Sports Reference Blog

Archive for January, 2015

Using our Search Engine

23rd January 2015

When we revamped our search engine last year we didn't provide much instruction. After all, it's pretty simple to use. It's fast, features auto-complete, and has nicely categorized search results.

Since then, we've added some new features that should make finding what you want even easier. The following is a quick guide to the most useful tips and tricks.

First thing is first, the search bar is at the top right of the site, and also on the left-hand side of the homepage, shown here, respectively:

 

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Player Search

We match against the player's common name or a known nickname: 'lebron' will return LeBron James; searching 'sir charles' will return Charles Barkley.

Partial strings work, too. For example, 'kentav' will return Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, if you want to save yourself some typing and the player's name is unique.

 

Team Names

Searching for team indexes and seasons is just as easy. 'spurs' will return all Spurs teams since they adopted that name for the 1974 ABA season.

 

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Clicking on the right column - 'Team Seasons' - will give you a list of individual Spurs seasons, which bring you conveniently to a season summary page.

 

Team Seasons

In fact, there's an even easier way to get to a team's season page. Just add a year before or after the team name.

For example, '1996 bulls' or 'bulls 1996' will bring you directly to that champion Bulls season.

 

League Seasons

What if you want to get to a particular NBA season page to view historical standings, stats, and leaders?

Same trick as for teams, except use the league name: 'nba 1998' or '1998 nba'. This will land you on the 1998 NBA season summary. This pattern works for the ABA and BAA seasons, as well.

 

Playoffs

Likewise, to access historical playoff pages do the same thing, except substitute the word 'playoffs'.

'playoffs 1990' or '1990 playoffs' will send you to the 1990 Playoffs summary page, with links to series stats, leaders, etc.

 

Finals

Finals summaries work the same way.

'finals 1984' or '1984 finals' will give you all the Bird & Magic stats from that year's Finals.

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et cetera

We get a lot of searches that don't fit a particular pattern - for example, mis-spellings like 'dwayne wade', or searches like 'hall of fame'.

Often, these will give you what you're looking for and the best way to find out is trial and error. In fact, 'dwayne wade' will go to Wade's page and 'hall of fame' will land you on our Hall of Fame summary page.

Likewise, 'mj' will bring you to Jordan's page, 'sixers' to the 76ers franchise summary, and 'salaries' will direct you to our database of player salaries.

 

If a common search is missing or there's a term or search pattern you'd like us to add here, please ask!

 

 

Posted in Announcement, Basketball-Reference.com, CBB at Sports Reference | 1 Comment »

Explore PFR’s Super Bowl Section

23rd January 2015

If you haven't seen the Super Bowl Section of our site yet, you should head over and check it out right now, because we think it's pretty awesome. Here are some of the features you'll find once you get there:

And best of all is the Super Bowl Play Finder tool. It's similar to the Play Index Game Play Finder tool, but limits your searches strictly to Super Bowls and allows you to search through every play of all 48 previous games. Some examples:

Our Player Game Finder and Team Game Finder are also unique tools for Super Bowl research. You can use them to find things like every 100-yard rusher in Super Bowl history, the largest point spreads in Super Bowl history or the highest over/unders. You can also identify trends such as the record of the team leading after one quarter (26-11), at halftime (36-10) and through three quarters of play (39-8).

So go ahead and try the Super Bowl Section right now -- it's free, easy to use, and best of all, with it you'll be able to dominate anyone who challenges you in Super Bowl trivia.

UPDATE: We have also added a Super Bowl filter to our Drive Finder, which allows users to find things such as the longest drives in any Super Bowl since 1998 or the fastest Super Bowl touchdown drives since 1998.

Posted in Announcement, Data, Features, History, Play Index, Playoffs, Pro-Football-Reference.com, Super Bowl, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Seeking Nominations for 2015 Greg Spira Award

19th January 2015

The Greg Spira Baseball Research Award Committee is seeking nominations for the third annual Greg Spira Baseball Research Award. The nomination period opened on January 16 and will remain open through February 15. For more information, please visit www.spiraaward.org

Posted in Announcement, Baseball-Reference.com | Comments Off on Seeking Nominations for 2015 Greg Spira Award

Punt Statistics Added to Team Game Finder

9th January 2015

Just wanted to quickly note that we have added Punts, Punting Yards & Yards per Punt to the Team Game Finder in the Play Index. The data is complete back to 1950, but is spotty before that. We apologize to Doug Drinen for adding more punting stats, but encourage users to enjoy the new queries.

Posted in Announcement, Features, Play Index, Pro-Football-Reference.com, Uncategorized | Comments Off on Punt Statistics Added to Team Game Finder

Small Additions to the Player Season Finder

6th January 2015

Just a note that we've added 3-Point Attempt Rate (3PAr) and Free Throw Attempt Rate (FTr) to our Player Season Finder.

In addition, we've expanded the group of shooting stats that we show by default, now including both eFG% and TS%.

This should help you keep tabs on Kyle Korver's historic sharpshooting...

 

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Posted in Advanced Stats, Announcement, Basketball-Reference.com, CBB at Sports Reference | Comments Off on Small Additions to the Player Season Finder

2015 Hall of Fame Features

6th January 2015

With the announcement of the 2015 Baseball Hall of Fame class this afternoon, here are some useful links from around the site:

Please enjoy these features as you debate with your friends today.

Posted in Announcement, Awards, Baseball-Reference.com, Data, Hall of Fame | 13 Comments »