Senior night stats: a look at the past

There's a commonly held belief that players have a little extra motivation on senior night — everyone wants to win their final game on the Palestra hardwood. But is it true? With Penn's senior night — honoring Zack Rosen, Rob Belcore, Tyler Bernardini and Mike Howlett — tonight, let's take a look at some senior night performances of recent years and see whether some of the graduates do in fact get a little bump, after the jump:

2011 - Jack Eggleston: Against a Princeton team playing for a championship, he performed a few shades below his season average across the board.

2010 - Justin Reiley: Against Dartmouth, Reiley played about 50% more minutes than his season average (9.4) and was able to make marginal improvements.

2009 - Kevin Egee: Against Princeton, Egee was up and down, doing better on the glass than usual, but not shooting or scoring at his normal pace.

And finally, the 2007 team makes an interesting comparison, as it was the last to be in an Ivy title race, although they had already clinched the title by the time senior night rolled around. But it's also the last time there was a senior class as strong as this year's:

Ibby Jaaber:

Mark Zoller:

Steven Danley:

From these samples, and others I graphed, it's clear that there's no real statistical bump for seniors in their final home game. 2007 Ivy player of the year Ibby Jaaber is the only one to have a consistently higher better senior night performance.

It's nice to honor the seniors, especially this group which has been through so much, but the real motivating factor tonight has nothing to do with it being the final game at the Palestra. These guys are playing for a last chance to be enshrined in the arena's rafters.