| Does Getting Those Ground Balls Really Matter? Statistics and Their Relationship to Win-Loss Records in Men’s and Women’s Division I Lacrosse | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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It seems trite to say that you can't score without the ball (and neither can your opponent), but possession is critical in every goal-scoring sport. As such, it should come as no surprise that the ability to grab more ground balls than your opponent has a large impact on your win-loss record. The effect is rather striking. On the men's side, teams averaging 4.00 or more ground balls per game than their opponents have a combined 0.708 WL record, whereas teams losing 4.25 or more ground balls per game than opponents have only a 0.275 record. On the women's side, a ground ball margin greater than 2.0 is associated with a winning record of 0.651, whereas teams with a margin of 2.0 GBs or worse have a combined record of 0.305.
Women's Division I
The next section deals with turnovers and caused turnovers in women's lacrosse. Turnover statistics are often not kept for the men's game, and those that are available suggest that there are substantial differences in how turnovers are recorded. |
