Harvard Sports Analysis Collective

Regarding: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/16/sports/ncaabasketball/16score.html?_r=1&ref=sports
  ————— 
If the Berger-Pope study (NY Times, March 15) becomes widely accepted, we eventually will see accounts like this.
                             WILEY’S BRILLIANT PLOY
Battling against University’s fabulous five for the National Championship, State trailed by a single point as halftime approached.  We know from Berger and Pope’s work that wins stem more often from one point […]

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Rondo’s Triple 14.
Rajon Rondo’s triple double Wed night in Boston’s comeback win
over Dallas involved 19 points, 15 rebounds, and 14 assists.  His
“max-min” of 14 (14 maximizes the minimum category) means he
actually actually had a “triple 14″.

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Chris Paul (New Orleans) just set the streak record for steals.  He “only” averaged 2.69 steals, so how did he avoid games with 0 steals?  If the Poisson distribution applies, mean 2.69 steals/game = 285 steals/106 games, he should have had about 7 games with no steals in 106 games. But he had none.  Zero!  […]

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Tampa Bay won their 18 game season series with Boston, 10 games to 8 (and took the AL East pennant by those 2 games, exactly).  Past wins decide titles, but in comparison to runs scored, how much should past won/lost records be counted when making predictions?   Bill James’ “Pythagorean” formula (also implemented in ESPN’s “Cool […]

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Mike Greenwell has just been voted into to the Red Sox’ HOF. On Sep. 2, 1996 he had one of the most amazing offensive games ever, batting in all 9 runs in a Red Sox 9-8 win over Seattle. Five other players have had more RBI in a game (the record is […]

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I was quoted by Alan Schwarz in his NY Times Sports article
Jan 29, 2008 about a 1/29,000 chance of a 3-team trifecta in
one city.   Click here for the article.
Alan and I both have been asked about this number,
    E.g.   “Where did the “1-in-29,000 come from?
            Is that based on winning the championship,
            having the best […]

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Boston sports fans have been experiencing the most astonishing simultaneous run ever by one city’s professional baseball, football, and basketball teams.
Today, and for some weeks now, the Red Sox, Patriots, and Celtics all have and have held their league’s best (and unshared) won/lost record. With 30, 32, and 30 teams in these leagues, that combination […]

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