Bumped. Cool analysis leading to good discussion. See BruinEngy's post for more fun data. -BN

Five games into conference play and 17 games into the season, I think we all have pretty well-formed opinions on our basketball team.  So, of course, the mods asked me to bring some numbers into the conversation to see if our opinions match the statistical reality. 

As per usual, the + / - numbers should be taken with a grain of salt as there are many factors that play into individual and team success but at this point in the season, I think the sample size (19 games with exhibition games included) and CBH's substitution patterns make the raw + / - numbers a little more credible.

First, lets take a look at individual + / - numbers.  I decided to rank our players according to their per-40-minute + / -, so basically the number to the right of the player indicates what our average margin of victory this season would be if that player had played every minute of every game (based on the numbers from the minutes they have played):

I arrived at the above numbers by simply dividing each player's total + / - by their total minutes played and multiplying the quotient by 40 (that might be the first time I used the word quotient in a sentence in 20 years).

As for the top lineups, here's a look at the per-40-minute + / - for our most commonly used lineups:

So again, the number at the right represents what our average margin of victory would be if that particular lineup had played every minute of every game (based on the numbers from the minutes they have played).

So far I think I've looked at + / - from a different angle in every post, so if anyone would rather see a different version of the + / - numbers (adjusted for quality of opponent, conference vs. non-conference etc.) give me a formula and I'll plug in the numbers.