Kelsey 2nd Nationally In Goals Against

Geez... you're correct, of course. A bad keeper behind an amazing defense will likely give up less total goals than a good keeper behind a terrible defense.

But we've got to work with what we've got...

Would Kelsey have a higher save percentage if other teams took more shots against us? Absolutely. But even the Bowling Green and Radford keepers... if you are saving 90% of the shots against you, you are probably at a level above your competition. Now, does that mean you could do the same thing against good competition? No. But it does mean that for where they are, they are really good.

Hmmm... seems like the only thing that we can agree on is that there really isn't a good way to quantify a goalie's abilities.

And Auto's got it right... I wouldn't trade Kelsey for anyone either!

Another reason I like the goals against average is that it is really a team defensive statistic. Notice that our team goals against average is the same as Kelsey's individually which means to me that it is a superior defense getting it done with a goal keeper who is up to the task when challenged.

KFTC wrote:Yes PPT, but you have to do the part of the equation where you divide the total number of minutes played by minutes in a game...that way it accounts for the extra minutes for overtimes and the GAA is precisely accurate instead of being a close estimation. If you only divided goals against by number of games played (in Kelsey's case, 4/16 =0.25), it wouldn't account for the minutes accumulated in overtime because the 16 assumes only 90 minute games. The extra OT minutes lower her GAA to 0.248.

Sorry. I left out some steps. Here it is with the actual numbers: 4 GA, 1448 minutes. We have minutes; we want to convert it to games. IOW, we want to get rid of the minutes label and replace it with games. We can set up these fractions:

(4 GA/1449 minutes)(90 minutes/1 game)

We can multiply these fractions to get

(4 GA*90 minutes)/(1449 minutes*1 game)

We cancel labels that appear in both the numerator and denominator but keep the numbers. Multiplying the numbers we get 360 GA/1449 games, or a 0.248 GA/game.

ANYWAY...Kelsey is one of the best keepers out there, and she's good at stopping what shots the defense does allow.

So, basically the equation Auto Pilot already wrote? Just teasing. The one I put up is the one the NCAA uses...or at least they used to. I haven't looked at the scoring manual lately, so they may have changed it, but I don't think so.

There really is no way to quantify a goalkeeper's contribution to the team's defense. Crosses, corners, 1v1s, through balls swept away outside the penalty box are all things that keepers take care of that cannot be scored into a statistic. Similarly, there's no telling of a team's contribution to a keeper's GAA or save percentage, given the amount of times players routinely block shots, head balls away on corners and off goal lines, and clear away dangerous balls out of the penalty. I've never looked at GAA or save percentage as an individual statistic, rather more of a team statistic--everyone on the team contributes to those numbers pretty equally, I'd say.

Hold on a minute --- back up to that chart -- I see Columbia at No. 9 for save percentage. Wow, it's unusual to see Columbia in the top 10 of anything except losingest football teams of all time and Nobel Prize winners.

Plus, there's how a keeper helps the other players on the field. Anyone out there do that better than Kelsey? I doubt it.

The thing I noticed in the stats is the shots on goal numbers. No team on the list comes close to the Pilots. Where do we stand on that nationally?

Auto Pilot wrote:
Another reason I like the goals against average is that it is really a team defensive statistic. Notice that our team goals against average is the same as Kelsey's individually which means to me that it is a superior defense getting it done with a goal keeper who is up to the task when challenged.

Auto, I agree with your statement about a superior defense and a keeper who is up to the task when challenged.

But aren't our team GAA and Kelsey's GAA the same because Hailee hasn't played a minute so far this season? Kelsey is the ONLY keeper who has played this seaon, thus the team stat is the same as hers.

FANatic
You are abosolutely right about that. Otherwise you would have a stat for Hailee one for Kelsey and one for the team. If you want to see what that looks like check the Media Guide for this year which has last year's stats. Let me see if I can find it for you.

Last year the team GAA was .54
Kelsey was .49
Hailee was .67