Stats Questions...who should get credit?

Analytics
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Not a stat keeper and Still learning the game but also have been told I am wrong on some things when I send updates to family and friends…
So I have questions…

Who gets stat credit?

  1. Player A is Center Defending and denying entry. Ball is passed in and Player A pokes it away. Player B grabs the ball and starts the Counter Attack.
    Who gets the Steal?

  2. Player A is in an M drop defensively and ball is entered into set. Player B is set guarding and when the ball is entered Player B knocks the ball away, there is a scrum, it is pushed toward Player A, and Player A grabs the ball. Who gets the Steal?

  3. Player A ball unders an offensive player playing help defense from the weak side. Does Player A get credit for a steal?

  4. Player A makes an entry pass into the center on offense. Center grabs the ball turns, fakes, ball is dropped, center picks it back up and scores. Does Player A get credited with an assist?

  5. Goalie passes ball ahead to a counter attacker who catches, takes 2-3 swim strokes with the ball, rises, fakes, and shoots and scores. Does the goalie get credited an assist?

  6. Player A makes a cross pass to Player B at the 1 spot. Player B fakes, then turns the defender, gets inside water, shoots and scores. Assist for Player A?

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I’m no expert on this but I’ll give it a go. Generally I’d give the steal to whoever retains the ball and possession. So in example 1, I’d give player b the steal because he’s crashing and gets the ball.

In example 2, player A retains the ball. I’d give him the steal unless you decide that the scrum leads to neither team having possession and not giving a steal at all. To me a steal should be a direct taking of possession. Stealing a pass mid air, crashing to steal a ball in hole set, directly taking the ball from someone on the perimeter.

Example 3 is a good example of a direct steal leading to a change of possession and player A absolutely gets the steal.

Examples 4-6 are tricky. I’d be inclined to say no assists, except example 5. I think of an assist leading to a catch and shoot or a fairly immediate shot within a second or two. For example 5 I’d still give an assist to the goalie

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I have been doing stats for high level HS and club games for the past 10 years.

Below is how I would record these stats:

  • Player A is Center Defending and denying entry. Ball is passed in and Player A pokes it away. Player B grabs the ball and starts the Counter Attack.
    Who gets the Steal?
    I would give the steal to Player A, as their effort allowed Player B to grab the ball.

  • Player A is in an M drop defensively and ball is entered into set. Player B is set guarding and when the ball is entered Player B knocks the ball away, there is a scrum, it is pushed toward Player A, and Player A grabs the ball. Who gets the Steal?
    I would give the steal to Player B, as their knocking the ball away allowed Player A to grab the ball.

  • Player A ball unders an offensive player playing help defense from the weak side. Does Player A get credit for a steal?
    Yes, a defender creating a ball under on a offensive player is a steal

  • Player A makes an entry pass into the center on offense. Center grabs the ball turns, fakes, ball is dropped, center picks it back up and scores. Does Player A get credited with an assist?
    I would give Player A an assist on this as their good pass allowed the center to score a goal, even though he faked and dropped the ball.

  • Goalie passes ball ahead to a counter attacker who catches, takes 2-3 swim strokes with the ball, rises, fakes, and shoots and scores. Does the goalie get credited an assist?
    Yes, the goalie gets the assist as their good pass allowed the counter attacker to score.

  • Player A makes a cross pass to Player B at the 1 spot. Player B fakes, then turns the defender, gets inside water, shoots and scores. Assist for Player A?
    Yes, Player A gets the assists as it would have been a good pass for Player B to score.

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I think I agree with limey, but I went through the 6-8 training videos prior to signing up for team stats. In the scoring demonstration with Maggie Steffens (https://vimeo.com/798842480) at the end of the video - about :30 seconds left in quarter, 12:50 on video,she notes that 6-8 allows steals to be given to 2 players.

I don’t know how often this happens on their official scored games, but when I am scoring our team and I am stuck between who gets the steal, I will give one to both players because Maggie said I could.

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I don’t necessarily think that there’s an objectively correct way to do stats (see differences between the two responses above and my own opinions below. :slight_smile:)

Generally, my recommendation is to talk to the coach as they will likely have opinions on this question.

Player A is Center Defending and denying entry. Ball is passed in and Player A pokes it away. Player B grabs the ball and starts the Counter Attack.
Who gets the Steal?

To me, this is ambiguous.

If A’s poke created a ‘loose ball’ scenario where the offensive player and B had an equal chance at the ball, I’d be inclined to reward to B.

On the other hand, A’s poke controlled the ball to B and the offensive player had no chance to get the ball. I’d reward A.

Player A is in an M drop defensively and ball is entered into set. Player B is set guarding and when the ball is entered Player B knocks the ball away, there is a scrum, it is pushed toward Player A, and Player A grabs the ball. Who gets the Steal?

Same thinking here, the test for me is something like “which action created unambiguous possession”.

I think baseball has some notion of this called ‘routine play’ but there’s all kinds of arguments about what should be an error. There have also been fun instances in the NBA of stat padding for assists and turnovers for point guards depending on home/away team.

Please rest assured even in the Moneyball era of MLB, official scorers have not solved this problem.

Player A ball unders an offensive player playing help defense from the weak side. Does Player A get credit for a steal?

I think so.

  1. Player A makes an entry pass into the center on offense. Center grabs the ball turns, fakes, ball is dropped, center picks it back up and scores. Does Player A get credited with an assist?
  2. Goalie passes ball ahead to a counter attacker who catches, takes 2-3 swim strokes with the ball, rises, fakes, and shoots and scores. Does the goalie get credited an assist?
  3. Player A makes a cross pass to Player B at the 1 spot. Player B fakes, then turns the defender, gets inside water, shoots and scores. Assist for Player A?

To me, all of these are yes.

From my seat, the assist includes the physical mechanics of getting ball into the scorer’s possession AND the decision making.

I typically see some controversy here has some people view the assist as only the mechanical part.

To further confound this issue, there isn’t a standard way to reward an assist-to-an-assist (aka a hockey assist).

This occurs when Player B has an easy assist to player A but Player C must make a difficult pass to Player B.

For example:

  • A is holding inside water facing the 1-2 side
  • B is at the 1 position
  • C has the ball at the 4 position under heavy pressure
  • C makes a difficult pass to B for a routine entry to A
  • A scores

As a coach, I want some reward for C for recognizing where the ball needs to go and delivering. Technically, C did not make the assist but I’d argue that A’s goal is not possible without all three players.

source: stat nerd for my college team, occasional coach, and long-time developer of a stats app where we attempted to handle the scenarios above by tracking good/bad passes and loose ball won/lost.

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I am in agreement with Limey, except I will also give a steal to two players IF it was tandem work by the two for the steal. Ball comes into two, Player A disrupts the pass and Player B is able to recover, this needs to be acknowledged.

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The reason I only give the steal to one player, is I always look to see who initiated the steal. Granted Player B was able to recover the ball, but without Player A disrupting, we don’t know if that would have happened.
Not sure if it’s right or wrong, but that has been my rationale in all my years of stat keeping.
Also, if anyone is new to the stats game and doesn’t want to use a pen and paper, I highly recommend Clark’s app for the iPhone and iPad: https://www.cbwaterpolo.com.
It makes it much easier to be accurate and quicker to get the information down. I have been using it since it first came out.

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I have it downloaded, but have not pulled the trigger on it for the cost for one year. I may this year to help with stat tracking. I wish it had a PC version as I do not own a Ipad.

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I have used it on both iPad and iPhone. The iPad version is definitely better, due to the larger screen size. It might be worth investing in an entry level low end or used iPad and just use it for stats. It’s great to get a PDF summary with stats for each player after a game and to review the totals at the end of the season.

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@clark Totally agree with C player getting credit in the above situation.

Couple of questions -

Where do rebounds from goal post or from goalie get recorded ? Is that a steal?

How about sloppy passing that results in loosing possession? The turnover is on the player receiving the ball or the passer?

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Where do rebounds from goal post or from goalie get recorded ? Is that a steal?

I’d consider a rebound off the goal post a missed shot by the opponent. Assuming that no player interfered with the shot’s trajectory in a meaningful way.

In theory, you’d get a sense of your defensive performance by understanding your opponents overall shooting percentage. For example, if the team is running effective drops with shot blocking, they would be potentially influencing a shooter to miss but there’s not really an atomic stat for ‘good team defense’.

For further reading, my stats app co-founder wrote a great summary of defender’s proximity as it influences shot probability. Feel free to DM me and I can figure out how to get the scholarly article as well :slight_smile:

In practice, I think this can show up in a player’s +/- where we can track goals scored by team vs goals allowed by team.

If the goalie blocks the ball and one of the defensive field players recovers it, I’d award a save to the goalie.

Some folks have a strategy that I really like:

  • Blocks are awarded when the shot on goal is interfered with but the offensive team retains possession.

  • Saves are awarded when the shot on goal is interfered with but the defensive team gains possession.

While I agree with this, I didn’t think it was practical to implement this in our app without providing a ton of context for our underlying philosophy.

I’ve generally sat in the camp of “I have some thoughts on how analytics should be used in water polo but I’m just one guy so I’m trying to make a more flexible tool for folks who are smarter than me”. That being said, please reach out directly to me if you have suggestions on how we can deliver this type of information at scale!

How about sloppy passing that results in loosing possession? The turnover is on the player receiving the ball or the passer?

For me, this goes back to the notion of unambiguous possession.
My key definitions for this scenario are something like:

  • Bad pass → Creates an ambiguous possession situation where both teams have a reasonable chance to gain possession.
  • Loose Ball won/lost → The result of an ambiguous possession situation

I typically award a turnover when the single action leads to a change in possession. In the sloppy pass scenario, I’d probably boil it down to four possible outcomes:

  1. ‘50/50’ pass → Bad Pass for passer AND Loose Ball won/lost for the receiving player and defender.
  2. Terrible pass → Turnover for passer
  3. Decent pass but the receiving player does not effectively seal off or make a move for the ball → Turnover for receiver
  4. Decent pass but the defender makes an exceptional play → Steal awarded to defender
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@clark thank you - your post is very helpful.

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