Box plus/minus is the type of advanced statistic that has to be used to discuss trends in a series of games.

In case a definition is needed, box plus/minus is the “estimate of the points per 100 possessions a player contributed above a league-average player, translated to an average team.”

Single-game usage is relatively useless. One good game — or bad — does not a season make. The box plus/minus data from 2019-20 (disregarding the Lindenwood game) helps tell the story of Illinois’ breakout season:

When Kofi Cockburn discussed consistency as his primary goal ahead of his sophomore season, he did so by mentioning the stretches in 2019-20 where he didn’t play his best.

That half of his six worst performances of the year came in Illinois’ four-game losing streak in February were telling. So was the fact his five-game rolling plus/minus average skyrocketed from a season-low of minus-0.574 on Feb. 18 to plus-8.599 by March 8. That shift coincided with the Illini’s 5-1 finish to end the season.

The statistics don’t lie.

Trent Frazier had his struggles in 2019-20. In nearly every offensive statistical category his efficiency dropped. So did his season-long plus/minus, which was more than halved than in either of his first two years. Frazier’s offensive plus/minus wound up at minus-0.6.

Yet you can’t discount the impact the 6-foot-2 guard still made with a defensive plus/minus four times higher than a season prior at plus-2.1.

Little surprise that Andres Feliz, Ayo Dosunmu and Cockburn were among the plus/minus leaders for Illinois last season. At the top, though, and by a wide margin was Alan Griffin. His plus/minus of plus-11.3 doubled all three of his teammates, and he did it playing significantly fewer minutes.

At 18.1 minutes per game, Griffin played just more than half of Dosunmu’s 33.5. That level of efficient production is why Griffin will, in fact, be missed during the 2020-21 season.

Scott Richey is a reporter covering college basketball at The News-Gazette. His email is srichey@news-gazette.com, and you can follow him on Twitter (@srrichey).