On the the assumptions of a control variable, using the example of football score differential

Most studies which model athlete behavior try to control for score differential as a mechanism for accounting for player aggressiveness. … More

Hot hand theory, updated?

One spot where statistics and sports have commonly intersected is the so-called ‘hot-hand’ theory. Statisticians have argued that athletes – … More

I penned a piece on the NHL’s points system, and how teams are taking advantage of the league’s incentives to … More

Over the last few years, several friends and colleagues have asked me to send along papers on sports which have … More

The NCAA March Madness tournament provides the opportunity for several testable hypothesis with regards to the best team rankings systems … More

March Madness brackets here. These are designed for large pools (appx 400 entries) with upset points on a 2-4-8-16-32-64 scoring … More

With a few NCAA Division 1 title contenders suffering embarrassing defeats today (Syracuse, Kansas), I decided to go back and look at … More

Ceclilia Noecker & Paul Roback penned an interesting piece on the Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports, which I summarize … More

Here are some brief thoughts roughly 3.5 weeks into the NHL’s season. 1) Thus far, 25.3% of all games have gone … More

The decisive play of the 49ers-Ravens Super Bowl was a fourth-down pass to the end zone in which 49ers receiver … More