GOLS is working on bringing to life the story of water polo & we want your input!
What are some stats that you’d like to see talked about on live streams or when people are covering the sport? What stats matter? What stats don’t?
I think these are most basic needed stats
Goals
Assists
Turnovers
Steals
Field blocks
Exclusions
Exclusions drawn
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One stat that matters a lot are passes that lead to an exclusion. Particularly entry passes into set which often times are extremely skillful and determine outcome of games!
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In order of importance
Goals (excluding penalty goals!)
Majors committed
Majors drawn
Assists
Sprints won
Penalty goals
Steals and turnovers are very subjective and incorrectly attributed at least half the time
Agreed on this - I know, shocking given my handle here!
On that note however, given the importance of 6v5 offense and therefore 5v6 defense (when asked every player or coach from HS on up, inevitably brings this up) these would also be good to see.
Games against evenly matched teams, this is often the difference maker. Moreover, as the game goes on, the team that’s struggling with 6v5 offense usually starts pressing (mentally) in other areas. Conversely, the team doing well on 5v6 defense gets a confidence boost.
The one I would add to what has been noted above is: Shots on Goal.
Offensive fouls. Nothing worse than giving up a possession due to carelessness/frustration.
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Saves! Give the goalies some love
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I would like to see a separation of drawn penalty and drawn exclusion stats. Often the drawn penalties are reported together with drawn exclusions.
I also feel that the drawn penalty should be rewarded as .5 of goal and the penalty scorer should get the other .5, but that’s a different conversation.
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Nah, give them an assist.
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For field players, I record the following:
missed shots
goals [goals/(goals plus missed shots) = shooting percentage]
assists
steals
exclusions earned
exclusions suffered
turnovers
field blocks
I would track goals by the following
5-meter goals and shots missed
6 on 6 Goals
6 on 5 Goals
Total shooting %
Coaches value these categories differently.
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Good point, @H20Polo. For team management/team success, knowing how your team performs in 5x6 and 6x5 is critical, but I find this does not easily flow into individual stats (which are pretty simple to track for stats-keepers who can be within ear shot of the match secretaries). If @GameOnLiveStudio can track this and include it in their in-game color commentary, it would be amazing.
I think separating missed shots into missed shots (those that miss the cage) and missed shots on goal (those that require a save) is important.
Also, I’d love to see assists expanded like hockey to assist and pass to assist. It’s a little granular but good information.
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For 6x5 goals, I would extend the window past 20 seconds to “count” a 6x5 goal as it takes time for the defense to recover (maybe 25 seconds?)
ex: exclusion at 5:40 ----- goal at 5:17 - while past the :20 second mark, that was for all intensive purposes a 6x5 score.
Also, saves and assists are very subjective - some statisticians see 29 shots and 15 goals and attribute the goalie with 14 saves, then at the end of the year they flaunt their inflated numbers for conference awards. Any way to police that is welcomed.
Side note - it would be interesting to built a “Star” metric for HS recruits, like you hear about 5 star recruits in basketball and football - bring that over to water polo
Olympian / Sr. National Team training group = 5 star
Youth / Junior Team selection = 4 star
Youth NTSC Attendee / Academy attendee / starter on top 10 team at 16/18s JOs = 3 star
At JOs: Top 16 in Platinum or top 3 in Gold = 2 star
Everyone else = 1 star
Tough to incorporate for foreign players though.
Maybe this ranking would exacerbate the “top 4” lack of parity but it could also show the coaches that do the most with the least as opposed to who’s handed success on a silver platter.
That would be interesting but typically it is an individual evaluation and not a team based metric. In other sports it is not a reflection of the team results. Wouldn’t the 17th team in platinum be better than the 3rd in gold, ie. 27th place team?
Maybe, really luck of the seeding, typical finish / record for the places are (yes there’s different paths to get there):
3rd in Gold = W L L … W W … W … L W
17th in Pt = W L W … L L L … W L … W
It’s the day 2-3 results that are so different, Day 1 is very seeding dependent. If you have an easy schedule on day 1, you get exposed on day 2-3.
Maybe its Gold 1-3 is better than Pt 20-24.
Agree there are a lot of variables across the board. Scouts make star determination of individuals and likely the best way to remove as much of that as possible, though misevaluations still will happen.
Before adding more variables it would be advised to get to a level of excellence in tracking basic stat.
I am at the regional ODP and 6-8 is doing a horrendous job in tracking basic stat like ED , steals , who actually took the swim-off. Disappointing.
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