by Alana Klein

As I state in my weekly “Recap & Standings” post, I prefer to rely on points per game (PPG) in my standings instead of using total points. While the league uses total points in their tiebreaker scenarios, I feel that referring to PPG is a more accurate snapshot in time of where a team stands because there is no guarantee that the teams being compared have played the same number of games.

To make it feel less like boring numbers and statistics, try imagining it as money in the sphere of job where you have the ability to earn tips. There are 2 bartenders at your job. One bartender works 4 days and earns $500 in tips. The other bartender works only 3 days and earns $450 in tips.

While it may seem (and technically be true) that bartender A earned more money, the idea of an average is to project out to see who would make more if they worked the same hours. We can if we go by the average earned per shift, bartender A would presumably earn LESS because bartender B would be expected to make $150 (the average) if they were to work a 4th day, bringing the total to $600. Are you still following?

The point of that tangent is this: Albany has scored 463 points compared to Nashville’s 460 points. So … that means that Albany has the higher-scoring offense, right? Wrong. If you take a further look at the standings, Nashville had only played 8 games, compared to Albany’s 9. It could reasonably be assumed that when the Kats played a 9th game, they would score more than 3 points.

… Sorry about that. Where was I? Oh yeah …

The idea that you MIGHT be comparing 2 teams with a different number of games played was actually a guarantee this season because the league has an odd number of teams. There is no point during the season that all of the teams will have played the same number of games (until the entire regular season is over). With all of the chaos last season, the league officially used PPG … and for a good reason. Some teams played 10 regular season games, while others played 11, and others played 12. (Winning percentage actually works on the same basic principle. Imagine if teams were seeded by the number of wins they had instead of winning percentage — an 11-1 team would be seeded higher than a 10-0 team.)

And I can see why they chose to go by total points this season, as all teams were scheduled the same number of games and instability was not anticipated. However, with the unfortunate news coming out of Redmond this past weekend, Kentucky will only have played 11 games (but be credited as if they had played 12). They were only credited with a 1-0 victory despite their AVERAGE being 47+ points. If they were to enter into a tiebreaker scenario that came down to total points scored during the season, they would be at a disadvantage because they would effectively be judged on points scored in 11 games, whereas the other team would be based on 12. If you were to use the average, the comparison would be on equal footing.

All of this mumbo-jumbo to say that your average is what the total would be if you scored the exact same number of points every game. And this isn’t about mathematical or statistical preference. This is about fairness and integrity, so I really hope that I’m not just Screaming Into the Void.