How it works

What every stat and rating on the site means, where the data comes from and how it's checked before it goes live.

The stats, in plain English

The shooting and possession stats arrive on team and player pages with this season's box scores. Each gets its own page with the formula, a worked example and its limits; linked ones are already up.

True shooting % (TS%)

How efficiently a player scores, counting threes and free throws at their real value. The best single number for scoring efficiency.

Effective field goal % (eFG%)

Field goal percentage with threes counted as worth 1.5 twos. Shows shooting quality, leaving out free throws.

Usage rate

The share of her team's possessions a player finishes with a shot, free throws or a turnover while she's on the floor. Who the offense runs through.

Assist rate and assist-to-turnover ratio

How often a player sets up a teammate's basket, and how many assists she makes for each turnover.

Offensive and defensive rebound %

The share of available rebounds a player or team grabs on each end. Fairer than raw rebound totals, which depend on minutes and missed shots.

Pace

Possessions per 40 minutes. Tells you whether a team plays fast or slow, which puts every per-game number in context.

Offensive, defensive and net rating

Points scored and allowed per 100 possessions, and the difference. The fairest way to compare teams that play at different speeds.

Game Score

A one-number summary of a box-score line: points and good plays add, misses and turnovers subtract. The production part of a player's Freeman Rating.

Freeman Rating (teams)

A team's average scoring margin, adjusted for the strength of every opponent and for home court: how many points better than an average team it would be on a neutral floor.

Watch Score

How worth watching an upcoming game looks, from 0 to 100: both teams good, neither a big favorite. Picks the home page's games to watch. Not a prediction of who wins.

Strength of schedule

The average rating of the opponents a team has played. Positive means a tougher-than-average schedule.

Standings and scores

• Source: balldontlie (licensed; not official league data), updated every morning. Last pulled Nov 7, 2026.
• College order: conference win percentage, then overall win percentage, then total wins. Conferences break real ties with their own rules, so official seeding can differ.
• Before the season starts, pages show last season's final standings and say so.
• Teams: the Division I teams in a listed conference. Lower-division schools appear in the data only as opponents.
• WNBA standings are worked out from game results; the league's tiebreakers can change the order of teams with the same record.
• Scores update every morning, and live while a game is on. Live scores are unofficial and can run a minute behind.

How the data is checked

Every morning, before anything goes live, the numbers have to pass automated checks. If any check fails, the site keeps showing the last version that passed.

• No negative or missing records, and win percentage has to match wins and losses.
• A team's conference record can't be bigger than its overall record, and no team can be listed twice.
• Across each conference, conference wins have to equal conference losses.
• Home and away records that don't add up to the overall record are held back, with a note on the team page.
• A blank where a zero belongs is filled in only when the source's win percentage confirms it.

Our standards

• Every number has a source and a date.
• balldontlie is a licensed data provider, not the NCAA, and we say so wherever it matters.
• Ratings and rankings are published with their method. Opinions are labeled as opinions.
• Mistakes are fixed in the open on the corrections page.