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Any stat that suggests that Stanford could win without Chiney has to be considered dubious at best.  Of course, if the opposition is weak enough a Chiney-less team could win some games.  Against good teams?  Not a chance.  Has the offense been too Chiney heavy at times?  Absolutely.  I think the simplest explanation for that is that no one else was stepping up.  Jos and now Toni are showing signs of doing just that.

Chiney is a fantastic player who works very hard and contributes in all aspects of her game.  (Congratulations to her for her 4th PAC-12 Player of the Week!)  Still, she is only one player on the court out of five.  Her being in affects the other players, just as their presence affects her game.  How the team does when she is in the game versus how they do when she is out of the game is something that can be examined.

If you only look at the 9 games against the then-top 25 teams, and you discount "garbage time" (the time after Chiney leaves the game at the end), the score when Chiney was on the floor was 550-504 in 341:09, and 28-22 in 12:16 when she was on the bench 5 times in the middle of these games.  Adjusting each of those to 40min games, the scores would be 61.1-56.0 (on the floor) versus 91-72 (on the bench).


So, on the face of it, this suggests the team does well (actually, better) with Chiney on the bench.  12 minutes and 28 points of offense doesn't seem like a too-small sample. 

But I thought about it more.  If the team is doing poorly, it is less likely that Chiney is taken out.  If she is taken out, how the team does without her influences how much time she is on the bench.  For instance, she was out for 3:08 against Baylor while the rest of the team gained 2 points.  She was out for 0:36 against UConn while the team lost 3 points.  So, in essence, there's cherry-picking going on.  Still, it is a reflection of how the team did with Chiney on the bench.

I also thought about the sensitivity of those numbers to slight changes.  The much smaller sample is when Chiney is on the bench, where if two shots had rattled out instead of going in, the numbers would have been close enough to call equal.  That's 14% of the points scored while she was out.

I continue to think it would be good for the team to play extended minutes (not just garbage time) with Chiney on the bench to give them the confidence that they can play essentially as well if she goes down with a rolled ankle or gets into foul trouble when it is a critical game.  They will face a different offensive situation if defenders aren't sloughing off to double and triple team Chiney.  They will have to step up and take to the offensive themselves.


By the way, it was Amber stepping up in the UCLA game, hitting 6 points in a couple of minutes, that most influenced the offense while Chiney was on the bench.  My impression is that she would play more effectively without someone like Chiney and her triple team clogging up the middle, making it difficult for her to drive to the basket.

(If Jos shoots 40% for 3PT, she'd hit 8 in a row about every 1525 independent sets of 8 shots)

[M T]

Any stat that suggests that Stanford could win without Chiney has to be considered dubious at best.  Of course, if the opposition is weak enough a Chiney-less team could win some games.  Against good teams?  Not a chance.  Has the offense been too Chiney heavy at times?  Absolutely.  I think the simplest explanation for that is that no one else was stepping up.  Jos and now Toni are showing signs of doing just that.

Chiney is a fantastic player who works very hard and contributes in all aspects of her game.  (Congratulations to her for her 4th PAC-12 Player of the Week!)  Still, she is only one player on the court out of five.  Her being in affects the other players, just as their presence affects her game.  How the team does when she is in the game versus how they do when she is out of the game is something that can be examined.

If you only look at the 9 games against the then-top 25 teams, and you discount "garbage time" (the time after Chiney leaves the game at the end), the score when Chiney was on the floor was 550-504 in 341:09, and 28-22 in 12:16 when she was on the bench 5 times in the middle of these games.  Adjusting each of those to 40min games, the scores would be 61.1-56.0 (on the floor) versus 91-72 (on the bench).


So, on the face of it, this suggests the team does well (actually, better) with Chiney on the bench.  12 minutes and 28 points of offense doesn't seem like a too-small sample. 

But I thought about it more.  If the team is doing poorly, it is less likely that Chiney is taken out.  If she is taken out, how the team does without her influences how much time she is on the bench.  For instance, she was out for 3:08 against Baylor while the rest of the team gained 2 points.  She was out for 0:36 against UConn while the team lost 3 points.  So, in essence, there's cherry-picking going on.  Still, it is a reflection of how the team did with Chiney on the bench.

I also thought about the sensitivity of those numbers to slight changes.  The much smaller sample is when Chiney is on the bench, where if two shots had rattled out instead of going in, the numbers would have been close enough to call equal.  That's 14% of the points scored while she was out.

I continue to think it would be good for the team to play extended minutes (not just garbage time) with Chiney on the bench to give them the confidence that they can play essentially as well if she goes down with a rolled ankle or gets into foul trouble when it is a critical game.  They will face a different offensive situation if defenders aren't sloughing off to double and triple team Chiney.  They will have to step up and take to the offensive themselves.


By the way, it was Amber stepping up in the UCLA game, hitting 6 points in a couple of minutes, that most influenced the offense while Chiney was on the bench.  My impression is that she would play more effectively without someone like Chiney and her triple team clogging up the middle, making it difficult for her to drive to the basket.

(If Jos shoots 40% for 3PT, she'd hit 8 in a row about every 1525 independent sets of 8 shots)