[Goose]

[quote author=Goose link=topic=18456.msg219893#msg219893 date=1514684080]
[quote author=winflop link=topic=18456.msg219880#msg219880 date=1514680806]
Robinson went down in Q3. So did Swann and Buncom.

Thanks for the info. I knew about Buncom, but not about Swann.
[/quote]

ToP by itself is meaningless.
[/quote]
I can't agree that it is meaningless, especially for Stanford. It is not a sufficient statistic to evaluate offensive performance, but it is still valuable. If Stanford doesn't win the TOP battle, we very probably won't win the game. We play slow. By that alone, all other things being equal, we should win the TOP battle. We play slow at least partly to protect our chronic lack of depth on defense, particularly the defensive line. We have not just started doing this in the last two years. We have done this in all the Shaw years and most of the JH years.

I recall some games against Oregon we enjoyed a 3 to 1 advantage on ToP and lost.

Yes, because we couldn't stop them at all. Without the TOP advantage, it would have been even worse.  :)

Toss in point per possession and you have a decent metric for offensive efficiency.  Maybe points per minute.

Points per possession I will buy as a good metric of offensive efficiency. If you score every time you get the ball, that is perfect. Points per minute is, I think, meaningless. In our case, we want to shorten the game. When you do that, you have to score with a high rate of efficiency, but taking a long time to do so is actually good.

[Goose]

[quote author=Goose link=topic=18456.msg219893#msg219893 date=1514684080]
[quote author=winflop link=topic=18456.msg219880#msg219880 date=1514680806]
Robinson went down in Q3. So did Swann and Buncom.

Thanks for the info. I knew about Buncom, but not about Swann.
[/quote]

ToP by itself is meaningless.
[/quote]
I can't agree that it is meaningless, especially for Stanford. It is not a sufficient statistic to evaluate offensive performance, but it is still valuable. If Stanford doesn't win the TOP battle, we very probably won't win the game. We play slow. By that alone, all other things being equal, we should win the TOP battle. We play slow at least partly to protect our chronic lack of depth on defense, particularly the defensive line. We have not just started doing this in the last two years. We have done this in all the Shaw years and most of the JH years.

I recall some games against Oregon we enjoyed a 3 to 1 advantage on ToP and lost.

Yes, because we couldn't stop them at all. Without the TOP advantage, it would have been even worse.  :)

Toss in point per possession and you have a decent metric for offensive efficiency.  Maybe points per minute.

Points per possession I will buy as a good metric of offensive efficiency. If you score every time you get the ball, that is perfect. Points per minute is, I think, meaningless. In our case, we want to shorten the game. When you do that, you have to score with a high rate of efficiency, but taking a long time to do so is actually good.