Basketball Statistics Blog

Friday Press Clippings:
On madness ~ About Advanced Statistics to Better Understand Basketball

From The Chronicle
By Alex Fanaroff
Download source here: ' On madness ~ About Advanced Statistics to Better Understand Basketball ' By Alex Fanaroff

"... Using databases from previous years, some of the Internet stats gurus can use the score and time remaining of a given game to estimate each team’s chances of winning.

The more advanced models take into account the relative strength of each team to determine that, for instance, Duke had nearly a 100 percent chance to beat Hampton after the Blue Devils took a 16-4 lead five minutes into the game. ..."

"... The point, which my friend apparently had been ineloquently trying to make, is that probabilities are essentially meaningless when predicting the outcome of a single event. Perhaps if Duke played Arizona 100 times, and led by six at halftime in each one of them, then the Blue Devils would win 91 of those games.

But they only played once, and Arizona won that one. ..."

"... Modern medical education is focused on evidence. We are taught that, whenever possible, we should seek out a study to help us determine our patients’ diagnosis or prognosis, and that we should support our treatment decisions in the same way.

These studies may follow a group of patients—half of whom receive a new drug and half of whom receive a placebo—and report on how many of each group achieved some specified outcome, like survival without having a heart attack or number of months before cancer relapse. ..."

"... This information is, of course, essential. It enables us, as doctors, to plan for our patients’ future and to choose the best course of action.

But our patients only live one life, and as such are only one of our millions of data points. Someone, after all, has to be that one in a million. ..."

"... The NCAA Tournament plays out this process on a smaller, but more public (and less important) stage. Duke had a 91 percent chance to win—but lost.

Using similar statistical measures, Virginia Commonwealth had a 12-in-10,000 chance to reach the Final Four at the start of the Tournament—but reached the Final Four anyway. ..."

"... But it’s the space between prediction and reality where March Madness lies.

And although it would be nice to have more certainty in medicine, there’s no escaping life’s unpredictability.

All we can do is embrace the madness. ..."

Read more articles in The Chronicle.

To read today's 'Press Clippings' in Spanish,
click this week above on the 'Español' tab or afterwards click here:
' Entrenador nuevo, ¿victoria segura? Aclaraciones sobre lo aparecido en los medios '
by Jose A. Martínez.

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Friday Video Clippings:
Day In The Life Of A Basketball Star

Day In The Life Of A Basketball Star

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' Destino ' by Salvador Dalí .

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