MBB: Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association

[HopeConvert]

Saturday's Rivalry game is a toss up according to Massey (updated through Wednesday's games).

http://www.masseyratings.com/game.php?gid=178952922

He's saying it's 50-50 with a "most likely score" of 81-80 in favor of Calvin, and a median score of 81-81.

Massey needs to make up his mind on this game.  There is no sitting on the fence for a rivalry game    .  You're either a Calvin person or a Hope person, no gray area.

Well, there can be a LITTLE gray area.

Why else would both school's bookstores be selling these:

[KnightSlappy]

Will, who is shooting a little over 50% on the year, shot 61.5% last night. I plotted out the distribution of his shots, where "m" equals missed and "g" equals good. Again, the debate here is that "hotness" has no predictive value, and that any distribution of made shots is not different than we would expect to see from any random sequencing of data.

MMGGGMGGMMGMGMGGGGGMMGGMGG

After missing his first two shots, Will hit 5 of his next 6. Will began the second half by hitting his first 5 shots and was 3 of 3 from the line. If a 50% shooter hits 60% in a particular game he is likely to experience himself as being, comparatively speaking, in an unusual place. Perhaps we can just leave it at the claim that he has never had a better 5 minute stretch of basketball than he did at the beginning of the second half. (14 points in 5 minutes - why, that would project to a 112 point game.)

One of the nice things about watching these teams as closely as we do is to see how these young persons develop over their four years, not just as players but also as persons. I have been impressed on a number of occasions this year with Will's composure and maturity on the court. He had plenty of opportunities last night to get frustrated or complain, but he kept his head down and played the game.

So, if one can be considered "hot" after two makes in a row, then we see that on shots after he had made the previous two he was 4 out of 8 or [drumroll]... 50%!

[ziggy]

Will, who is shooting a little over 50% on the year, shot 61.5% last night. I plotted out the distribution of his shots, where "m" equals missed and "g" equals good. Again, the debate here is that "hotness" has no predictive value, and that any distribution of made shots is not different than we would expect to see from any random sequencing of data.

MMGGGMGGMMGMGMGGGGGMMGGMGG

After missing his first two shots, Will hit 5 of his next 6. Will began the second half by hitting his first 5 shots and was 3 of 3 from the line. If a 50% shooter hits 60% in a particular game he is likely to experience himself as being, comparatively speaking, in an unusual place. Perhaps we can just leave it at the claim that he has never had a better 5 minute stretch of basketball than he did at the beginning of the second half. (14 points in 5 minutes - why, that would project to a 112 point game.)

One of the nice things about watching these teams as closely as we do is to see how these young persons develop over their four years, not just as players but also as persons. I have been impressed on a number of occasions this year with Will's composure and maturity on the court. He had plenty of opportunities last night to get frustrated or complain, but he kept his head down and played the game.

Thanks for posting the sequence of shots. This adds another opportunity to debunk the myth that a hot hand leads to an increased likelihood of making a shot because the previous shot(s) went in.

Will took 14 shots after a make and went 9/15 on those shots, or 60%
Will took 10 shots after a miss and went 7/10 on those shots, or 70%

(sidebar: yes, Will took 26 shots, not 25, but his first shot can not be included in the hot hand analysis because there was no previous shot)

Mr. Bowser's night was special because he played extremely well, not because he was "hot". So called hot hand theory would not result in a better field goal percentage following a miss than a make.

edit: Slight correction from my initial calculation, although the revision actually furthers the argument against "hot hand".

[HopeConvert]

Kudos to KS and Ziggy both for drawing even more from the data. Well done.

Will had a special night mostly because he took more shots than he normally does, and then too hit a higher percentage than he normally does.

[ziggy]

Kudos to KS and Ziggy both for drawing even more from the data. Well done.

Calvin Engineering, represent.

[sac]

"I was unfortunate enough to be guarding Steve Honderd when he scored 61 (for Calvin in 1993) and not the whole time but part of it," Kalamazoo coach Rob Passage said. "It looked like that a little bit tonight the way (Bowser) was moving, the way he handled the ball. I think our guys early on gave him a few looks, and once he got hot it didn't matter what we did, and so it was outstanding."

[pointlem]

HopeConvert . . . kudos to you!  You're doing exactly the sort of analysis that has debunked the hot hand myth.  (Remember that the debunking doesn't deny streaks.  It only questions the assumption that the previous outcomes predict ensuing outcomes--that players are more likely to make a basket after making the previous few attempts). 

Your data illustrate that streaks happen as we'd expect given random variation.  As you've shown, Will last night attempted 26 shots, which gives us 25 comparisons of each shot outcome to the next.  In the data you've provided, I see 13 alternations (from make to miss or vice versa) and 12 repeats of the previous outcome. 

Ergo, we see in last night's shooting the to-be-expected streaks . . . to the same extent that we'd expect if tossing a coin 26 times in a row (with an expected 50% rate of the next outcome differing from the previous outcome).

[hoopdreams]

I don't have a "math" mind, so I don't really get into statistical data, formulas, etc... I don't need to know what % he made after a make, nor a miss and I'm not belittling anyone's ways or methods of breaking down a game but it simply seems, to me, to take a lot of the joy away from the game and one of the great performances ever in a Hope Jersey.  On a personal note to the Calvin blogger, I love your site and you do an outstanding job but much of your data is too intense for my simplistic mind!  Can you dummy it down for me?

I prefer, my choice, to get great joy out of reading what Will's thoughts were about the performance.  I suppose you can't really believe the whole "in the zone" thing unless you've experienced it, which I'm guessing (speculating) many on this board have not.  If Will wasn't "feeling it" he surely wouldn't have taken 26 shots, even a couple ill advised.  As a coach you deal with it because all but 2 (including the 3 that he missed by 10 feet, nice no-call officials) looked like they were going to fall

More telling of dealing "with a hot hand" was in Coach Passage's quote " once he got hot, it didn't matter what we did, and so it was outstanding".

I beg to differ that Overway has surpassed Krombeen, although Krombeen has definitely struggled the past 3 games.  Teams have scouted that the best way to neutralize David is to attack him hard with the dribble because he does a poor job of keeping the ball in front of him and get him in foul trouble.  This is the main reason why teams are getting so many good looks from behind the arc, especially if you have a post player (Rodts, Schuster, etc..) who can step out and make a 3.  Hope has to help in the paint and teams kick out to wide open shooters.  Hope wants to force everyone to the baseline and the sideline and allowing dribble penetration into the middle of the floor is an absolute no-no to everything they try to do defensively. When you think you see a guy getting beat baseline, that's what they want.  Regardless,  It's in david's head now and he needs a personal spark in a big game (Saturday???) to break him out of his funk.

Kalamazoo is a really nice team and I have a feeling they are going to have some major input into how this season is decided.  Joe P is an absolute stud and I agree that he is the best pure 5 in the league.  MM is a mid range guy who, against Hope, has done little in the old school, traditional area for 5's- the paint.  

[hoopdreams]

I suppose an easier way to look at things, we could go back to the first Hope-Calvin game.  Was Danny Rodts performance that night "special"? Was he "hot",  or was that the way he normally shoots, the "norm"?.

Insert beating dead horse photo..........

[KnightSlappy]

More telling of dealing "with a hot hand" was in Coach Passage's quote " once he got hot, it didn't matter what we did, and so it was outstanding".

Go back to HC's shot sequence and point out exactly when it was that he got hot.

No one's arguing that the night wasn't special, we're just arguing whether or not he ever actually "got hot". We're actually saying he's more special. He wasn't good 'cause he was hot; he was good because he's good!

[hoopdreams]

Re-read will's quote.  Somethings simply cannot be measured or dissected, like feelings or one's mindset.  And for those that don't know... an athlete's mentality, their confidence level, their mindset, is as important, if not more important than anything else when they step onto their playing surface- a career .240 hitter who goes on a 12-18 tear in June. 

You're refuting and dismissing how people feel?  Players and coaches are making foolish statements  to reporters? 

If Powell does 7-9 from behind the arc Saturday is he lucky?  Law of averages?

[HopeConvert]

Apparently he got hot in the locker room at halftime.   But that was my reaction exactly: show me when he "got hot."

The phrase is a trope. Subjectively, it simply means that a player is feeling good about the state of his game. Objectively, it means very little. In response to HD, I would say that Will felt confident last night, or perhaps desperate after Hope fell behind early, and that is why he hoisted 26 shots. By my calculations prior to last night Will was averaging about 14 shots  and 19 points a game. Last night he took about twice as many shots and scored about twice his average. (He also had an above average game from the free-throw line.)

I agree: this doesn't diminish his accomplishment. It simply acknowledges that he's a good player who took over the game when his team needed him to.

[HopeConvert]

As to the Overway/Kombeen issue, I was referring to their play on both ends of the floor. The former has been looking very good offensively, and frankly has been playing much better defensively. But then, you've admitted as much.

[ziggy]

I suppose an easier way to look at things, we could go back to the first Hope-Calvin game.  Was Danny Rodts performance that night "special"? Was he "hot",  or was that the way he normally shoots, the "norm"?.

Insert beating dead horse photo..........

I think any time a player far exceeds his normal performance he is having a special night. You have to remember, however, that one game represents a very small sample size compared to a players overall career. Narrow views of a much larger data set is subject to wide extremes (Rodts vs. Hope, Rodts vs. Kzoo).

There is a problem using coach Passage's words as "proof" the hot hand exists. "I think our guys early on gave him a few looks, and once he got hot it didn't matter what we did". Any attempt to show that he got hot early comes up empty based on the shot sequence posted earlier. To put it bluntly, Passage is flat wrong in his initial observation so why take him at his word about Bowser's supposed "hot hand", especially when the math shows that over the course of the game he was more likely to make a basket after a miss than a make.

Just because the hot hand theory is quite popular doesn't mean it is correct. Let's draw a comparison to our hot hand from something outside of basketball. A British doctor wrote a report in which he argued for a relationship between child vaccines and autism. Many people bought in and vaccination rated dropped as a result. Now, we come to find out that the doctor "doctored" the results as his paper has been debunked to the point that the doctor in question has had his medical license revoked. That being the case, many people still hold the belief that there is a relationship between childhood vaccines and autism. There will always be a segment of a population that refuses to believe hard evidence presented before them.

I don't fault Will for using the words he did but forgive me for not taking them as proof that a player is more likely to make a basket because the previous shot went in (especially since it doesn't apply in the game in question). So, he was in the zone. Why not get in the zone every game? Because, it isn't something the player can control; a random variation to the positive.

I hope that no one takes this debate as taking anything away from the night that Will had. On the contrary, he is a great player and my argument is that this is the type of night that, on a rare occasion, can be expected from a player of his caliber. Just like it can be expected, on rare occasions, from Danny Rodts, Joe Prepolec and others.

[Knightmare]

The following quote is pulled straight from the aforementioned Holland Sentinel write-up on the Hope vs. Kzoo game.  Count Will Bowser in the camp of believers in a "hot" shooting player.  Found this a bit interesting and no we don't need to revisit that debate.  We can all still politely agree to disagree  .

From Holland Sentinel:
"I was definitely in the zone. I've been in the zone before, it's one of the greatest feelings in the world," said Bowser, who now holds the second-highest single game scoring mark in Hope history, and the highest for any Hope player at home. "It's just something that feels like the hoop is the ocean. I mean anything that I let go just felt good."

Consider this a pre-emptive apology to everyone on the board .  I truly wasn't trying to get Secretariat beat anymore than he already has been with the hot hand vs. randomness debate.  Just found Bowser's quote humorous and interesting considering the discussion we had a couple months back.  I should have know what would happen if that can of worms was reopened with this scholarly crowd that likes a good civil discussion/debate  .

Alright, trying to shift gears.  Anyone with any profound pregame analysis of the big game.  What are your key matchups or key players that could swing this game one way or the other?