the data from when he's playing, a crazy high Net +/- Per 40 Mins and easily the best Net Efficiency Margin on the entire team:


Now, I am not going to conclude that Nankivil is the best player on the team, though I will argue that he is pretty darn valuable because of what he represents. Nankivil is a rare commodity for Bo Ryan this season: a skilled, experienced big man ... one who is much more productive than any possible replacement from the bench. For this reason, these numbers are much more kind to Nankivil than to a guard like Jason Bohannon, who plays nearly every minute of every game (so his +/- levels out) and has two other capable guards running the show when he does catch his breath.

Big men need more rest and when Nankivil sits, the Badgers are going small, often bringing in a freshman substitute. Nankivil gathers the highest percentage of offensive rebounds, shoots over 60% from inside the arc and can stretch the defense out to 3-point range. A pretty valuable guy, even if he is a shade under 10 pts, 5 rebs per game.

Borrowing From The Neighbors

The overall amount of major Division 1 talent in Wisconsin might not compare to Minnesota every year, but it's getting better. And while many highly skilled prospects have left the Badger State in recent years, very few of them wind up playing for our western neighbors. Unfortunately for Gopher fans, the fact that you cannot say the same for Minnesota is a topic that has been beaten into the ground.

In anticipation of tomorrow's border clash between Wisconsin and Minnesota, here's a look at the contributions of each team's respective "traitors" this season:

Allow me to remind you that Bostick missed the first six games of the season due to a suspension and Leuer has missed the last nine games due to injury. So the percentages in the table above are actually lower than they ought to be because they are based on total team minutes, not the net available minutes for each player.

Spicy Links:
- Some Minnesota bloggers are imploring the fan base to stay on the bandwagon and consider how poorly the team was doing before Tubby Smith arrived. I found one of the comments underneath the article the most interesting. Not having paid much attention to the Goofs this season, apparently they have had a lot of trouble closing out games. Sounds like Wisconsin last year. Even though Minnesota is headed for the NIT, I think this group could be a surprise team next year if they get tougher mentally and expectations are down to earth.
- UWBadgers.com did another quick review of former Badger ballers that are playing professionally.

Plus/Minus For Comeback Wins

Tracking "plus/minus" statistics is something I've always wanted to do but never got around to before. Traditionally known as a hockey stat, it's only more recently been used for basketball since the influx of advanced statistics into the sport.

The numbers are easy to follow. A player's plus/minus score is calculated by taking the number of points his team scores while he is on the court and subtracting the number of points the opponents score while he is off the court. This stat seeks to account for those "intangibles" that cannot be measured by other stats to connect a player's true value to what you see on the scoreboard.

But plus/minus alone is not always very helpful. Take blowouts for example. A team can build a 10-point lead with a player in the lineup and even when the player sits, his team could extend that lead to 20 or 25 points. Is the player really that instrumental in building the lead or is the opponent just vastly inferior? Also, you need to be able to compare players who play a different number of minutes.

Blogs like The Hoya Prospectus, which has used plus/minus for years (thanks Dylan), account for both problems. This is accomplished by also measuring the point differential when the player is off the floor ("Off") and subtracting it from the traditional "On" score for a Net +/- number. These numbers can also be adjusted per 40 minutes to compare players. I unabashedly copied this model when calculating the plus/minus scores for Wisconsin's past two games, which both happened to be comebacks of epic proportions.

The disclaimer is that plus/minus numbers are only another layer to add to existing stats to try to get the full picture. They are far from perfect. I sorted the players by Net +/- score, though I strongly considered sorting by minutes played to easily weed out data that is unreliable. As you might notice below, statistical outliers are more likely to warp the "net +/- per 40 min" numbers for the most-used and least-used players in individual games.

1/20: @Wisconsin 54, Michigan 48:
Now you can see the problem with calculating Net +/- per minute for individual games. We know that Rob Wilson and Trevon Hughes sparked the comeback against Michigan, but Hughes gets penalized immensely in the Net/40 column because while he took a quick two-minute breather, Wisconsin hit a 3-pointer and the Wolverines did not score.

Concluding that Pop was the least valuable Badger per-minute that day would not be accurate. The calculations will be more valuable when we can average out a whole season of data, which I intend to do. Just keep this in mind as you view the charts.

1/24: @Wisconsin 79, Penn State 71:
Jordan Taylor and Keaton Nankivil were incredibly valuable on average against Penn State. Mike Bruesewitz was once again terribly ineffective. With only four minutes played, Bruiser didn't get a chance to make his +/- more respectable, but that was a wise choice by Bo Ryan. "You gotta knooow when to hold'em ... know when to fold 'em ..."

Stay tuned for +/- for previous games and a season-to-date +/- board.

Wanted: Power Forward

Despite Jon Leuer's broken wrist, at least Wisconsin beat Purdue, proving that national respect for the Badgers is warranted. But what if Leuer had gotten injured in the Michigan State game? People would have been jumping out of windows with that news. Leuer, the team's leading rebounder, was just about the only big body who showed up against the Spartans last week.

Even before Leuer got hurt, the power forward/center position was in need of improvement. One remedy for the unsightly rebounding situation in the Michigan State loss could have been a motivated Keaton Nankivil. Laying blame at any one player's feet is usually irresponsible, but Nankivil, one of my favorites, simply has to be called out. Wisconsin's other junior big man suffered through his worst performance of the year last against the Spartans and it didn't get any better against the Boilermakers beyond his highlight reel dunk sequence.

Wisconsin cannot survive the loss of Leuer without improvement from Nankivil. In East Lansing, Nankivil was routinely beaten for rebounds and got caught in defensive positions where he would recover just in time to bump into a Michigan State player. He didn't alter any shots or establish position; he would just slide in late to pick up cheap fouls that get called every time. If I didn't know better, I'd say he was trying to pick up fouls. As a result, Nankivil picked up three fouls, two points and one rebound in 15 minutes of play.

I was hoping a more dialed-in Nankivil would channel his performance from last year's Purdue game, but there he was on Saturday, playing even fewer minutes (10) after picking up two quick fouls five minutes into the game. At least one came when going after an offensive rebound, which is interesting if you look at Nankivil's stats ...

Through 16 games, Nankivil is averaging a little over 22 min/g. With the small samples sizes we have, there seems to be a small correlation between offensive rebounding and fouls committed:

Minutes		Games		ORebs		ORebs/Min		DRebs		DRebs/Min		Fouls		Fouls/Min
10-19		(5)		10		0.141		8		0.113		14		0.197
20-25		(5)		3		0.027		11		0.099		10		0.090
26-34		(6)		15		0.086		23		0.131		15		0.086

Here's two quick thoughts: One, Nankivil may come out too aggressive sometimes (imagine that!) in a desire to hit the offensive glass and needlessly picks up extra fouls, which lands him on the bench. Two, maybe by going after more offensive rebounds (and often succeeding), perhaps Keaton puts himself at a disadvantage when the opponent gets the defensive rebound and pushes the ball up court, translating into more times where he is in a poor position defensively ... playing "catch up" if you will.

Regardless of my thinly supported hypotheses, you want your best players on the court. So Nankivil must play smarter so he can get into a rhythm. He has arguably the sweetest stroke out of anyone on the team. Unfortunately, he doesn't have the back-to-the-basket game that Leuer does.

That is why the stage belongs to Jared Berggren. The redshirt frosh has not really experienced Big Ten basketball yet, but he needs to realize some of his potential in a hurry. If Berggren is ready to go, his minutes will skyrocket because he has the potential to be Wisconsin's best remaining weapon in the post. An inside presence will have to emerge or else opponents will be draping themselves all over the Badger guards.

Along with Berggren, two other young guys must step up. Like Nankivil, Ryan Evans needs to cut down on his fouls, but can bring a new dimension to the floor. Freshman Mike Bruesewitz needs to maintain the rebounding prowess he has flashed in limited minutes over a longer period of time.

Wisconsin Record Watch

The two seniors from the Class of 2005 each enter this season with their eyes on team goals. But both Joe Krabbenhoft and Marcus Landry have a chance to creep into the Wisconsin record book [pdf] by simply keep up the pace at which they have been producing over the years. Here's a look at a few potential milestones.

Joe Krabbenhoft
With a repeat of last season's performance, Krabbenhoft will place third in all-time offensive rebounding and approximately sixth in total rebounding. Needless to say, Joe's board work has been stellar. The ever-versatile Krabby needs only 87 assists to pass Michael Flowers for ninth place on the all-time assists ladder. Krabbenhoft will probably crack the Top Ten list for most minutes played as well.

Assuming another postseason bid this year, Wisconsin is guaranteed to play 31 games (success in the Paradise Jam, Big Ten Tournament or NCAA Tournament will increase that number). Even though games played is reflection of team success more than any other statistic, it's worth mentioning that if Krabbenhoft plays in every game this season, he will at least tie Alando Tucker for the most games ever played in a Wisconsin men's basketball uniform.

These are but a few reasons why "Dakota Joe" gets the loudest applause from Badger fans.

Year: Off-Def-Total Rebs
'05-06: 45-85 = 130
'06-07: 53-120 = 173
'07-08: 73-160 = 233
======================
Totals: 171-365 = 536*

Assists:
'05-06: 44
'06-07: 58
'07-08: 90
============
Totals: 192**

Minutes played:
'05-06: 505 (16.3/g)
'06-07: 724 (20.1/g)
'07-08: 1118 (31.1/g)
=====================
Totals: 2,347***


Marcus Landry
The academic problem in Landry's sophomore season puts a damper on his chase for a few milestones. Therefore, it is a real tribute to Landry's athleticism that he is knocking on the door of the Top Ten in career blocked shots. Greg Stiemsma finished in 5th place all-time with 96 blocks and Marcus can take a run at that total as a senior since he may be asked to defend the interior more again. Landry also has 132 offensive rebounds so far. If he duplicates last year's total (65) he will place sixth all-time, behind Brian Butch, though his final resting place will depend on Krabbenhoft's totals.

Blocked Shots:
'05-06: 6
'06-07: 31
'07-08: 27
============
Totals: 64****

Year: Off-Def-Total Rebs
'05-06: 22-28 = 50
'06-07: 45-71 = 116
'07-08: 65-129 = 194
======================
Totals: 132-228 = 360*

* Claude Gregory holds the career rebounding record with 902 total career rebounds; Tucker's 314 offensive rebounds are a career Badger record.
** Tracy Webster holds the Badger record with 501 career assists.
*** Tucker also holds the Badger record with 4,247 career minutes played in 4+ seasons.
**** Rashard Griffith holds the Badger record with 124 career blocks in only two seasons.