MBB + WBB plus/minus Cal vs. Oregon St.

On a trial basis, we're going to try to the plus/minus numbers for both men's and women's games. In addition to the usual sets of numbers for both Cal-Oregon State game, we're including a combined box that includes the plus/minus numbers for both the Oregon and Oregon State games for each team.

Men's:  California 69, Oregon State 59

Although Cal won by a modest 10 points, the Bears went from an early 7-point lead, to a 6-point deficit, back up  a 10-point halftime lead. Then in the second half, they got up as much as 16 before finally winning by 10.   With all of those big swings in the score, players' plus/minus numbers were all over the place. The Bears were clearly better with Anderson and Hardin in the game, and their difficulties seemed to accelerate when Kamp and Boykin were playing.

After posting some of the team's best plus/minus numbers early in the season, Nikola Knezevic has struggled recently.  On Saturday, he was a -1, which isn't very good when a team wins by 10, and it's even worse when the other starters are +10, +14, +21, and +22.  The team was about even during the 27 minutes that he played alongside Randle, but during the 40 seconds where he was technically the team's only point guard, the Bears were a -4.  By comparison, Cal was a +8 during the seven minutes when Randle was technically the only point guard.

Player	Min	+Pts	-Pts	Pts	Reb	Ast	Diff
Ryan Anderson	29	56	34	17	17	2	+22
DeVon Hardin	22	45	24	8	7	2	+21
Patrick Christopher	33	59	45	11	1	2	+14
Jerome Randle	34	62	52	11	5	5	+10
Eric Vierneisel	17	30	24	7	1	1	+6
Nican Robinson	4	7	3	0	0	2	+4
Nikola Knezevic	30	47	48	8	3	2	-1
Jordan Wilkes	6	8	12	0	0	1	-4
Harper Kamp	15	21	30	4	4	0	-9
Jamal Boykin	10	10	23	3	1	0	-13

First vs. Second Half (minimum 2 minutes)

First Half Top - DeVon Hardin - 30-21, +9
Second Half Top - Nikola Knezevic - 31-26, +5

First Half Bottom - Jamal Boykin - 6-17, -11
Second Half Bottom - Eric Vierneisel - 10-16, -6

Difference Makers

With Ryan Anderson in 29 minutes - 56-34, +22
Without Anderson in 11 minutes - 13-25, -12

With DeVon Hardin in 22 minutes - 45-24, +21
Without DeVon Hardin in 18 minutes - 24-35, -11

With Patrick Christopher in 33 minutes - 59-45, +14
Without Christopher in 7 minutes - 10-14, -4

Without Jamal Boykin in 30 minutes - 59-36, +23
Without Boykin in 10 minutes - 10-23, -13

Lineups

Starting lineup
Randle, Knezevic, Christopher, Anderson, Hardin in 13:30 - 20-15, +5
Randle, Vierneisel, Christopher, Anderson, Hardin in 5:31 - 15-5, +10
All other lineups in 20:59 - 34-39, -5

Randle/Knezevic/Robinson lineups:

Lineups with two:

Randle and Knezevic lineups	27:07	44-42, +2
Robinson and Knezevic lineups	1:37	3-2, +1
TOTAL	28:44	47-44, +3

Lineups with one:

Randle lineups	7:08	18-10, +8
Robinson lineups	1:31	0-1, -1
Knezevic lineups	0:40	0-4, -4
TOTAL	9:19	18-15, +3

Lineup with none:

Boykin, Vierneisel, Christopher, Anderson, Kamp	1:29	4-0, +4
	1:29	4-0, +4

Contribution Evaluation

Player	Minutes	Expected	Actual	Difference
Anderson	29	+7.25	+22	+14.75
Hardin	22	+5.50	+21	+14.50
Christopher	33	+8.25	+14	+5.75
Robinson	4	+1.00	+4	+3.00
Vierneisel	17	+4.25	+6	+1.75
Randle	34	+8.50	+10	+1.50
Wilkes	6	+1.50	-4	-5.50
Knezevic	30	+7.50	-1	-8.50
Kamp	15	+3.75	-9	-12.75
Boykin	10	+2.50	-13	-15.50

Description: This stat measures the significance of a player's contribution to the team's effort. If a team wins by 10 points, and a player plays in half of the team's minutes, his expected contribution would be a +5. For example, when Cal defeated Grambling by 19 points. Brian Wethers played 28 minutes or 70% of the game. If we multiply 70% x +19, Wethers' expected contribution would be a +13.30. But for the game he was a +26, so his net for the game for a +12.70. In a perfect team situation, if everyone contributed equally, the difference column would consist of a row of zeros.

Weekend combined

Considering that the Bears were a +1 for the weekend (-9 against Oregon, +10 against Oregon St.), one would have expected most of the Bears to be in single digits on the plus and minus side.  Yet Anderson, Vierneisel and Hardin were both over +10 and Kamp, Knezevic, and Boykin were below -10.  During the past few games the team has struggled with Knezevic and has been playing better with the Randle, Vierneisel, Christopher, Anderson, and Hardin lineups.  There's a temptation to think that Vierneisel's minutes should be increased even more and that head coach Ben Braun should consider starting him, but the roadside of the past few years is littered with players who did well in limited roles but saw their effectivenss decline once they were either put into starting roles or had their minutes significantly increased.  

Player	Min	+Pts	-Pts	Pts	Reb	Ast	Diff
Ryan Anderson	59	109	94	39	24	5	+15
Eric Vierneisel	45	91	79	14	4	2	+12
DeVon Hardin	46	83	72	10	11	2	+11
Patrick Christopher	71	126	122	32	7	2	+4
Nican Robinson	4	7	3	0	0	2	+4
Jerome Randle	58	101	99	14	9	9	+2
David Liss	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Jordan Wilkes	6	8	12	0	0	1	-4
Harper Kamp	31	50	61	11	9	1	-11
Nikola Knezevic	56	87	101	8	7	4	-14
Jamal Boykin	24	33	47	11	3	1	-14
	80	139	138				+1

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Women's:  California 61, Oregon State 45

Everybody who's had anything to do with coaching Ashley Walker should pat themselves on the back. Despite being smaller than most of the players she faces, her instincts, her footwork, her hands, her ability to find space to get her shot off, and even her high-post passing to Hampton, have made her just about unstoppable.   With the Bears sitting at 6-0 in the Pac-10, she has to be considered the early leader for Pac-10 player of the year.

Although Cal was comfortably ahead early in the second half, Oregon State nailed a pair of three-pointers early in the second half, to close with 22, and 49-27.  To give the Bears more height with their perimeter defense, head coach Joanne Boyle put in Kelsey Adrian in place of Lauren Greif, and the Beavers didn't score for the next five minutes as their shooting percentage for the game sank under 20%.

Player	Min	+Pts	-Pts	Pts	Reb	Ast	Diff
Alexis Gray-Lawson	29	49	25	14	4	1	+24
Devanei Hampton	27	47	28	14	12	1	+19
Ashley Walker	25	44	26	17	7	2	+18
Lauren Greif	25	39	28	4	2	2	+11
Kelsey Adrian	24	34	24	0	1	2	+10
Natasha Vital	23	40	32	4	3	3	+8
Shantrell Sneed	14	19	19	2	3	1	0
Rama N'Diaye	17	18	18	4	3	0	0
Krista Foster	11	13	18	2	1	0	-5
Rachelle Federico	5	2	7	0	0	0	-5

First vs. Second Half (minimum 2 minutes)

First Half Top - Alexis Gray-Lawson - 34-14, +20
Second Half Top - Alexis Gray-Lawson - 15-11, +4

First Half Bottom - Shantrell Sneed - 11-8, +3
Second Half Bottom - Krista Foster - 4-13, -9

Starting Lineup

Vital, Greif, Gray-Lawson, Hampton, Walker in 8:19 - 21-9, +12
All other lineups in 31:31 - 40-36, +4

Difference Makers

With Alexis Gray-Lawson in 29 minutes - 49-25, +24
Without Gray-Lawson in 11 minutes - 12-20, -8

With Devanei Hampton in 27 minutes - 47-28, +19
Without Hampton in 13 minutes - 14-17, -3

With Lauren Greif in 25 minutes - 44-26, +18
Without Greif in 15 minutes - 17-19, -2

With Rama N'Diaye in 17 minutes - 18-18, 0
Without N'Diaye in 23 minutes - 43-27, +16

Contribution Evaluation

Player	Minutes	Expected	Actual	Difference
Gray-Lawson	29	+11.60	+24	+12.40
Hampton	27	+10.80	+19	+8.20
Walker	25	+10.00	+18	+7.20
Greif	25	+10.00	+11	+1.00
Adrian	24	+9.60	+10	+0.40
Vital	23	+9.20	+8	-1.20
Sneed	14	+5.60	0	-5.60
N'Diaye	17	+6.80	0	-6.80
Federico	5	+2.00	-5	-7.00
Foster	11	+4.40	-5	-9.40

Weekend combined

No real surprises here with Walker make another strong bid for Pac-10 player of the week honors after leading the team in scoring and rebounding over the weekend.  The offense averaged 1.73 points per minute (69.2 points/40 minutes) with her in the game, but fell to just 1.00 point per minute (40 points/40 minutes) when she was out of the game.

Although the Bears got good scoring from Gray-Lawson and Hampton, they didn't get much production from many of the rest of the players.  Even late in the Oregon State game with the outcome well in hand, instead of trying to find ways to get other players involved in the offense, Cal seemed to overemphasize getting the ball into Walker.  With Arizona State sure to concentrate their defensive efforts against Walker next week, the Bears'll need other players to step up and make shots.

Player	Min	+Pts	-Pts	Pts	Reb	Ast	Diff
Ashley Walker	61	105	70	42	15	4	+35
Alexis Gray-Lawson	64	101	72	24	9	5	+29
Lauren Greif	54	82	58	4	7	4	+24
Devanei Hampton	49	81	60	20	14	1	+21
Kelsey Adrian	44	68	52	7	1	3	+16
Natasha Vital	59	93	80	8	5	5	+13
Shantrell Sneed	14	19	19	2	3	1	0
Rama N'Diaye	39	43	44	11	10	1	-1
Rachelle Federico	5	2	7	0	0	0	-5
Krista Foster	16	16	23	4	3	0	-7
	80	124	94				+30

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