With the action being so fast moving and often constant, keeping some statistics for a high-school basketball game, girls or boys, is more challenging than others.
If paying close attention and never taking eyes off the ball, it’s easy to record which players score, whether a field goal or a foul shot, and who takes a shot. Same with steals and usually blocked shots.
The real challenge can be assists and rebounds.
With assists, the stat keeper has to think and remember backwards. Which player made that pass? Anticipating an assist helps with that category sometimes.
Rebounding stats often are obvious, whether off the offensive glass or defensive boards. The big challenge comes when there is a flurry of shots and offensive rebounds at one basket. Sometimes maybe four or five shots, each with an offensive rebound, and with multiple players are involved. That is probably the biggest state-keeping headache.
Trying to track individual defensive deflections is another difficult stat, especially when a ball is batted or tipped about inside the lane with multiple players around.
Keeping track of shots is the busiest work, including if an attempt was a three-pointer or not. Watching the player’s feet in those cases helps a lot, and a referee’s arm, too. If a ref’s arm goes up, it’s a three-point attempt. That helps.
When it comes to trying to tabulate those good basketball stats, the work is constant during a game, with never, ever taking eyes off the court once the action is underway. Timeouts, halftimes and the minute or so between quarters are much-welcomed breaks.
– Dave Facinoli
dfacinoli@sungazette.net