Sports Reference Blog

Full Box Scores and Statistics Added for 1984 Men’s Olympic Basketball

Posted by Mike Lynch on November 4, 2024

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.

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Sam Davis Memorial Award Added to Basketball Reference

Posted by Mike Lynch on October 31, 2024

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

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USBWA MVP Award (and voting) Added to Basketball Reference

Posted by Mike Lynch on October 25, 2024

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

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Corrections Applied to Historical Game-Level Team Turnovers on Basketball Reference

Posted by Mike Lynch on October 22, 2024

Basketball Reference is thrilled to announce a subtle, but meaningful, improvement to our game-level NBA statistics: the addition of 'team' turnovers to our single-game team turnover totals for all seasons back to 1993-94. Go ahead and read that again. And then maybe again. Again? Yes, it's a confusing word salad. But we'll explain. At least we'll try to! Read the rest of this entry

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Coverage of Games vs Non-Major Opponents Extended Back to 1992-93 on Sports Reference College Basketball

Posted by Mike Lynch on October 21, 2024

The school schedules for men's basketball teams have recently been updated to include games vs. non-major opponents back through the 1992-93 season on College Basketball Reference. Previously, the schedules were only complete with all non-major opponents back until 1994-95. This means that the La Salle fan writing this can now look back and (not) laugh when reviewing the Explorers' 1992-93 season schedule, which opened with a narrow victory over Hall of Famer Herb Magee's Division II Philadelphia Textile Rams (now known as Jefferson University). Or perhaps you'd prefer to see a vintage Georgetown/St. Leo result. Either way, we've now got it! We'd like to thank Kevin Johnson for providing us with this improved information. Please keep your eyes peeled for further enhancements on this front in the future.

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Complete Box Scores Added for Chicago Packers/Zephyrs

Posted by Mike Lynch on October 21, 2024

There may not be too many Chicago Packers or Chicago Zephyrs fans around these days, but nonetheless we are incredibly excited to announce that we now have full, official box scores for every game in the history of these teams on Basketball Reference. Over a decade after the demise of the Chicago Stags, the Chicago Packers were an expansion team in 1961-62. The following season they changed their name to the Chicago Zephyrs. After two seasons in the Windy City, the blew all the way east to Baltimore, where they were known as the Bullets, eventually moving to the nation's capital where they are now known as the Washington Wizards. The Chicago Bulls became an expansion team in 1966-67 and were the first Chicago NBA franchise to truly stick. Read the rest of this entry

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WUSA Statistics Added to FBref

Posted by Mike Lynch on October 21, 2024

We are thrilled to announce that we have added WUSA (Women's United Soccer Association) stats to FBref.com. WUSA ran from 2001 to 2003 and was a 1st Tier professional soccer league in the U.S., featuring many stars from the 1999 Women's World Cup. The competition included legends such as Mia Hamm, Brandi Chastain, Julie Foudy, Briana Scurry, Tiffeny Milbrett, and many others. We would like to thank our Summer 2024 intern Maddy Brown for her efforts in helping us compile and organize this information. We would also like to thank Steve Holroyd for his assistance in helping us fill in some gaps.

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All-Time WNBA Play-by-Play & PxP-derived Statistics Added to Basketball Reference

Posted by Mike Lynch on September 16, 2024

We are thrilled to announce that we have drastically expanded our coverage of WNBA Play-by-Play, as well as statistics derived from Play-by-Play, at Basketball Reference. Previously, our Play-by-Play went back to 2016. and our PxP-derived statistics went back to 2018. However, now we have coverage for over 99.7% of games in WNBA history. We're currently missing just 17 games (regular-season and postseason) in the history of the league and are confident we can source most of the missing material over time. The coverage is 100% complete back through 2016 and no season is missing more than 3 games (2006, 2000 and 1998). Read the rest of this entry

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Recognizing Clemente Humanitarian Award Winners

Posted by Jonah Gardner on September 12, 2024

We're excited to announce that we've added recognition for Roberto Clemente Humanitarian Award winners to their top-of-page awards section.

This section, that we call "bling" internally, recognizes major awards received by the player so that users can see the scope of a player's accomplishments at a glance, right at the top of the page. Let us know what other awards you'd like to see in a player's bling section!

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Fun New Feature on Kobe, LeBron, and MJ’s Pages

Posted by Jonah Gardner on September 10, 2024

A quick update! We've added a fun new feature to three of the most popular pages on Basketball Reference. Now, the pages for Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, and Michael Jordan will display all of the jerseys those three players wore in their careers, from high school to (if applicable) college to the Olympics. That's in addition to, of course, the pro jerseys we already display for every player in our database.

Enjoy and tell us who else you'd like to see this feature added for.

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