After reading a post on FanGraphs about NERD, I figured that I would try to make my own version for college basketball. The point of NERD is to use statistics about individual batters, pitchers, or whole teams in order to determine the excitement that they provide. That being said, let me introduce you to PEZ (Predicted Excitement based on Z-scores).
I started out by posting a survey online asking about various stats that make a game fun to watch (high scoring, fouls, teams involved, etc...). Out of the 21 options that I provided, along with a space for other ideas, I chose to incorporate the stats that make a game more interesting and also the ones that make a game quite boring. I have not found a way to use everything in exactly the way that I want so far, but I feel like I have made a pretty good first draft at this. I will discuss the elements involved first, present some of the results second, and then finish up with some commentary.
