Second half Northwestern is the Blueprint for the Gauntlet

[fluoxetine]

Predicting the future in college basketball is impossible with anything approaching being "any good" at it. If there were a model out there that could tell you how well a player/team would perform on any given future game, someone would become a billionaire on sports betting and the entire betting industry would shut down.

So there is no "how they do it" because no one can actually do it.

As you've said, the sample sizes are too small for such analytics - there's no sense even bringing them into the discussion.

How do you think they come up with the opening lines man? It's just super clear that you don't understand what you're talking about here; just because there is a large amount of noise around estimates of a player or team's ability doesn't mean you can't make estimates.

Also:

Bill Benter - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Who said it was an insult?

The word "good" is a subjective one. There's no mathematical definition of a "good" shooter or "good" basketball player. You can use your analytics to try to inform your own subjective opinion... but at the end of the day, it's still subjective. If you set a specific set of criteria to empirically define "good", it'd still just be your own subjective set of criteria that isn't universally accepted.

It's like someone saying it's "chilly" outside.... that means different things to different people. Arguing about whether 49.3 degrees Fahrenheit should technically be referred to as "chilly" or not is just being pedantic.

You said "a full college career of reasonable volume 3 point shooting is not enough to really know how good someone is".... that's bonkers. You've set your own mathematical threshold of determining of "good" outside the data set.

Even if you had 10K games by a specific player, you'd still need to set some threshold above which would be "good" and below which would be some other subjective label... and people could rationally disagree with where you set the line.



Again, though, "good" is subjective. One person can say that Baker is a "good" player, and another can say he's a "mediocre" player, or a "poor" player, or whatever.... choose your adjective. Because each person is using their own definition, and the English language isn't empirical... there's no universally recognized definition of a "good" player in this context that can be mathematically calculated.

And any empirical definition of "good" would rely on countless other variables, a great many of which aren't tracked or even measurable.

You are just way off track here man. First of all, the phrase "how good someone is" does not rely on a subjective definition for "good". I can fairly easily define for you that a better 3 point shooter is one that makes more of his shots than a worse three point shooter. Whether we think 30% or 35% or 40% is the line at which someone becomes "good" is completely ****ing irrelevant and has literally nothing to do with anything we are talking about.

Maybe you think only the top 30 teams are "good" while maybe I classify top 100 as "good". Ok, cool, literally no one ****ing cares it's the ranking that matters and the analytics are how you get the ranking.

So, while stats and analytics are fun to look at and talk about in relation to basketball players - and can spawn fascinating and interesting (and worthwhile) discussions - forcing everything into that context isn't always a good fit. I generally agree with most of what you post, and frequently take things away that I continue to read about and learn something.... but saying a full college career isn't enough to know how good someone is was just a bridge too far.

It's just factually true though.

Like, you are welcome to keep doing the fan thing of looking back on someone's career and analyzing how good it was etc. Have a blast, no one is trying to stop you. But if you want to bitch on this message board about how someone sucks or should never shoot again because he's 4 for his last 20 or whatever I'm still going to be around to tell you how stupid that is. People will try to tell you opinions can't be wrong... I don't really agree.

(To be clear, I'm not accusing you of doing this.)

 

[zebnatto]

At a certain point, looking purely at mathematical models divorces itself from reality.... and saying things like "you can't judge how good a player is based on their body of work" is past that particular event horizon.

As far as gauging what to expect in the future, people do that based on second-hand anecdotes, let alone sample sizes that wouldn't be considered statistically significant in a peer reviewed journal.

One can say "Mulcahy has been a better 3P shooter than Omoruyi, and I'd be more comfortable with him taking a shot from behind the arc".... without having to pedantically hedge and talk about small sample sizes. People make opinions based on all sorts of inputs, and preferring Mulcahy to take a three over Omoruyi (or whoever) is a perfectly valid one... not all opinions have to be rooted in sound statistical analysis on a fan message board.

Reminds me of the scene from Groundhog Day when Bill Murray says "did you really want to talk about the weather, or were you just making chit chat?" lol

Thank you. This statistical genius must be rich off the casinos!

 

[RUChoppin]

How do you think they come up with the opening lines man? It's just super clear that you don't understand what you're talking about here; just because there is a large amount of noise around estimates of a player or team's ability doesn't mean you can't make estimates.

Yeah, I missed where Benter had anything to do with college basketball, lol.

Opening lines aren't a prediction of an outcome. Their goal isn't to tell you the most likely score of the game, but to set a line that about as many people will bet above or below. They are looking at team-level metrics and market metrics, and not predicting whether Geo Baker will go 1/6 or 3/4 from the arc.

You are just way off track here man. First of all, the phrase "how good someone is" does not rely on a subjective definition for "good". I can fairly easily define for you that a better 3 point shooter is one that makes more of his shots than a worse three point shooter. Whether we think 30% or 35% or 40% is the line at which someone becomes "good" is completely ****ing irrelevant and has literally nothing to do with anything we are talking about.

Maybe you think only the top 30 teams are "good" while maybe I classify top 100 as "good". Ok, cool, literally no one ****ing cares it's the ranking that matters and the analytics are how you get the ranking.

You start out by saying: "a full college career of reasonable volume 3 point shooting is not enough to really know how good someone is"

Now you say "it's the ranking that matters"

Can players not be ranked against one another after "a full college career of reasonable volume 3 point shooting"?

Or were you trying to say that a single player's shooting numbers aren't meaningful in a vacuum, and that comparison to others is needed to make such a determination? Because that's not what you actually said. Maybe that original statement is just bonkers because it was imprecise in conveying what you mean?

 

[fluoxetine]

Thank you. This statistical genius must be rich off the casinos!

(Maximum bet)

 

[fluoxetine]

Yeah, I missed where Benter had anything to do with college basketball, lol.

Notsureifsrs.jpg

I'm sure college basketball has a magical ability to escape the powers of statistical modeling.

Opening lines aren't a prediction of an outcome. Their goal isn't to tell you the most likely score of the game, but to set a line that about as many people will bet above or below.

Why do you people insist on arguing about shit you clearly do not understand?

Above is an extremely common misconception. You think sportsbooks are doing market surveys to figure out whether the public would rather bet on Eastern Kentucky State +6 or SE Missouri State -6?

The market making sportsbooks (Pinnacle / Bookmaker / BetCris) set the opening lines based on a statistical model (+ probably some subjective information depending on how big or popular the event is. For Eastern Kentucky State vs SE Missouri State it's probably literally a model output. For big conference games they probably have a guy who adjusts for injuries and stuff). They then move the lines based on the action they get.

The other sportsbooks (like the clown operations I included screenshots of above) literally just copy the lines from those other sportsbooks. DraftKings will move the line from MSU -3 to MSU -2 without taking a single bet if the line has moved at BetCris.

They are looking at team-level metrics and market metrics, and not predicting whether Geo Baker will go 1/6 or 3/4 from the arc.

Weird, I can find all kinds of props on how many three pointers people will make and other similar shit for NBA games. See above re: arguing about things you don't understand.

(In before "The NBA is not college basketball" as if the underlying principle were somehow different).

You start out by saying: "a full college career of reasonable volume 3 point shooting is not enough to really know how good someone is"

Now you say "it's the ranking that matters"

Can players not be ranked against one another after "a full college career of reasonable volume 3 point shooting"?

Can players be ranked against one another after a full college career of reasonable volume 3 point shooting? Sure. Just sort by 3 point percentage.

Can you say with any confidence that a guy who shot 31.5% for his full college career was actually better than a guy who shot 30.8% as opposed to just luckier? Well, it depends. If better to you just means "made more shots" then you can say it with 100% confidence, congratulations. If better to you means "which one of these players is truly a better shooter in expectation" then no, not at all. I mean your odds are above 50% picking the 31.5% guy but not by that much.

Or were you trying to say that a single player's shooting numbers aren't meaningful in a vacuum, and that comparison to others is needed to make such a determination?

Of course. If you've never heard of the game of basketball before and I tell you some guy is a 50% 3-point shooter it should be abundantly obvious that you won't know whether that's "good" or "bad". Being a 50% shooter in a league of 60% shooters sucks, being one in any real league is great. This shit really obviously only matters relative to the competition.

Because that's not what you actually said. Maybe that original statement is just bonkers because it was imprecise in conveying what you mean?

It certainly seems to be confusing you. I'm not convinced that is my fault.

 

[RUChoppin]

I'm not convinced that is my fault.

That's not at all surprising.

 

[RUsojo]

Flux winning this going away fwiw

Can’t believe people still don’t understand how and why casinos set lines in this day and age either lol

 

[Loyal_2RU]

(Maximum bet)

Do your own Math details:

The standard error (SE) can be calculated as follows:

√[(proportion makes*proportion misses)÷number of shots]

Now depending on what question you want answered, you need some additional info.

If you are looking at the precision with which you are estimating how good a shooter is you plug in the appropriate values for Z into the equations:
Bottom of the interval= make Percent - Z*SE
Top of the interval=make percentage+Z*SE

Z for these two-sided assessments of precision are
80%=1.28
90%=1.65
95%=1.96
99%=2.33
99.9%=3.09

So if someone had made 40% of 3's in a sample of 100 shots, their (rounding) SE would be 5%, you can be 95% sure that their true shooting ability falls in the (again rounding) range of 30-50%.

If they had taken 50 shots, the SE would be 7 so the 95% "confidence interval" for their true average over time would likely (95%) fall between 26% at the low end and 54% at the high end.

All of this assumes the shots you are looking at are representative of all their shots and that their skill is essentially stable over time, which may or may not be true. If not true choose a sample size at there just recent level of performance and use that.

I'll add more later, but this is long enough. Maybe I'll start a thread on this. It's basic statistics but not well understood.

Loyal

 

[bac2therac]

Lol at the stats only guys ignoring situations

Flux is off the deep end

 

[Loyal_2RU]

Lol at the stats only guys ignoring situations

Flux is off the deep end

Bac,
I'm an eyes first guy but I find the stats helpful and informative. Each side of this debate ignores the other at their peril.

Stats tell you a lot. They can help you to interpret your observations.

But any approach that systematically downgrades the mid-range game indiscriminately lacks sufficient nuance.

 

[Greene Rice FIG]

I think our adjusted offensive efficiency score today might be 3 standard deviations above the mean

EDIT bart actually has that 103.5 SD 18

137.5 isnt even 2 SD above

 

[Greene Rice FIG]

Divorced from reality in the sense that in the "real world" people don't talk about how good a player is by using statistical analysis and Monte Carlo simulations. Is that how you determine what you consider a good restaurant, or a good song, or a good book? The whole concept of "good" is a subjective one.

"Was the pasta good tonight?"
"That's impossible to say without my lab equipment and far more data"

It's like reading a scene with Sheldon from a Big Bang Theory script.

How about figuring out whether you can retire?

 

[goru7]

Until this thread I started got hijacked, I would like to get it back on track. We carried over 8 of the 10 positives from the second half of NW: Paul and his triple double debut returned; Cliff continuing to be a recepient of Paul’s passing and getting better: Dean - 12 points in 10 minutes , 5-6 from the field and 2 threes including the most important won to put us up by 13 ; Offensive efficiency - 137.4 did I get that right , the best of the year by a lot ; Turnovers , very few turnovers especially early as only had 5 at the half. Efficient crisp beautiful basketball without wasting possessions with unforced turnovers; Ron - really steady game and 3 or more great takes to the basket and getting fouled but did not need him to score 25 to win this game and let the game come to him and nailed that three from Paul’s assist. Foul shots- although we started 1-5 we finished making 10 of the final 12, so not 80% like the other night but still okay. Ron ‘s consecutive streak snapped as the ball went in and out but then he came back and hit everyone thereafter.
Mag did not start and Caleb played really well so he did not have much of an impact. We didn’t need to press and trap although we used it to have MSU use 10 seconds off the clock . Very nice we didn’t have a slow start and a lousy first half so we didn’t need to use the trapping press to come from behind. There were not many offensive rebounds as we shot 61.5% and only took 52 total shots but we had a few timely ones. Overall, a lot of carry over from the 2nd Half of northwestern.

 

[RUChoppin]

How about figuring out whether you can retire?

?