Kyle Whelliston on stat crew-ing

Did you ever wonder what the stat crew does at a basketball game? And how important this task actually is? Kyle Whelliston (naturally) fills us in:

Stat Crew Spotter for a Night
Kyle Whelliston
The Mid Majority
December 31, 2009

NEW BRITAIN, Conn. -- The date was December 21, 2007. The place: Manhattan College's Draddy Gymnasium. A small crowd, its numbers diminished by school break and holiday shopping, watched the homestanding Jaspers take on the Pepperdine Waves in just another pre-conference tuneup. Those who did show up took in a good old-fashioned back-and-forth free-for-all, as Manhattan won 80-79.

But when the boxscore rolled out of the printer, it made no sense. The total minutes didn't add up to 200 for either team. According to the record, the participants hadn't amassed 159 total points, the cumulative number shown in lights up on the scoreboard. Basketball, like the universe, requires balance and order: just as the earth takes 365.242199 days to orbit the sun, so must missed shots must equal the number of rebounds. But this sheet was pure chaos theory...

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