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Author: Dartmouth Sports Analytics

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With the NBA playoffs only a month away, the seeding situation in both conferences is beginning to heat up. That said, some teams have asserted themselves as true contenders while others have already played themselves out of the playoff race. The expanded play-in tournament for seeds 7-10, however, has allowed for more teams to stay right in the thick of the playoff hunt, creating a host of new storylines to follow as the regular season winds down. Many of last year’s contenders — Denver, Milwaukee, and both Los Angeles teams, to name a few — are right back in the hunt, while the rise of the Nets and Sixers in the East and the Jazz and Suns in the West has shaken up the narrative. In a season where many teams have risen far above and some fallen wildly short of expectations, a few members of the Dartmouth Sports Analytics Club wanted to highlight this season’s top overperformers and underperformers. 

...continue reading "Analyzing the NBA’s Biggest Over and Underachievers"

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When March rolls around every year, the hype begins for college basketball’s national championship. Sixty-four teams, seeded into four regions of sixteen, compete to win six straight and take home the title. From bracket-making to skipping class on game days, there’s a lot to enjoy about March Madness. But when it comes to what makes the tournament shine, the upsets take the cake. Watching a 10- or 11-seed to claw past a favorite and searching for an elusive 12-5 upset appeals to the underdog in all of this. With 2021’s tournament over and Gonzaga’s undefeated streak coming to an end right at the finish line to the hands of Baylor, a few members of the Sports Analytics Club have decided to take a look at some of this tournament’s best upsets to see if there are any common threads.

...continue reading "Upsets-in-Review: Breaking Down Four of Our March Madness Favorites"

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With the Final Four tipping off this weekend, the Dartmouth Sports Analytics executive board presents the case for each of the remaining teams in the NCAA Tournament. No. 2 Houston takes on No. 1 Baylor on Saturday at 5:14 p.m. ET, while No. 11 UCLA faces off against No. 1 overall seed Gonzaga at 8:34 p.m. ET. The National Championship will be on Monday, April 5 at 9 p.m. ET.

Without further ado, the case for each Final Four team to cut down the nets...

...continue reading "Who Will Win the NCAA Championship? The Case for Every Final Four Team"

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Joe Gyorda '22

Sports are finally returning after having halted as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The NBA is one of many professional leagues with plans to resume their paused seasons. This past NBA season was arguably the most balanced the league has been in the past five years, presenting fans with entertaining basketball that was just culminating when things shut down. Given it has been nearly four months since the last NBA game was played, I’ve decided to list my picks for awards for the 2019-20 season thus far. We’ll see which of these predictions hold up once the season restarts. Many of these awards are certainly still up in the air, but here are the picks I ended up going with:

...continue reading "Speculating NBA Awards for the 2019-20 Season"

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Tyler Brody '21

Introduction

Believe it or not, there was a time when the center was the marquee position in basketball. Many maintained no team could win an NBA championship without a dominant interior scorer, and legendary big men like George Mikan, Bill Russell, and Kareem Abdul Jabbar carried their teams to multiple titles through back to the basket dominance. In today’s game, however, you would be hard-pressed to find an offense run through the post, and, since Shaq, we have not seen a dominant five bulldoze his team’s path to a championship. ...continue reading "Evolution of the Center: How the Introduction of the Three-Point Shot Devalued the Traditional Big Man and Altered the Offensive Profile of NBA Centers"

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Matthew Schnell '22

In nearly every sporting event, whether at an eight-year-old’s soccer game or the Super Bowl, fans can be heard screaming at the officials. Even when they make the right call, sports fanatics cannot help themselves from berating referees from doing their jobs. In soccer, fans take it to another level. One missed or wrong penalty call can cost teams three points. ...continue reading "The Fans’ Impact on the Whistle: How do the boos and jeers of shouting fans manipulate the referees’ calls during a game?"

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Joseph Notis '21

On March 11, 2020, the NBA suspended its season in response to the coronavirus pandemic. With no clear return date for basketball’s highest level of competition, the status of the each team's remaining 15 to 19 games for each team is. Among the multitude of theories on how the NBA season will progress is that the regular season is over and the playoffs will begin as soon as the league resumes play. This leads to the question, who would benefit if there are no more regular season games?

...continue reading "If the NBA Regular Season Is Over, Who Benefits?"

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Matthew Schnell '22

To examine the effects of returning kickoffs in the FCS and, more specifically, the Ivy League in the 2019 season, I looked at every single kickoff from the regular season, using ESPN’s play-by-play data. I parsed the data out into several different categories, including whether the team elected to return the kickoff, the distance of the kickoff, where the returner caught the ball, how far the returner traveled, and, thus, where the ensuing possession began. In total, I looked at 9,866 kickoffs from the FCS and 346 kickoffs from Ivy League teams. Due to the new NCAA kickoff rules, a player can fair catch the ball anywhere before the 25-yard line, and their team will start their possession at the 25-yard line. Moreover, I focused on kickoffs where the player caught the ball before this 25-yard line threshold and decided to return the kick. Below are tables and plots which summarize the effects of such players who elected to return the kickoffs when catching the ball anywhere before the 25-yard line.

...continue reading "A Brief Analysis on FCS and Ivy League Kickoffs"

Published on Leave a comment on Dartmouth Sports Analytics on Super Bowl LIV

Dartmouth Sports Analytics members make their predictions ahead of this Sunday's matchup between the Kansas City Chiefs and San Francisco 49ers.

...continue reading "Dartmouth Sports Analytics on Super Bowl LIV"