Sports Reference Blog

Archive for March, 2017

Alert to Internet Explorer 11 Users

31st March 2017

If you're viewing this site on Internet Explorer 11, chances are you're having a frustrating experience. In recent weeks, we've received voluminous feedback about our sites not loading properly. The common denominator to this feedback is that the users are almost all part of the small portion of our traffic from users on IE11. It seems that IE11 is unable to render many of our pages, probably due to some ad code. Nothing we have tried so far to resolve this seems to have worked. To fix this issue, we may try removing ads on IE11 to see if performance improves. As we're dependent on advertising to keep our sites afloat, this isn't a decision we relish.

Until we figure out what the issue is, we highly recommend user a superior (and free!) browser such as Google Chrome or Firefox.

Please let us know if you have any questions.

Posted in Announcement, Baseball-Reference.com, Basketball-Reference.com, CBB at Sports Reference, CFB at Sports Reference, Hockey-Reference.com, Pro-Football-Reference.com | 2 Comments »

The Baseball-Reference All-Intrigue Team

31st March 2017

When we last left Major League Baseball, one of its oldest franchises had broken the most storied title drought in American sports. It took over 100 years, not to mention the second 3-1 championship comeback in four months, but, for the first time since William H. Taft's inauguration, the Cubs have a title to defend.

This year may not end in the same kind of joyous history-making, but there's still plenty to look forward to. In fact, between the influx of young stars over the last couple of years and the continued greatness of many of the game's biggest names, baseball in 2017 is as good as it's ever been.

So, as we look ahead to the season, I wanted to take a look at some players. But this list will forgo the Mike Trouts and Clayton Kershaws of the game. Instead, I've picked my 2017 all-intrigue team. These are the players who, to me, represent the most interesting storylines heading into 2017. Read the rest of this entry

Posted in Announcement, Baseball-Reference.com | Comments Off on The Baseball-Reference All-Intrigue Team

NCAA Men’s Basketball All-Tournament Teams Added

31st March 2017

Since we now have most players who have participated in the NCAA Tournament in our database, we thought it would be good to add All-Tournament teams to College Basketball Reference. So we've added these teams to our college basketball Awards section. This team was originally named in 1940 (the 2nd NCAA Tournament), and was then discontinued for 1941-51. It has been awarded every year since 1952. We've included tournament scoring stats for each player awarded, as well as other stats when fully available. Jerry Chambers's 35.8 PPG in the 1966 tournament for Utah represents the highest scoring average for an all-tournament selection, while Jim Thomas's 4.6 PPG for 1981 Champs Indiana represents the lowest. This list complements our previously existing list of NCAA Tournament Most Outstanding Players.

We hope you enjoy this addition. And keep an eye out for NCAA Tournament All-Regional teams in the future.

Posted in Announcement, Awards, CBB at Sports Reference, Data, Features | 1 Comment »

Video: How to SHARE Sports-Reference Data

30th March 2017

We're excited to post the latest video in our How To series, showing you some secrets and hacks that will help to get the most out of the Sports-Reference family of sites. Today's video is all about sharing. While many users know how to find the data they're look for, fewer know the different ways of sharing it. From embedding tables on a website or blog, to posting them to Reddit, to downloading directly to your computer as a spreadsheet, this video will show you the different ways that you share all the info you find on our sites:

Read the rest of this entry

Posted in Announcement, Baseball-Reference.com, Basketball-Reference.com, CBB at Sports Reference, CFB at Sports Reference, Hockey-Reference.com, How-To Videos, HowTo, Pro-Football-Reference.com | Comments Off on Video: How to SHARE Sports-Reference Data

Breaking Down College Basketball’s Naismith Award Race

24th March 2017

With the 2017 NCAA Tournament heating up, all eyes are on the college basketball world. By the end of this weekend, the March Madness field of 68 teams will have been pared down to just four finalists, and we'll have just three meaningful games of college hoops left to enjoy this year.

So, as the season wraps up, we wanted to turn our attention to another exciting race for a major trophy: the competition for this year's Naismith Player of the Year Award. The Naismith, given during the Final Four weekend, recognizes the year's best college basketball player. This week, the voters narrowed the field from the original ten semifinalists to four finalists, each of whom has an excellent case for taking the trophy. In fact, in an interesting mirror of the NBA MVP race that we examined a few weeks ago, this year's award could go to any of the major four contenders depending on what voters choose to prioritize. So, with that in mind, let's take a look at the pros and cons of each finalists' case. Read the rest of this entry

Posted in Awards, CBB at Sports Reference | Comments Off on Breaking Down College Basketball’s Naismith Award Race

Some Famous Names You Might Not Have Known Played College Basketball

21st March 2017

As you may have noticed, we recently made a massive update to the site, adding thousands of player pages back to the 1947-48 season. As we handled the update, we couldn't help but notice the wide variety of new payers in the database, who in the years (often decades) since they hung up their basketball sneakers, have become famous for things besides basketball. Below is a sampling of some of those players. We're sure there's others we're yet to notice, so please leave any discoveries that you make in the comments!

Posted in Announcement, CBB at Sports Reference, Data, History, Ridiculousness | 7 Comments »

College Basketball Leaderboards Extended Back to 1985-86

20th March 2017

Thanks to the addition of nearly 50 seasons of historical player statistics, we have extended our statistical leaderboards for several categories through the beginning of the shot-clock era (1985-86). These categories include games, field goals, field goal attempts, free throws, free throw attempts, total rebounds, assists, steals, blocks, and points (as well as their "per game" versions). Additionally, we have extended all 3-point shooting leaderboards back through 1986-87, which was the season the NCAA adopted the shot.

Read the rest of this entry

Posted in Announcement, CBB at Sports Reference, Data, Features, History, Leaders | 2 Comments »

Historical NCAA Tournament Game Logs Added

17th March 2017

Regular users of College Basketball Reference are probably familiar with the fact that our box scores and player games logs go back through the 2010-11 season. Additionally, we have every box score in the history of the NCAA Tournament. Now that we have most player pages digitized back through 1947-48, we've been able to create NCAA Tournament Game Logs on player pages. The NCAA Tournament began in 1939, so this isn't full coverage, but it's still a worthwhile addition. These new pages can be found on the "Game Logs" tab on player pages next to the player overview on the bar underneath the player summary. Here's some of our favorites...

Read the rest of this entry

Posted in Announcement, CBB at Sports Reference, Data, History | Comments Off on Historical NCAA Tournament Game Logs Added

Site Redesign: Making Copying and Pasting to a Spreadsheet a Bit Easier

17th March 2017

We know that a lot of you are interested in grabbing data from our site and reusing it in excel and generating reports on your own. We got our start doing that.

The redesign complicates that because we add some helper elements to the page that are relevant for the vast majority of users and helpful in their use of the site. I'll call this material Mobile Formatting. It includes the frozen left column on wide tables, the max width of the page and side scrolling, the use of interior table header rows and sort direction indicators. So to make sorting easier, I've added an option to the "Share & more" menu to strip this content out in one click.
Read the rest of this entry

Posted in Announcement, Baseball-Reference.com, Basketball-Reference.com, CBB at Sports Reference, CFB at Sports Reference, Hockey-Reference.com, Pro-Football-Reference.com, Tips and Tricks | 2 Comments »

Easy Access to the Site Search Box, Press Tab

15th March 2017

On the old version of the site on the front page, we placed the cursor into the search box automatically which could cause some issues if you had already scrolled down the page. Your browser would then be jerked back to the top of the page. On the site redesign, all you have to do is (once the page has loaded) hit the tab key one time and you'll be put into the search box. Lickety Split.

Posted in Announcement, Baseball-Reference.com, Basketball-Reference.com, CBB at Sports Reference, CFB at Sports Reference, FBref, Hockey-Reference.com, Pro-Football-Reference.com, Tips and Tricks | Comments Off on Easy Access to the Site Search Box, Press Tab