BTI's Rants and Ramblings: What is deal with Jon Hood's playing time?

Looks like a 1960's UK team (I kid, I kid) I will fully admit.  I am off the Jon Hood bandwagon and have been for quite some time now.  But I know many fans still really want to hope Hood can become a big contributor on this team, being he is from Kentucky and the next John Pelphrey or whatever, but his play on the court has left much to be desired.   Now many fans have turned their eyes to John Calipari for not getting Hood a legit shot.  Despite being very thin off the bench, it seems Hood still is not able to see the floor much, especially for a long period of time. Calipari seems to have a quick hook for Hood, but the question is: Is it deserved? Well, one of the greatest indicators of just how effective a player is are the plus-minus stats.  It says what the difference in score is when a particular player is on the floor.  And for Calipari to pull Hood so quickly many times, and other games barely let him play at all, I would have guessed Hood's +/- to be quite poor.  So, the numbers were crunched with the help of ukathletics.com and said: ____________________________________ NON-CONFERENCE GAMES (15 games total) Hood Total Time on Floor: 85 minutes, 24 seconds Hood plus-minus: -11 NON-CONFERENCE GAMES AGAINST BCS CONFERENCES (7 games total) Hood Total Time on Floor: 29 minutes, 38 seconds Hood plus-minus: -12 CONFERENCE GAMES (10 games total) *Hood didn't play at home against UGA Hood Total Time on Floor: 51 minutes, 50 seconds Hood plus-minus: -6 (Against LSU, Hood played 19:43 and recorded a +16) IN CONFERENCE GAMES EXCLUDING LSU (9 games total) Hood Total Time on Floor: 32 minutes, 7 seconds Hood plus-minus: -22 _______________________________________ Now, those numbers are not pretty for Hood.  In fact, none of those numbers are on the positive side of things.  Whether conference or non-conference, Hood being on the floor had led to more points for the opponent than for UK.  Now, it's a team game so all of that being negative might not be completely Hood's fault.  All of those points scored when Hood was on the floor were not scored by Hood's man.  BUT, I would bet all the money in my wallet against all the money in yours that besides Eloy, the other 6 players on the team have a positive plus-minus number in those categories above.  Now, some of the blame for this negativity towards Hood has gone to Coach Cal, who does have a tendency to pull Hood quickly.  Some argue that Hood is never able to get into the flow of the game, never get warm, and whose confidence must be shot for all the quick hooks.  Some stats for that: Hood has played a total of 49 "segments" this season, from time coming into the game until time going out/end of game.  In those 49 segments: -22 of them have lasted fewer than 2 minutes -13 of them have lasted fewer than 1 minute (known as a Pitino shift) -9 of them have lasted longer than 5 minutes -16 segments have resulted in a positive point result for UK -26 segments have resulted in a negative point result for UK -7 segments have been a point push for UK The point is that John Calipari does seem to have a quick hook for Hood, but generally when Hood has been in the game the Cats have given up more points than they score.  In Hood's defense, the 1 game where he was given a lengthy playing stint, against LSU, the Cats finished +16 when he was on the floor.  Was Hood to credit for that or was LSU just bad?  That's not for me to decide.  What is obvious is Coach Cal has seemed to lose confidence in Hood being a significant contributor this season, despite the fans hopes.  Is there hope for Hood this season, or have the fans given up too?