Another high school basketball question

[Fourth and 8]

I'd like to find an easy way to completely stat a game, counting shots, missed shots, rebounds on both ends, assists and turnovers, play by play and still make deadline. I've got it down to shots, missed shots, o and d rebounds and turnovers. But a breakdown on assists and steals and I begin to blow chunks of my mind in a fast-paced game, not to mention concern about accuracy. I do all that I do except score sequence in a regular basketball scorebook. X and O for missed free throws on the top line per quarter and m and 2 or 3 for field goals. O and D on the second line for offensive and defensive rebounds. On a separate sheet of paper, I do scoring sequence. That's about all I can juggle on one plate, but has anyone figured out a way to do it all?

 

[mike311gd]

I've got a system that works for me. I created a table on a Word document and tally my way through the game. It's worked very well for me over the last two years. If you want to see the sheet, just PM me an address.

 

[HandsomeHarley]

There always one stat in every sport that I just can't keep up with. In basketball it's assists.

I can do everything else, but by the time I figure out if it was a legit assist, I lose touch with everything else.

 

[jgmacg]

Tom Petty had a question, which I've edited into the following form:

If you're taking that many stats, how can you even watch the game?

Thanks.

 

[Fourth and 8]

Tom Petty had a question, which I've edited into the following form:

If you're taking that many stats, how can you even watch the game?

Thanks.

Exactly. But have you ever put your trust in a high school girl who stares blankly at the floor while making a few slashes here and there on a statsheet?

 

[NISB35]

I also use a standard basketball scorebook and a piece of paper for a scoring sequence. "2" for a make, "3" for a make, "|" for a miss, "-" for a 3pt miss, and "00" for free throws (filled in for makes). I use "R" for a rebound, and "R" with a circle around it for an offensive rebound, "A" for an assist, "S" for a steal and "B" for a block.

It may just be in the handstroke, too. Some write (contact paper with pencil) faster than others. On my scoring sequence, I have looseleaf paper that goes something like this in each row:

5:36 R33 2 23 8-4
4:22 S11 3 ST 8-7

Time - player (first letter of team) - pts - assist (#) - running score
Time - player - pts - "off of a steal" - running score

I've actually managed it quite well in the past four years. But I have always written it like "B2||00AASB2" on one line. I may try using one line for letters and the other for numbers.

I'm still working on a way to put turnovers in the book. I've tried putting in the player's number in order seperated by commas, then slashes at the end of each quarter.

One thing you may want to consider (if you do this), don't take the time to slash your running score on your book if you already do it on paper.

Just my $0.02.

 

[HandsomeHarley]

Tom Petty had a question, which I've edited into the following form:

If you're taking that many stats, how can you even watch the game?

Thanks.

Exactly. But have you ever put your trust in a high school girl who stares blankly at the floor while making a few slashes here and there on a statsheet?

Exactly. I've watched high school stat girls talking to each other while the game was going on, not even pretending to be following the game. For minutes (and points) at a time.

Forget that ****.

 

[Appgrad05]

Never understood the fascination with charting missed shots and turnovers in a high school game.
There is going to be a lot. No matter what.

Stick with points, assists, steals, rebounds and blocks. Generally, I only take assists for the point guards (no one else is going to have enough to matter, anyways).

 

[Bob Loblaw Law Blog]

I also use a standard basketball scorebook and a piece of paper for a scoring sequence. "2" for a make, "3" for a make, "|" for a miss, "-" for a 3pt miss, and "00" for free throws (filled in for makes). I use "R" for a rebound, and "R" with a circle around it for an offensive rebound, "A" for an assist, "S" for a steal and "B" for a block.

It may just be in the handstroke, too. Some write (contact paper with pencil) faster than others. On my scoring sequence, I have looseleaf paper that goes something like this in each row:

5:36 R33 2 23 8-4
4:22 S11 3 ST 8-7

Time - player (first letter of team) - pts - assist (#) - running score
Time - player - pts - "off of a steal" - running score

I've actually managed it quite well in the past four years. But I have always written it like "B2||00AASB2" on one line. I may try using one line for letters and the other for numbers.

I'm still working on a way to put turnovers in the book. I've tried putting in the player's number in order seperated by commas, then slashes at the end of each quarter.

One thing you may want to consider (if you do this), don't take the time to slash your running score on your book if you already do it on paper.

Just my $0.02.

Holy ****. No way I could keep up that way.

 

[Angola!]

Never understood the fascination with charting missed shots and turnovers in a high school game.
There is going to be a lot. No matter what.

Stick with points, assists, steals, rebounds and blocks. Generally, I only take assists for the point guards (no one else is going to have enough to matter, anyways).

I've been thinking about adding missed shots to my stats, but it seems bothersome. I keep track of turnovers and not assists or steals, though. Turnovers are really easy and I think it can be useful to the story if your teams tend to use a lot of pressure, like the two teams I cover do.

 

[0-fer]

I use two sheets of notebook paper instead of a scorebook. It gives me more space. On one sheet I keep a running score that goes something like this:

2-0 6:53 33 ins L
2-2 6:31 25 15ftr R

That allows me to keep points in the paint, and it's not too hard although I've had others look at my note sheet and ask me what the hell it all means. With the relatively short annotation there's extra space on the page which is valuable when there's a flurry of missed shots and rebounds. I scribble down player number and either OR or DR, but that's largely more frequent in girls bball when six shots can go up from inside six feet - all misses - in a matter of seconds.

On the other sheet I create five columns. I have the player numbers in one narrow column, fouls in the next nigh equally narrow column, then a wide column for FG/FT. Every shot gets a number, and that number gets circled if the shot goes in. If there's an assist on the made basket, the jersey number of the passer is written (slightly smaller) above and to the right of the circled number. If a missed shot is blocked, the jersey number of the blocker goes in the same place as an assist next to the missed shot.

The last two columns are for offensive and defensive boards, which are marked with a simple tally.

About halfway down the sheet (once every player's number has been listed), I use a line for turnovers and team boards. Both get a simple tally, and if a turnover is created by a steal, I jot the stealing player's number just below the tally.

This takes up the top half of the page, and I do the same for the other team with the bottom half.

Looking back on all this, it's fairly complex and admittedly pretty hard to keep up with, but I still trust my system a hell of a lot more than I trust the kid staring at his cell phone text messaging the whole game while supposedly keeping stats.

Anyway, this may not work for you, but hopefully there's something you can glean from it. Everyone has his/her own system, and the only way to get better - and more stats - is through repetition.

I couldn't imagine not having missed shots, though, and rebounds go hand in hand with that stat. There's no way to say a team was simply cold from the floor, or from 3-point range, unless you can say it shot 11-for-57 field goals.

If a team misses a ton of shots, or turns the ball over a bunch, or gets outrebounded - especially in offensive boards - by a huge margin, that's the game.

Anyway, hope this helps.

 

[Some Guy]

I don't **** with assists, steals, etc for a HS game. If I get the feeling one player has a bunch, ie enough worth mentioning in a gamer, I'll ask the coach after the game and go with that.

I do chart missed shots, because that's something I can actually use in a gamer. It's nice, if someone has an epic scoring drought or something, to be able to say, "The Goatpunchers missed 17 consecutive shots at one point."

Basically, I think you've got to decide what's most important to you, and chart that. If you're trying to keep too much of the minutia, my gut feeling is you're probably missing the big picture.

 

[ADifferentOkie]

I don't think tracking misses is that hard. I put a 2 or 3 for every shot and circle the makes.

 

[Fourth and 8]

I don't **** with assists, steals, etc for a HS game. If I get the feeling one player has a bunch, ie enough worth mentioning in a gamer, I'll ask the coach after the game and go with that.

I do chart missed shots, because that's something I can actually use in a gamer. It's nice, if someone has an epic scoring drought or something, to be able to say, "The Goatpunchers missed 17 consecutive shots at one point."

Basically, I think you've got to decide what's most important to you, and chart that. If you're trying to keep too much of the minutia, my gut feeling is you're probably missing the big picture.

Them Goatpunchers rarely miss shots though. They're a hell of a team.

 

[Appgrad05]

Never understood the fascination with charting missed shots and turnovers in a high school game.
There is going to be a lot. No matter what.

Stick with points, assists, steals, rebounds and blocks. Generally, I only take assists for the point guards (no one else is going to have enough to matter, anyways).

I've been thinking about adding missed shots to my stats, but it seems bothersome. I keep track of turnovers and not assists or steals, though. Turnovers are really easy and I think it can be useful to the story if your teams tend to use a lot of pressure, like the two teams I cover do.

I have a couple of teams that do as well. I usually just go with steals.
I just don't know if the reader has an understanding of what is a normal amount of turnovers in a high school game. Therefore, the stat loses some of its value.

 

[apeman33]

Here was a tip I learned early on from a mentor of mine: If you're doing a score-by-score listing of the game somewhere and you want to track shooting percentage, you only need to keep track of missed shots. If you're keeping play-by-play basket for basket, you already have the made ones. Just put them down after the game and add that and the misses to get total shots. You don't have to keep individual misses if you think that's a bit much, but you can keep track of total shots this way.

If at the end of the game you have 23 makes in your box and you tracked 50 misses off to the side, then the team was 23 of 73. There ya go.

I note three-pointers by putting an exclamation point after the number. Examples:

On my PBP, a made three looks like this:
FS Coff. Who/how
33! 30 Goltra (LW) <--- LW meaning "left wing."

I keep rebounds, but I don't break down offensive and defensive. And I keep track of total turnovers, not individuals. I figure those aren't important enough in HS games and colleges do those with their scoring progeams.

Also I have a general rule for assists: If I can't decide whether or not it was an assist by the time the other team gets past half court, it probably wasn't one. And I also track those by putting the passer's number in a circle on my PBP:

FS Cof Who/how
33! 30 (13) Goltra (LW)

I also created my own form in Quark where I can track it all on one sheet. One sheet per quarter for a HS game...two per half in college.

My way of keeping stats evolved from my mentor's way. But they're not exactly the same methods now. He's never kept individual opponent's stats, just team stuff. But I can keep track of both teams if I want to. Just keep tweaking a little until you get what you are comfortable with.

With the way I do it, I can get a feel for the flow of the game when I look back at the PBP. The big drawback to my way is, I can't total anything until the end of the game so there have been times when I'm thinking "Wow, this guy is having a heck of a game" but I can't confirm it until after I add everything up and it's then I find out he had 35 points.

I have never used a regular scorebook to track a game. I can see the totals but I can't look at it and see how the game flowed. A regular scorebook can't tell you when that big 12-0 run happened.

My .02.

 

[EStreetJoe]

Unless you're trying to track how well an individual player shot, there's a much easier way to track misses... offensive rebounds plus opposing team's defensive rebounds equals total shots missed by the team.

 

[apeman33]

That is my goal: individual shots. I haven't had too many situations where breaking down offensive and defensive rebounds would provide a number I thought meaningful, at least not for a high school game. The juco has their computer and can break that down for me.

Besides, I've been doing this for about 12 years or so and it's evolved into something I can keep up with fairly easily. It can get tough when there's five or six missed shots in a row under the basket, but I can scratch those out on a legal pad real quick, then add them back in during a time out.

The point being, really, that you just have to come up with something you're comfortable doing. At first, I didn't keep individual opponent totals, just the team. But as I got more used to it, I was able to start doing individual opponents, too. That came in handy when I tracked an opposing player for 44 points and 20 boards in a game earlier this year (She had a double-double just in the fourth quarter by itself).

In the rematch, she had "just" 24 points....but she had 29 rebounds.