Game Rating Explanation

Congratulations to Florida, UConn, Arizona, and Butler for winning their games and advancing to the Elite 8. I have to say that I was quite saddened when Duke got beaten so badly. But I guess that's what happens when Derrick Williams goes 5-6 from behind the arc and leads the Wildcats on an amazing scoring run to start the second half. So, as sad as I am to see the Blue Devils eliminated (I had them losing in the finals in my bracket), it is good to see a fellow Pac-10 team performing so dominantly in a tough game. This should lead to a good conference season next year in the Pac-12 if all players decide to stay.


Anyways, onto the stats. In this post I will be describing my current method through quick examples and formula discussion. The first thing I started thinking about was the ability that teams can play to. Using the offensive and defensive ratings of the teams in each game, I was able to find a normal distribution curve that would approximately model the "average" playing strength of each team. 


Continue reading after the jump

"Schedule" of upcoming posts

First off, a big congratulations to the Cougs for beating Northwestern in OT 69-66. MSG, here we come!

In the next couple days I will try to start putting some hard data up. Here is some of the stuff that I have finished and am currently working on:

• Pac-10 offensive ratings
• Pac-10 defensive ratings
• Pac-10 overall game ratings
• Normal distributions of the previously listed stats

As soon as I get to a stopping point with that, I'll copy my data over to a google doc spreadsheet and share the file with you guys.

Also, please answer the poll on the right so that I can know who I am writing to.

-Dan

First Post

The point of this blog is to be a place where I can put some work that I am doing for the public viewing. My current task is creating a new "version" of the RPI due to it being obviously flawed. As I try different methods, I will post summaries, pictures, data, and results that I have finished. Hopefully I will make progress towards achieving my goal and I know I will also be learning along the way.

Due to me being a Washington State student and fan, most of my analysis will be run beginning with WSU stats and matchups. For conference analysis it will begin with the Pac-10 (and Pac-12 in due time). 

Now time for a disclaimer. When people choose the winner of a game, they commonly look at PPG, RPG, APG, BPG, and other box score stats. If the matchup is too close to call on paper, people just go with their hearts or their affiliations. This being said, I have great love for WSU basketball. Behind WSU in my heart is Duke. The point of my blog is to find the strengths and weaknesses of a team and how they will fare against each other MATHEMATICALLY. While I will show bias in my writeups of data, I promise that my data will be accurate and my formulas will be unbiased when it comes to weighting.

Follow me on twitter: @danshirley and please comment on my posts letting me know what you think I should include, fix, or just to say what you think.

-Dan