Update: I’m an idiot and had messed up the off/40 column. It’s been fixed now so the numbers have changed a pretty significant amount. Sorry.
Thanks to a little research about how to utilize plus/minus statistics, Greg Simms and I are going to refine the plus/minus data a little bit. I was exchanging e-mails with Josh (of The Big Ten Geeks) and he referred me to The Hoya Prospectus, a Georgetown blog that is also tracking +/- data. The Prospectus takes the +/- concept one step further, taking into account the margin while a player is on the court and while the player is off the court to combine them into a “net” amount which is also called a Roland rating in the NBA.
So for example, Stu Douglass posted an “on” score (formerly the plus/minus number) of +13 versus Indiana however while he was off the court Michigan outscored Indiana by 11, giving him an “off” score of 11. His final Roland Rating is calculated by subtracting the off score from the on score which gives us a Roland Rating of 2. DeShawn Sims posted an on score of 27 and an off score of –3 giving him a Roland Rating of +30. Etc. Etc.
The idea behind the Roland rating is to gauge of how valuable a player is to the team. In this case it tends to make it clear how big of a drop off you are dealing with when a player goes to the bench.
Here are the Roland ratings for Michigan players within conference play (and UConn):
| Player | Min | On | Off | Roland | On/40 | Off/40 | Roland/40 |
| Sims | 208 | 46 | -11 | 57 | 8.85 | -13.75 | 22.60 |
| Harris | 215 | 43 | -8 | 51 | 8.00 | -12.80 | 20.80 |
| Novak | 200 | 39 | -4 | 43 | 7.80 | -4.00 | 11.80 |
| Morris | 132 | 35 | 0 | 35 | 10.61 | 0.00 | 10.61 |
| Lucas-Perry | 149 | 28 | 7 | 21 | 7.52 | 3.08 | 4.44 |
| Wright | 41 | 3 | 32 | -29 | 0.00 | 6.43 | -6.43 |
| Gibson | 33 | -11 | 46 | -57 | -13.33 | 8.89 | -22.22 |
| Vogrich | 26 | -11 | 46 | -57 | -16.92 | 8.60 | -25.52 |
| Douglass | 195 | 4 | 31 | -27 | 0.82 | 27.56 | -26.74 |
- This sort of ratings system does guys like Manny Harris and DeShawn Sims a lot of justice. This shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone that has watched Michigan play because they essentially carry the team.
- Stu Douglass has just been brutal by this scale. He has struggled in conference play and even yesterday he posted by far the worst numbers on the team.
- Laval Lucas-Perry has decent numbers but they are about what I’d expect. Definitely not great but he has been a part of many Michigan runs versus Indiana, Penn State, and Connecticut.
- Vogrich, Gibson, and Wright’s poor numbers emphasize just how bad the bench has been. There is a significant drop off from Harris, Novak, and Sims to their backups.
- Darius Morris has an impressive +10 total and he seems to post positive numbers even when it seems like he is playing poorly.
- Looking at these ratings, they really seem to make more sense than the original plus/minus scores but I’d love to hear your thoughts. They certainly aren’t a perfect measure but they are at least interesting.
- Indiana and Connecticut game-by-game numbers after the jump
Michigan 68, Connecticut 63
| Player | Min | On | Off | Roland | Roland/40 |
| Lucas-Perry | 30 | 9 | -4 | 13 | 28.00 |
| Morris | 17 | 9 | -4 | 13 | 28.13 |
| Harris | 38 | 5 | 0 | 5 | 5.26 |
| Gibson | 13 | 4 | 1 | 3 | 10.83 |
| Wright | 12 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 7.14 |
| Novak | 28 | 2 | 3 | -1 | -7.14 |
| Sims | 27 | 1 | 4 | -3 | -10.83 |
| Vogrich | 2 | 0 | 5 | -5 | -5.26 |
| Douglass | 33 | -8 | 13 | -21 | -83.98 |
Michigan 69, Indiana 45
| Player | Min | On | Off | Roland | Roland/40 |
| Sims | 38 | 27 | -3 | 30 | 88.42 |
| Harris | 33 | 26 | -2 | 28 | 42.94 |
| Novak | 32 | 22 | 2 | 20 | 17.50 |
| Morris | 32 | 21 | 3 | 18 | 11.25 |
| Douglass | 20 | 13 | 11 | 2 | 4.00 |
| Lucas-Perry | 24 | 13 | 11 | 2 | -5.83 |
| Wright | 8 | 2 | 22 | -20 | -17.50 |
| Person | 1 | 0 | 24 | -24 | -24.62 |
| Vogrich | 10 | -1 | 25 | -26 | -37.33 |
| Gibson | 2 | -3 | 27 | -30 | -88.42 |
