Sports Reference Blog

Our Marcel the Monkey projections for the 2025 MLB season are now live. The Marcels projection system was originally developed by Tom Tango as the "minimum level of competence that you should expect from any forecaster." You can read more about these projections here. The projections are also live on our player pages.

The men's statistical data on College Basketball Reference is generally limited to the era since 1947-48. That was the first season in which schools were required to send final stat sheets to NCAA headquarters so that official national leaderboards could be compiled. Before this, unofficial leaderboards were compiled in yearly record books, but the scans with stats for all teams are generally not as easy to locate. Nonetheless, many of the most important players in the history of college basketball played before 1947-48, so we have made an effort to cover as many of these players as possible. We are proud to announce that we have added data for over 2,500 player seasons (covering over 1,500 players) from 1911-12 through 1947-48 to our database. Read the rest of this entry

With the 2024 regular season concluded and All-Pro voting released, we're pleased to report that we've added 2024 Approximate Value (AV) numbers to the site for all NFL players. Note that these numbers are considered provisional at the moment, as there may be some slight adjustments based on replacement Pro Bowl selections.

Lamar Jackson leads 2024 players with 21 AV, with Josh Allen and Jayden Daniels just behind at 20. The top non-QBs in AV this season are Penei Sewell, Saquon Barkley, Tristan Wirfs and Zack Baun. You can see all of the top players in this Stathead.com Player Season Finder search.

Not sure what AV is? To learn more about PFR's attempt to put a single number on each player-season since 1960 (for the purposes of comparing players across position and era), check out our About page on the topic at PFR. Feel free to send us feedback via our site's form.

We're excited to announce that the College Team Season Finder is live on Stathead Football! This tool completes our set of college football search tools, giving you the power to unlock the College Football Reference database in ways that you've never been able to before.

With the College Team Season Finder, you can answer questions like:

1. What team had the most rushing yards in a season?
2. What was the most wins by a team that finished the season unranked?
3. What was the best point differential by a school in the 1990s?
4. What school has the most losses since 2020?

If you've never tried Stathead, bowl season is the perfect time! You can get a free one-month trial when you sign up today!

That's right! Just one week after launching the College Player Game Finder, we're back with another new college football tool. Say hello to the College Team Game Finder!

As you'd guess from the name, the College Team Game Finder is a search engine that is powered by College Football Reference's extensive database of college box scores. You can search team stats like yards and turnovers back to 2000, while scores and points are complete back to 1869! Some questions you can answer include

1. What team had the most passing TDs in a bowl game?
2. What was the heaviest loss by a team that won the National Championship?
3. What team had the most games in a season with 50+ pass attempts?
4. What year had the most bowl games decided by double-digits?

If you've never used Stathead, this is the perfect time to start your free trial! Sign up for a monthly plan and your first month is on us. Cancel anytime

Exciting news! We've just launched the College Player Game Finder tool on Stathead!

This new tool gives you the power to explore College Football Reference's extensive box scores in new and exciting ways. You can answer questions like

1. What was the most passing yards in a game by a freshman?
2. Who had the most games with a passing TD and a rushing TD?
3. Who had the most sacks in a College Football Playoff game?
4. What season had the most 400-yard passing games?

Coverage for player stats goes all the way back to 2000, giving you close to 25 years of college football gamelogs to search.

If you haven't tried Stathead, now is the time! Your first month is free, meaning you can explore both of our college football tools during this crucial point in the CFB season. Plus, we have more tools on the way, including a Team Game Finder launching very soon.

Try Stathead Football today or login.

We are thrilled to announce that we have released a huge update to the women's college basketball statistics appearing on College Basketball Reference. With this update, we now have player, team and opponent statistics going all the way back to 1981-82, which was the first season of NCAA-sanctioned women's basketball. This exciting update now gives us statistics for legends such as Cheryl Miller, Anne Donovan, Yolanda Laney, Teresa Edwards, Katrina McClain, Wanda Ford, Cynthia Cooper and Doris Burke. Read the rest of this entry

Thanks to the research of Todd Spehr, we have recently enhanced and expanded our statistical coverage of the 1984 Men's Olympic Basketball competition. Our box scores, and therefore our cumulative stats for the competition, now have all of the categories recorded at the time accounted for. These games, in Los Angeles, represented the Olympic debut of a young Michael Jordan months before his NBA debut. The Gold Medal-winning U.S. team also featured Hall of Famers Chris Mullin and Patrick Ewing. They were the last all-college team to win Olympic Gold. We hope you enjoy this addition.

Last week we added the USBWA MVP (and voting) to Basketball Reference. Today we are happy to announce that we have added some more award to Basketball Reference, allowing us to more fully flesh out our coverage of historical MVP and ROY awards. The most important and notable addition in this group is the Sam Davis Memorial Award, which was awarded by the Metropolitan Basketball Writers Association to the MVP each season from 1949-50 (the first NBA season after the merger of the BAA and NBL) through 1974-75. The NBA would merge with the ABA after the 1975-76 season, so this is a nearly full accounting of 'unofficial' MVPs from the original incarnation of the NBA. The MBWA also awarded an NBA Rookie of the Year, called the Hy Turkin Memorial Award. The organization also briefly had ABA counterparts for both of these awards: MBWA Outstanding ABA Player of the Year and MBWA Outstanding ABA Rookie. Read the rest of this entry

In modern times, the U.S. Basketball Writers Association (USBWA) is an organization for journalists covering college basketball. However, many decades ago writers covering the pro game were also part of the USBWA. The organization for journalists covering professional basketball is the Professional Basketball Writers Association (PBWA). But the PBWA wasn't formed until the 1970s. It has voted for many major NBA honors since 1980-81. Before this, however, the NBA MVP was determined by a player vote. Players could not vote for teammates and, thus, it was impossible to be a unanimous MVP. However, from 1958-59 through 1965-66, the USBWA pulled double duty and, in addition to voting for collegiate honors, handed out its own NBA MVP award, which was voted on by three scribes from each NBA city.

Basketball Reference is thrilled to announce that we have added this award (and full voting tallies!) to our database. This voting provides an interesting peek at what modern award voting methods would have rewarded in some vintage NBA seasons. Read the rest of this entry