Sports Reference Blog

Archive for January, 2016

2015-16 Team Results Pages Beefed Up

29th January 2016

We have attended several columns of statistics to our team Schedule & Results pages for 2015-16. We have a page like this for each team, showing their results, as well as their upcoming games. As you can see on the page linked to, we've added a column showing shots, power play goals, power play opportunities, short-handed goals and penalty minutes for both teams. Additionally, attendance and length of game were recently added. The columns are all sortable by clicking in the top row, so you can easily find team season highs (or lows) in each statistic.

Posted in Announcement, Data, Hockey-Reference.com | 1 Comment »

Completion Percentage and Times Sacked Added to Player Streak Finder

29th January 2016

We have made a couple of additional statistics available for search in the Player Streak Finder in the Play Index. You can now search for longest streaks of times sacked (since 1981) and for streaks by completion percentage. Enjoy!

Posted in Announcement, Data, Play Index, Pro-Football-Reference.com | Comments Off on Completion Percentage and Times Sacked Added to Player Streak Finder

College Basketball Player Statistics Added for 1994-95 Season

29th January 2016

As we continue to work our way back on digitizing player statistics for old college basketball seasons, we are happy to announce the player stats for the 1994-95 season are now live on the site. You can see player leaders for the season here. Notably, Kurt Thomas became the third player to lead NCAA D-I in scoring and rebounding in the same season (28.9 PPG and 14.6 RPG). Here's the team stats page for UCLA, as the Bruins won their record 11th (and most recent) national championship.

The new season of statistics has also been synced into the Player Season Finder tool, so you can now make customized searches for player stats all the way back to 1994-95 (though we cannot yet calculate Win Shares for 1994-95). Here's a few examples:

In the coming months and years, we hope to continue to add past seasons of player statistics, as well as team statistics.

Posted in Announcement, CBB at Sports Reference, Data, History, Play Index | 2 Comments »

Full Box Scores & Game Logs Added for 1983-84 & 1984-85 NBA Seasons

28th January 2016

Last month, we added full box scores for the 1983 & 1984 NBA Playoffs. Now, once again thanks to the help of Sean Burrill, we have added full box scores and game logs for the 1983-84 & 1984-85 NBA seasons. This means we now have a full box score for Michael Jordan's NBA debut (in which he was only the fourth leading scorer for his own team!). We also now have full game logs for Jordan's rookie season. This means we now have a stat line for pretty much every game Michael Jordan has played in since high school. Please let us know if you have any of his Tune Squad box scores, though.

We have also synched these box scores into the Play Index, allowing for searches further back in many non-scoring categories in the Player Game Finder and the Team Game Finder. Some sample searches now possible:

These new box scores also add new seasons available for search in the Player Streak Finder, the Team Streak Finder, and the Head2Head Finder. For instance, we now have full game logs and stats for every matchup between 1984 Draft class rivals Michael Jordan and Charles Barkley.

Player G MP FG FGA FG% 3P 3PA 3P% FT FTA FT% ORB DRB TRB AST STL BLK TOV PF PTS
Charles Barkley 39 37.5 8.4 13.7 .611 0.3 1.3 .260 6.0 8.2 .734 4.2 7.5 11.7 3.6 0.9 1.0 3.5 3.2 23.1
Michael Jordan 39 39.4 13.4 24.8 .541 0.4 1.6 .254 7.2 8.6 .830 1.6 4.1 5.7 5.9 2.9 1.1 2.9 3.0 34.4
Provided by Basketball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 1/28/2016.

Additionally, we have extended the single-game leaders links in our Leaders Index back to 1983-84. Kevin McHale's 56-point effort on March 3, 1985 now ranks as the fifth-best Game Score in our database. And we also now have the full Celtics box score from 9 days later, when Larry Bird one-upped his teammate with a 60-point game.

As a reminder, we do have every box score in NBA history on the site. They can be accessed via this menu. However, many of the older box scores are limited to only player FGs, FTs, and points. With our update, the boxes are complete back to 1983-84, though.

We also want to mention that there are a handful of games for 1983-84 and 1984-85 for which we are missing a few statistical categories. If you are able to help fill in any of the blanks, please let us know.

Here are the games with some missing columns of data (games with strike-throughs have been completed since the original blog post):

Posted in Announcement, Basketball-Reference.com, Data, History, Play Index | 1 Comment »

NHL Rookies of the Month Added to Hockey Reference

27th January 2016

We have added NHL Rookies of the Month back to the 2005-06 season. If you have this info for any older seasons, please let us know. The Rookie of the Month winners can be accessed via our larger Awards section.

Posted in Announcement, Awards, Data, History, Hockey-Reference.com | Comments Off on NHL Rookies of the Month Added to Hockey Reference

Division Finish Added to NFL Franchise Index Pages

26th January 2016

We made a small addition to the NFL Franchise Index Pages. The 7th column is now for division finish, so ,at a glance, you can see where a team finished with its division in every season. The full franchise history for every team can be accessed by clicking on any team name in this index.

Posted in Announcement, Data, Pro-Football-Reference.com | Comments Off on Division Finish Added to NFL Franchise Index Pages

Find the Record for Any Starting Lineup Since 2010-11

26th January 2016

Perhaps you noticed the recent addition of a "starters" tab on all team pages since 2010-11. Clicking on this tab will take you to a team game log where you can see the 5 starters used in each game. Additionally, at the bottom of the page, you will find a list of every starting lineup combo used, as well as the team's record in games started by that lineup.  So you can see, for instance, that all four Michigan State losses have come with rarely used lineups, with Denzel Valentine and Tum Tum Nairn, most notably, missing some action. While this data is interesting for Michigan State, it's a little more boring for top-ranked Oklahoma, which has used the same starting lineup in every game this season.

Posted in Announcement, CBB at Sports Reference, Data | Comments Off on Find the Record for Any Starting Lineup Since 2010-11

Opponent FGs, PATs & Safeties Added to Team Game Finder Search

25th January 2016

Earlier this month, we added the ability to search for safeties to the Team Game Finder in the Play Index.

We've now added the ability to search for opponent's safeties, as well as opponent FG & PAT statistics.

So we can now say things, such as:

Posted in Announcement, Data, Features, Play Index, Pro-Football-Reference.com | Comments Off on Opponent FGs, PATs & Safeties Added to Team Game Finder Search

The (In)complete Brady-Manning

22nd January 2016

On the eve of Brady-Manning XVII, perhaps the last matchup ever in this historic rivalry, we wanted to take a moment to collect some of the notable facts and stats from one of the defining matchups of the last 15 years of football. Read the rest of this entry

Posted in Announcement, Pro-Football-Reference.com | Comments Off on The (In)complete Brady-Manning

Call For Submissions for the 2016 Spira Award

21st January 2016

Did you write or read an excellent story, research paper, or book about baseball in 2015? If so, the window is open to submit that piece for consideration for this year's Greg Spira Baseball Research Award! Click this link to submit a piece for consideration.

The nomination period opened today, January 21, and will run through March 6. Any piece containing original analysis or research that was published between January 16, 2015 and January 15, 2016 is eligible to be nominated. Articles, papers, and books eligible for consideration include those published in print or in e-books, those published or posted on the Web, academic papers or dissertations, and papers presented at professional or public conferences. Winning entries must display innovative analysis or reasoning by an author who was 30 years old or younger at the time of the entry’s publication.

Anyone is free to nominate a qualifying piece for the Spira, and authors may self-nominate, but note that only one entry per author will be considered. The winner of the Spira Award will receive a cash prize of $1,000, with additional awards of $200 for second place and $100 for third place.

For more information on the Greg Spira Baseball Research Award, go to SpiraAward.org.

 

Posted in Announcement, Baseball-Reference.com | Comments Off on Call For Submissions for the 2016 Spira Award