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Iowa’s +/- in 2013 Big Ten play after 12 games (premium)

Posted on 15. Feb, 2013 by in Iowa Basketball

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By Brendan Stiles

HawkeyeDrive.com

This is the fourth installment of a series examining Iowa basketball players’ plus-minuses during Big Ten play. Part One was written Jan. 11, Part Two was written Jan. 23 and Part Three came Feb. 4, one day following the Hawkeyes’ 62-59 loss to then-No. 23 Minnesota.

Iowa has now completed two-thirds of its Big Ten slate, making this an appropriate time to provide this fourth update in our series about (+/-), a statistic used by basketball coaches in evaluating individual players and how their team is doing when said player is on the court during a game.

Since the third part was written, Iowa has gone 2-1 over its last three games. This stretch began with another gut-wrenching road loss to Wisconsin that featured two overtimes and was followed by consecutive victories over Northwestern and Penn State, with the latter taking place Thursday.

Now typically, the data I have gathered for this series has come courtesy of the site, statsheet.comThe only game where accurate plus-minus data was available however was Iowa’s win over Northwestern. As mentioned, the Hawkeyes’ loss to Wisconsin came in double overtime. Head coach Fran McCaffery, in that second overtime, made numerous substitutions that didn’t appear in the plus-minus info. retrieved by statsheet.com. There was also inaccurate data from the Penn State game as it mentions Iowa subbing out four players at one point in the second half but only bringing three players in, which obviously doesn’t make sense. So the data from those two games I had to actually compute on my own by going through the play-by-play sheets made available during postgame.

From computing this data, it’s clear things are beginning to round out for this team. For those who watched the most recent game Iowa played against Penn State, you probably noticed the five players who were on the floor in crunch time — freshman guard Mike Gesell, sophomore forward Aaron White, juniors Melsahn Basabe and Devyn Marble and senior forward Eric May. Those five players just also happen to be leading the Hawkeyes in minutes played during Big Ten play. To me, that doesn’t seem like a coincidence. May might be a reserve, but his minutes are that of a typical starter.

Regarding Marble, he has started to heat up again for Iowa. He has led the Hawkeyes in scoring in each of the last two games and his plus-minus reflects how well he played in both contests. In fact, Marble has managed to get his overall plus-minus in Big Ten play back to an even zero, which is kind of remarkable.

His minutes have also increased over each of the past three games. Meanwhile, there are three Iowa reserves who have seen their minutes decrease over each of the last three games. Only one of those three reserves — freshman guard Anthony Clemmons — has actually seen his plus-minus improve with fewer minutes on the court.

Another starter who has shown progress over the last three games is Basabe, who played over 34 minutes in Iowa’s win over Penn State. Freshman guard Pat Ingram played the final 2:24 of Iowa’s win over Northwestern, marking his first in-game appearance in nearly three weeks.

One last player worth mentioning is White, because while the competition hasn’t been totally stellar of late, he’s slowly taking a similar trajectory as Marble towards plus-minus, having gone a combined +28 in the two games won by the Hawkeyes.

Like the previous three posts in this series, there are three sets of numbers next to each name. The number surrounded by parentheses is the +/-. The first set of numbers is the point differential when that particular player is playing. Next to the +/- is the number of minutes played during the Big Ten season.

Underneath each player’s name will be data from the three most recent games, which will then be broken up with data from each individual game.

Aaron White: 588-616; (-28); 354:51

Last 3 games: 152-141; (+11); 87:41

– at Wisconsin: 37-54; (-17); 31:25

– vs. Northwestern: 54-38; (+16); 26:39

– at Penn State: 61-49; (+12); 29:37

Mike Gesell: 566-572; (-6); 353:31

Last 3 games: 159-146; (+13); 94:54

– at Wisconsin: 57-56; (+1); 39:24

– vs. Northwestern: 46-34; (+12); 25:25

– at Penn State: 56-56; (0); 30:05

Devyn Marble: 538-538; (0); 312:27

Last 3 games: 146-124; (+22); 79:16

– at Wisconsin: 24-26; (-2); 18:15

– vs. Northwestern: 61-45; (+16); 29:57

– at Penn State: 61-53; (+8); 31:04

Eric May: 385-410; (-25); 259:41

Last 3 games: 106-109; (-3); 74:15

– at Wisconsin: 46-50; (-4); 35:24

– vs. Northwestern: 22-19; (+3); 16:52

– at Penn State: 38-40; (-2); 21:59

Melsahn Basabe: 401-372; (+29); 244:08

Last 3 games: 135-119; (+16); 78:39

– at Wisconsin: 35-34; (+1); 25:04

– vs. Northwestern: 32-29; (+3); 19:23

– at Penn State: 68-56; (+12); 34:12

Anthony Clemmons: 372-407; (-35); 224:53

Last 3 games: 66-74; (-8); 42:39

– at Wisconsin: 25-35; (-10); 18:21

– vs. Northwestern: 23-23; (0); 14:23

– at Penn State: 18-16; (+2); 9:55

Josh Oglesby: 328-310; (+18); 199:27

Last 3 games: 108-89; (+19); 59:48

– at Wisconsin: 37-36; (+1); 23:11

– vs. Northwestern: 47-27; (+20); 22:47

– at Penn State: 24-26; (-2); 13:50

Zach McCabe: 326-325; (+1); 195:14

Last 3 games: 69-78; (-9); 47:49

– at Wisconsin: 37-44; (-7); 26:29

– vs. Northwestern: 23-16; (+7); 13:01

– at Penn State: 9-18; (-9); 8:19

Adam Woodbury: 284-310; (-26); 190-49

Last 3 games: 75-77; (-2); 51:38

– at Wisconsin: 20-20; (0); 20:44

– vs. Northwestern: 20-24; (-4); 12:53

– at Penn State: 35-33; (+2); 18:01

Gabe Olaseni: 179-128; (+51); 104:08

Last 3 games: 42-31; (+11); 25:19

– at Wisconsin: 21-8; (+13); 10:28

– vs. Northwestern: 21-10; (+11); 11:53

– at Penn State: 0-13; (-13); 2:58

Pat Ingram: 47-46; (+1); 29:22

Last 3 games: 2-7; (-5); 2:24

– at Wisconsin: DNP

– vs. Northwestern: 2-7; (-5); 2:24

– at Penn State: DNP

*The next post in this series will come following the Hawkeyes’ next three games against Minnesota, Nebraska and Purdue. with data from those three contests. For more on the (+/-) statistic, current Portland Trail Blazers head coach Terry Stotts wrote this article about it from his days as an assistant coach with the Milwaukee Bucks.

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