The Wichita State Shockers are impressive for a lot of reasons—their beatdown of geographic rival Kansas and top-10 defense, or for the simple possibility that they can trade punches with Kentucky in a tournament rematch, should WSU defeat Notre Dame later tonight. But at the minimum, praise Gregg Marshall's squad for…
This post originally appeared on Watchers on the Wall. Republished here with permission.
Providence coach Ed Cooley is renowned for his recruiting foresight, having helped land Craig Smith, Tyrese Rice, and other under-scouted players as an assistant at Boston College, but there weren't many layers for him to peel back with Kris Dunn, the most thrilling passer in the country.
The NHL general managers are having their annual meetings this week and for the second year in a row they are discussing rule changes to decrease the number of games that are resolved by a shootout. The particular ideas they're tossing around—centered around adopting a 3-on-3 overtime—stand a very good chance of…
You can have the best analytics on your side. You could even watch 100 hours of college basketball a week to prepare for filling out your bracket. None of this matters for the wrong pool. And just about the only wrong sort of pool is a big one. Let me repeat: DO NOT enter a big pool. Here's why.
Over the next week, a relatively unheralded team from a small conference will probably defeat a blue blood program from a major conference. This will be surprising because we will have expected the more powerful team to win, what with their larger budget, better-paid coach, etc.
Good ball movement generates open shots. This is Basketball 101, so fundamental to the game's primary education it may as well come down on stone tablets to every young player. It's proven: perhaps to the relief of youth coaches around the country, SportVU player-tracking shows that ball movement in the NBA does…
Bastian Schweinsteiger: Misplaced only 1 of his 57 pass attempts in the first half of #FCBFCSD (98.3% success) pic.twitter.com/fux24x9rNG
— WhoScored.com (@WhoScored) March 11, 2015
When the Chicago White Sox signed Cuban defector Jose Abreu to a six-year, $68 million deal, the expectation was that he would be worth his money, and the hope was that he would be be the next slugging first baseman/DH in the line of team greats Frank Thomas and Paul Konerko. It turned out to be a pretty solid bet.
A lot of "analytics" is sliding into dogmatic thinking. Baseball teams that take a lot of pitches and never steal are good because it's the "right" way to play. Basketball teams that take a lot of 3-pointers are good because that's the "right" way to play. Football teams that go for it on 4th and 1 are good because…
The 9th annual MIT Sloan Sports Analytics conference takes place this weekend, and you've likely noticed all the coinciding and ongoing coverage of the analytical side of sports. Some of these stories are illuminating explanations of what's going on at the vanguard of sports analysis; others bitch, correctly, about…
This year's Sloan papers are making their way around this week, and like last year Kirk Goldsberry has a preview of the Harvard entrant on Grantland. This year's is about observing and measuring defense using the NBA's player-movement-tracking system, SportVU.
Last week's trade deadline was one of the most eventful in years, and the flurry of movement was heightened because the headliners in most of these trades were young, talented point guards. Point guards power and define the modern NBA, and how these guards fit into their new roles will have a lot to do with how those…
There have never been more options for those convinced that the medical establishment is hiding secrets from them. Look at the Google ads running down the sidebar of just about any website you visit, and you're almost certain to see ads about "natural" cures—gluten-free diets and alkaline water, superfoods and…
On Saturday the San Jose Sharks will host the Los Angeles Kings at Levi's Stadium in what will be the 15th outdoor regular season game in NHL history. With the number of outdoor games on a steady rise, there's an open and important question of whether or not the quality of play differs between indoor and outdoor…
Today, The New York Times has a piece out on the maximalist running shoe, a trend now old enough to warrant an article written with characteristically Times-ian remove from rigorous examination of its subject. The thing about these shoes, though, is that even if the Times had wanted to conduct a more thorough…
On Sunday, the Seattle Seahawks made a grievously bad playcall, and Malcolm Butler won the Super Bowl for the Patriots, and millions of football-watching Americans reeled in reflexive disbelief at the sheer boneheadedness on display.
Most historians credit former Michigan and Green Bay star Ron Kramer as the first "real" player at the position. "He was the prototype," Packers quarterback Bart Starr once told me. At a shade over 6-3 and 235-240 pounds, Kramer had nearly the mass of an offensive lineman and was quick enough to get downfield and…
Richard Sherman might be the most vocal player in Seattle's hard-hitting, receiver-eating secondary known as the Legion of Boom, but he's far from the only key contributor. In fact, depending on his elbow's condition, Sherman might not even play a major part in the Hawks' gameplan.
Hey, here's a change. The participants in this year's Super Bowl, through the NFL's single-elimination playoff format, were actually the best in their respective conferences this year. That never happens! Except, uhm, when it happened last year. But otherwise—that almost never happens!
