Illinois Plus-Minus Chart, Conference Play

Player	P/M	Minutes
Chester Frazier	+75	232
Trent Meacham	+57	203
Mike Tisdale	+52	158
Mike Davis	+44	209
Demetri McCamey	+31	222
Calvin Brock	+22	128
Dominique Keller	+18	82
Jeff Jordan	+10	40
Alex Legion	+9	115

I've been promising to expand beyond single-game statistics and the above chart does just that. Although 7 games is a small sample and plus-minus is not a perfect statistic, there are some conclusions we can begin to draw from this chart. Chester Frazier has clearly been the team MVP so far in conference play, as he has finally blossomed into a player who can do more than just defend. Averaging over 5 assists a game with a assist/turnover ratio over 2, he is no longer a liability on offense. On a per-minute basis, however, Mike Tisdale has been the most effective player on the team. Even with his thin frame, his size is a big asset on defense. It should be noted that Bruce Weber is quick to pull him when he is struggling with a match-up, perhaps artificially inflating his per-minute numbers. This is one of the reasons why I find it more helpful to provide a raw plus-minus chart, rather than a per-minute one.

Other points I take away is that Demetri McCamey, although he has many flashes of brilliance, still has not developed into a complete basketball player. According to plus-minus, he is the weakest of the five starters and I suspect this reflects his streaky shooting as well as his proclivity towards taking plays off on defense. I'm not going to put up a season-long chart today but suffice it to say that McCamey has lagged behind his fellow starters in plus-minus for the entire season, so I feel confident that this is no 7-game fluke.

The following chart is a bit more experimental, but it provides team offensive and defensive efficiency while each player is on the floor. I will admit that these are estimations based on the team's season-long pace and the number of minutes played by each player. I don't have the time or the inclination to actually count the number of possessions each player was on the floor. For those unfamiliar, Offensive Efficiency is simply (Points/Possessions)*100.

Player	Off. Eff.	Def. Eff.
Chester Frazier	107.4	86.8
Trent Meacham	110.8	92.9
Mike Tisdale	105.2	84.3
Mike Davis	105.5	92.1
Demetri McCamey	105.9	97.0
Calvin Brock	99.5	88.6
Dominique Keller	104.1	90.1
Jeff Jordan	94.0	78.0
Alex Legion	100.8	95.8

Again, I want to reiterate that this is a small sample and that each player's numbers could be skewed by the fact that they share time with four other players on the court. That said, I think these problems are not as apparent in an inter-team comparison as they would be in a cross-team comparison. And so far, at least, these numbers back up a lot of my hypotheses. The team no longer suffers on offense when Frazier is on the floor and is very good on defense. The offense is solid with McCamey but the defense clearly suffers due to his presence. Tisdale ranks as the best defensive player on the team; I suspect largely because of his height. Alex Legion has not made the impact many fans had hoped for on offense due to his poor field goal percentages and has struggled on defense. Calvin Brock and Jeff Jordan are not great offensive players but perform well on defense. Overall, I think these numbers, along with the plus-minus chart, go a long way towards understanding this year's Illini. I will continue to update these charts as the season progresses.