Offensive and Defensive Plus-Minus

I've updated the season-long plus-minus statistics and for the first time, I've broken them down into offensive and defensive plus-minus differentials. For now, I'm just going to post conference-play numbers for Illinois' top 7 players, due to some data gaps in my spreadsheets.

Team Offensive Efficiencies, On and Off-Court

Player	On	Min	Off	P/M
Trent Meacham	103.3	513	82.3	+21
Demetri McCamey	100.2	536	90.2	+10.1
Mike Davis	99.5	530	93.0	+6.5
Chester Frazier	98.7	584	94.1	+4.7
Mike Tisdale	99.1	430	96.4	+2.7
Calvin Brock	95.7	269	99.6	-3.8
Dominique Keller	94.4	225	99.9	-5.5
Jeff Jordan	90.5	97	99.0	-8.4
Alex Legion	90.5	184	101.0	-10.6

Team Defensive Efficiencies, On and Off-Court

Player	On	Min	Off	P/M
Mike Tisdale	85.0	430	103.8	+18.8
Chester Frazier	89.5	584	106.4	+16.9
Jeff Jordan	87.1	97	92.4	+5.3
Calvin Brock	89.4	269	93.7	+4.3
Mike Davis	92.1	530	91.7	-0.4
Alex Legion	94.4	184	91.5	-2.9
Dominique Keller	97.3	225	89.5	-7.8
Trent Meacham	95.0	513	83.1	-12.0
Demetri McCamey	96.3	536	76.5	-19.8

Things I take away from this chart:

- Demetri McCamey and Trent Meacham have fairly extreme values on both the offensive and defensive ends. Although I think it is true that both are more valuable on offense than defense, their numbers are skewed, probably because their backups are Jeff Jordan and Calvin Brock. Both Jordan and Brock come in for defensive purposes and are essentially non-scorers. Thus, McCamey and Meacham look worse on defense than they should and better on offense.
- That said, Meacham still rates as a net positive contributor while McCamey does not. Thus, McCamey's defensive liabilities, although not as severe as indicated by the chart, are still enough of a problem to mitigate his offensive contributions.
- By far, the two highest-rated players on the team are Mike Tisdale and Chester Frazier, both of whom contribute a small amount on offense and a huge amount on defense. The defense falls apart without them on the floor. In the case of Tisdale, I credit his height and the fact that Illinois has to go small when he's not on the court. As for Frazier, this chart is a testament to his one-on-one defensive abilities. Rarely do you see such a defensive impact from the guard position. Remind me to send in these statistics to the Big 10 coaches and writers, because Chester deserves to be Big 10 Defensive Player of the Year.

Michigan State 74, Illinois 66

My apologies for not getting up a recap or plus-minus chart of the Illinois-Minnesota game from Thursday. Suffice it to say that I was pleased that Illinois finally turned an ugly game to their advantage. This afternoon, on the other hand, was an atypical Big 10 affair, with both teams tallying 71 possessions. My feeling is that the pace was even quicker in the first half, with Michigan State looking for the fast break every time they got a rebound. Ultimately, I thought Illinois played hard and played well until their offense went dead in the last five minutes. Michigan State had visible advantages in both strength and athleticism, but Illinois was able to counteract those advantages for most of the game with intense play and the height of Mike Tisdale.

I'm not sure what went wrong in the last five minutes. Tom Izzo subbed in the rarely-used 6'11" Idong Ibok to guard Tisdale, which helped to shut down the Illinois offense. Still, Illinois actually lost control of the game while Tisdale was off the court in the final 90 seconds. Although I love Bruce Weber, Tisdale ought to have been on the floor at such a crucial juncture. Weber sometimes pulls Tisdale on defensive possessions at the end of games, which is bizarre to me given Tisdale's height and his excellent defensive plus-minus differential. Alas, it probably wouldn't have changed the outcome. Illinois fought hard, but this game was an indication that they won't be able to hang with the top teams in the NCAA Tournament.

Plus-minus chart:

Player	P/M	Minutes
Demetri McCamey	-12	34
Trent Meacham	-4	36
Chester Frazier	-11	35
Mike Davis	-12	38
Mike Tisdale	+8	32
Calvin Brock	-3	7
Dominique Keller	-4	9
Jeff Jordan	-5	6
Alex Legion	-3	3
Bill Cole	+2	0+
Bubba Chisholm	+2	0+
C.J. Jackson	+2	0+

I say it again and again, but plus-minus rewards unique commodities. Mike Tisdale, as a 7'1" player with a sweet jump shot, qualifies as just that. In this game, at least until the final few minutes, he was the one player Michigan State could not physically match up with and the plus-minus chart duly reflects that. Yet with no similarly-sized backup, Illinois often falters when he is off the floor. He is the key to the rest of the season, and perhaps, the next two seasons as we1l.