LATE-NIGHT UPDATE: The University of Dayton -- though ultimately winning its game against Auburn, 60-59 -- went 0-for-24 on three-pointers. As a result, the following entry from the NCAA basketball record book must now be erased:

THREE-POINT FIELD-GOAL ATTEMPTS WITHOUT MAKING ONE
22—Canisius vs. St. Bonaventure, Jan. 21, 1995

[Update: I later learned of an 0-for-24 game by South Carolina State in 2004.]

Dayton entered tonight's game hitting from behind the arc at a .395 clip (for purposes of the calculations to come, the same figure can be expressed as a .605 failure rate, i.e., one minus the success rate).

To estimate the probability of a team with the Flyers' previous success rate going 0-for-24 on three-point attempts, we simply raise .605 to the 24th power, yielding .000006 or 6-in-1 million.

This analysis assumes independence of observations, that the outcome of one Dayton shot has no bearing on the next, like coin flips. Though reasons can be generated for why basketball shots should not be independent -- such as confidence, momentum, or fatigue -- sports performances have tended to be consistent with an independence model.

One reason a team might have such a disastrous night is that it fell way behind and jacked up a lot of desperation three attempts. This does not appear to be true of the Dayton situation, however, as the Auburn game appears to have been close throughout; the Flyers led 26-21 at the half and won in overtime.

Another line of inquiry is whether the lion's share of Dayton's trey attempts somehow were taken disproportionately by the team's weakest shooters from long distance, thus rendering the aforementioned .395 baseline inappropriate. Looking once again at the Flyers' pre-Auburn stats, Dayton's top three-point shooters coming in were Marcus Johnson, .500 (7-14); Mickey Perry, .455 (5-11); Chris Johnson, .417 (5-12); and Luke Fabrizius, .412 (7-17). According to the box score of the Dayton-Auburn contest, this quartet took 13 of the team's 24 shots, so at first glance, the Flyers' best long-distance shooters appear to have been reasonably well represented.

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Trailing 65-57 to Georgetown with 9:15 remaining in a battle of nationally ranked teams earlier today, Tennessee went on a 23-6 run to take an 80-71 lead right around the two-minute mark. Then, with the Hoyas starting to foul in desperation in the final minute, the Vols went 7-of-8 from the free-throw line to take a 90-78 victory. The second-half play-by-play sheet from ESPN.com can be viewed here.

Song Of The Day - Emery (The Smile, The Face)

Emery have been a staple in my music collection since I received a pre-release of their debut album, "The Weak's End." It was right around that time that Tooth and Nail Records switched their focus from bands like Ace Troubleshooter, Bleach, and MxPx to harder bands like Emery, Underoath, and Norma Jean. I think they helped the "screamo" genre creep into mainstream.

Emery released an EP called "When Broken Hearts Prevail." It's a collection of songs that sound like re-mastered B-sides from "The Question" recordings. I'm not saying that these songs aren't as good as any tracks on "The Question," but they are of the same ilk. I think it is an amazing EP and makes the anticipation grow for their next LP. Here is the audio of a track off of their new EP, it's called "The Smile, The Face." Enjoy!

Though Oklahoma and Texas Tech both came into their game last night with records of offensive explosiveness, only the Sooners kept the scoreboard operators busy, shellacking the visiting Red Raiders, 65-21. As the following brief excerpts from this morning's Lubbock Avalanche-Journal detail, Texas Tech was outplayed in all facets of the game:

Every element that the Raiders had deployed on the way to a 10-0 start – pass protection, the run game, Graham Harrell-to-Mike Crabtree and timely defense – fell flat on senior night at Owen Field/Memorial Stadium...

Tech had allowed only one 100-yard rusher all season, but OU had two. Tech had allowed only five sacks all season but, against OU, gave up four. The Raiders’ usually prolific offense was 1-for-13 on third down.

The latter bit of faltering, in particular, is highly amenable to statistical analysis; it will thus be the focus of the rest of this entry. Prior to last night, Texas Tech had a .64 (48/75) third-down conversion rate (i.e., success at getting first downs) in Big 12 conference play.

Using this online calculator for binomial probabilities (i.e., events that can have two outcomes, such as success and failure), one can ask what the probability is of a team with a prior .64 success rate achieving at a level of 1-for-13 (or worse) on third-down opportunities. Because any one specific occurrence, such as 1-for-13, is likely to be rare, statisticians add in the "or worse" element (or in other scenarios, "or better").

The answer is .00004, or 4-in-100,000. This fraction can be simplified further, allowing us to say that the Red Raiders' third-down performance last night would occur around once in 25,000 games!. Allowing for the fact that Oklahoma's defense (last night, at least) is better than that of Tech's other Big 12 opponents, the odds would be somewhat less astronomical. Still, the Raiders' dismal third-down conversion rate was pretty surprising.

This calculation can be broken down into different components. To estimate the probability of Texas Tech going 0-for-13 on third down, we simply raise .36 (the team's prior failure rate on third down) to the 13th power, yielding .000002.

For the probability of exactly 1 success and 12 failures in 13 opportunities, we take .36 to the 12th power, times .64 to the first power. This yields .000003. However, there are 13 different ways a team can go 1-for-13, namely getting its single first down on either its first, second, third,..., twelfth, or thirteenth opportunity. We thus multiple the previous .000003 by 13, yielding .00004. We would also add in the aforementioned probability of a 0-for-13 performance (.000002), but the solution would still round to .00004.

There would seem to be two major factors that determine success on third-down opportunities: whether a team finds itself with long distances to go to earn a first down; and how well the team moves the ball, even on short-yardage situations.

According to the OU-TTU play-by-play sheet, the distances to go on the Red Raiders' third downs were: 9, 10, 22, 3, 4, 2, 18, 10*, 11, 7, 21**, 6, and 1 (the single asterisk denotes the one successful conversion, which actually resulted in a touchdown, whereas the double asterisk indicates where an Oklahoma personal foul gave Texas Tech a first down, which apparently is not credited as an "earned" first down).

As can be seen, both of the above suggested factors appeared to be operative. The Red Raiders were left with several long third-down situations (7 with 9-or-more yards to go), but they also failed on several short opportunities.

This Saturday night, two of the most explosive offensive teams in college football -- Texas Tech and Oklahoma -- will meet in a game that has possible national championship implications. For starters, I thought I'd simply graph the two teams' offensive sequences (i.e., whether they resulted in touchdowns, field goals, or no score) against their five common Big 12 conference opponents (this information is available via ESPN.com's collection of college football team pages, by going to a given team's page, looking up particular games, and finding the Drive Charts). You can click on the following graph to enlarge it.


There are formal statistical tests one can do, such as the "runs test," which examines whether like events (such as touchdowns) are more commonly clustered together than would be expected by chance. Such statistical tests require large sample sizes, however, and the only way they could be obtained in the present situation is through the questionable practice of combining games into a long chain (i.e., have the final drive of one game be grafted onto the first drive of the next game).

Therefore, it's probably best to view the above chart only in a descriptive manner. As can be seen, both the Red Raiders and Sooners have put together several streaks of at least three consecutive touchdown-scoring drives. Though Oklahoma has recorded more such streaks than has Texas Tech, the Red Raiders seem to have more of a tendency to keep their streaks carrying over from one quarter to the next (and even over the halftime break).

In the games examined, Oklahoma has only one fourth-quarter touchdown, total. In many of games, however, the Sooners may have been trying not to run up the score.

One can also break down these streaks into smaller units than the scoring drive, such as pass completions. In Texas Tech's fast start against Kansas, for example, Red Raider quarterback Graham Harrell hit on 22 of his first 24 passing attempts. Oklahoma QB Sam Bradford once completed 18 straight passes in a game.

As a final note, amazing spurts are certainly not limited to Texas Tech and Oklahoma. Trailing Troy 31-3 in the third quarter last Saturday, LSU scored 37 unanswered points to win going away, 40-31.

Gregg Makes Cubs Lose Wood

It looks like the Kerry Wood Experiment is officially over in Chicago. The Chicago Cubs acquired Kevin Gregg from the Florida Marlins for the minor-leaguer, Jose Ceda. Gregg has been the closer in Florida the last two seasons and he will be the set-up man for Chicago next season with Carlos Marmol assuming the closer role. This is a cost-cutting move by the Cubs in hopes of landing a left-handed power bat this offseason and re-signing Ryan Dempster. Wood is looking for a three-year deal in hopes of receiving $10 million a season.

GM Jim Hendry didn't close the door to Wood in the future but thinks he should go get what he deserves in the open market. The New York Mets and Texas Rangers appears to be a good fit for Wood and have the money to sign him.

Kevin Gregg isn't as good as Kerry Wood, but for a team that is cutting a few corners while spending large amounts of money, they feel like this is needed to keep Dempster and get a power left-handed bat to replace Fukudome in right-field. Gregg will have an ERA around 4.00 and give up a few extra homers in Wrigley Field. If he stays healthy, which he couldn't do last season, he could help Chicago this year.

Jose Ceda has been in the Cubs farm system for a few years. The Padres traded him to Chicago when he was 18 years old for Todd Walker. Many baseball experts believe that Ceda could be a future closer and could become a Lee Smith type of pitcher. It looks like the Cubs could get the best out of this trade this season, but Ceda could be a beast for Florida for many seasons to come, until he hits arbitration, then they'll trade him for another future star.

It's Been Awhile Pt. 3

I've been on and off of here for the last two months and I am going to be more active since college basketball will be in full force very soon. A lot more stuff to annoy and praise with the upcoming NBA, College Football BCS debacle, NFL season wind-down, and NHL. I can't wait until Mel Kiper and Todd McShay invade ESPN every five minutes, they need their own show.

I know what you're thinking, the last two times that I had a post called "It's Been Awhile" you used it as an excuse to post a picture of a girl that you have a celebri-crush on...I will explain.

- "Tim Lincecum shirtless" google term has been directing tons of traffic to my blog, so I figured that I needed to actually have a picture of Tim Lincecum, well, shirtless. People must have a need for shirtless photos of Ryan Braun, Evan Longoria, B.J. Upton, Brady Quinn, Grady Sizemore, Gabe Kapler, and even C.C. Sabathia to get directed to my blog with the term "shirtless" after their name. I need to boost traffic and with football and basketball season going, here are players that I'm sure will make my blog better. Reggie Bush, Allen Iverson, Colt McCoy, Sam Bradford, Chris Paul, Lebron James, Jay Cutler (really?), Tom Brady, Terrell Owens, Tony Romo, Matt Leinart, Vince Young, Brett Favre, Kobe Bryant, Kevin Garnett, Ladianian Tomlinson, Michael Beasley, Matt Ryan, and for good measure, Grady Jackson.

- My fantasy football teams are all over .500 and I am leading 2 of the 4 leagues I am in.

- Spicy Chicken Nuggets at Wendy's are not as good as the regular chicken nuggets.

- Sonic Drive-Thru is my new vice. I love that I can get jalapenos on basically anything I want.

- The Mobsters game on Myspace is very addictive.

- Sam Bradford will be a better NFL quarterback than Colt McCoy and Graham Harrell.

- Logan's Roadhouse is currently paying my bills.

- Greg Oden plays like Dikembe Mutombo without the finger wave.

- The Indiana Pacers might actually be a .500 team. Danny Granger looks like the real deal.

- Brett Favre has probably cost the Jets at least two wins, they would be 9-1 if Chad Pennington was the QB.

- Girls are getting very risky with their facebook photos.

- I think 90% of my friends dressed up as sluts at Halloween and brag about it.

- Texas Tech's offense looks like every other Texas Tech offense the past ten years. I'm sure Kliff Klingsbury is pissed that the Red Raiders never had a defense when he played.

- Accountemps piss me off.

- The new Emery EP is very good.

- Showtime have two great series on their channel. "Dexter" and "Californication" are must-see television shows.

- Real Chance At Love is better than Rock of Love Charm School, but that is just one man's opinion.

- Fantasy Focus Football podcast isn't as good as the baseball podcast, but still amazing.

- Oklahoma Sooners basketball team will be very, very good this season.

- You will see a lot of Stephen Curry this season, I'm pretty sure every non-conference game of Davidson is televised nationally.

- Andre Dawson deserves to be in the Hall of Fame.

- Chauncey Billups will flourish on the Denver Nuggets and Allen Iverson will have trouble in Detroit.

- Fantasy Hockey is very hard to play, especially when you barely watch the sport.

- On the other hand, Fantasy Basketball is extremely easy when you have Chris Paul and Danny Granger on your team.

- I still like to stare at Katy Perry.

- I don't understand the buzz about "Twilight," I think "Role Models" would be a better movie to watch.


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The Irish Must Be Drunk

After losing to Boston College 17-0 last week, the only positive news about Charlie Weis and Notre Dame came from the Athletic Director with the deadly "vote of confidence." I can't remember the last time I heard so much negative press about Notre Dame, oh wait, last week! Charlie Weis is approaching the Tyrone Willingham range at Notre Dame and is approaching Bob Davie range.

As you read this post, I would like to like everyone know that I am a Notre Dame fan, but I am rational. My hometown is less than an hour away from South Bend and all my friends back home have been suicidal the last two seasons. I have lived in Columbus, OH the last three football seasons and it's amazing to live in a city that could possibly be more insane about college football than Notre Dame fans, 9 out of 10 cars in this city have some sort of Brutus or Buckeye decal in the window or personalized license plate. I need to figure out why Notre Dame is so bad and try and debunk some of the "theories" why Notre Dame looks like a team full of Rudys. Here are some of the theories and my rebuttal.

Five-Star recruits go to colleges with warm weather. I do admit that this theory has some weight to it, but still not true. Elite players go to warmer weather to play in the SEC, Big 12, and USC. Notre Dame recruited Jimmy Clausen, Golden Tate, and Michael Floyd, players that were highly-recruited and would garner playing time on many top 25 teams in the country. I'm not sure that warm weather is the only reason they choose those places, most likely reason is that they want to be on a winning and competitive program. I can also add that the weather in South Bend, IN and Columbus, OH are comparable and Ohio State still recruits a top-ten class every year. Columbus may be maybe five degrees warmer with a little less snow, but the city itself helps recruits players to OSU. South Bend wouldn't exist of Notre Dame wasn't there, it's solely dependent on the university to maintain the city, the same cannot be said for Columbus, OH.

The schedule is too difficult at Notre Dame. Over the last few seasons, the schedule at Notre Dame has slowly looked more like a non-conference schedule at North Dakota St. If you add teams like North Carolina, Duke, Syracuse, and Washington and you subtract games against Ohio State, Georgia Tech, BYU, and Penn State, you will win more games. Even if Notre Dame went 11-1 this season with their only loss coming against USC, they wouldn't even be in the top 10 in the BCS with their weak schedule. You could argue that dumbing down the schedule at Notre Dame could hurt recruiting, since their not playing against the same caliber of teams as past Notre Dame squads.
Notre Dame needs a new coach. Really? You think you could get a better coach than Charlis Weis? I think Notre Dame fans have amnesia. The last two coaching searches held by Notre Dame came with about denials each and one coach who they canned after the press conference for a botched resume. No one wants to coach at Notre Dame. I'm sure they would try and go after Mike Leach, Jon Gruden (for the third time), Turner Gill, Bob Stoops, and maybe even Brady Hoke from Ball State, but would end up with the Offensive Coordinator at some SEC team that wouldn't get any other coaching offers. I know whatever is going on at Notre Dame is broken, but starting all over again isn't always the answer. I would give Coach Weis the rest of this season and the next, if things aren't improved, I think he should be canned. An improvement would be a top 20 BCS ranking, not a BCS bowl game kind of an improvement like most Notre Dame fans would be looking for.

Here is my theory to help Notre Dame restore its former glory. Notre Dame needs to join a conference. The Big Ten would love to add Notre Dame, even though Notre Dame's loyalty for all other sports would be Big East, but Big East football is barely above the Sun Belt in ability. Notre Dame lacks rivalries that help draw excitement. The USC rivalry is an historically great rivalry, but to be a rival, the games have to be competitive. The only competitive USC/Notre Dame the last ten years was the game that ended with "The Bush Push." Notre Dame already plays Michigan, Michigan State, and Purdue every year, but with Ohio State so close and with some great match-ups over the last twenty years between the schools, it could help create/restore a rivalry. Notre Dame have always seen itself as the "top dog" in college football and even has its own rules in the BCS when it comes to BCS bowl games, but it's time to put its ego aside and do what's best for the program.

Song Of The Day - The Game ft. Lil Wayne (My Life)

If you can't get T-Pain or Akon on a track, chances are Lil' Wayne will want to do it. The Game hasn't struck any kind of precious medal since he split with 50 Cent. He needed something hot to get him back to platinum level. "My Life" could be the track to get him back in the conversation. Lil' Wayne sounds like he is crying when he sings, but that is to be expected.

I got The Game's new album, "LAX," and I was very happy with it. I wasn't expecting much since his last album was horrible. "LAX" has a lot of guests that is always welcome in today's hip-hop. Ludacris, Nas, Common, Lil' Wayne, Ice Cube, Ne-Yo, Bilal, and Raekwon all make cameos on tracks. The Game has taken the next step, even though he hasn't gotten over 50 Cent, he has a few jabs on this album, it's a step in the right direction.

Here is the video for "My Life".

Fittingly for Halloween night, the goaltenders for the Vancouver Canucks and Anaheim (Mighty) Ducks had to keep their masks on longer than usual.

Tied 6-6 after regulation, the teams played a five-minute overtime period, but there was no scoring. The game then went to a shootout, a sequence of one-on-one shooter-goalie encounters with the teams alternating roles. Vancouver won the shootout, 2 goals to 1, resulting in an official 7-6 final score (i.e., the shootout win counted as 1 goal in the final score). This was far from a normal shootout, however!

As per the rules, each team fields three shooters to go up against the other team's goalie, analogous to a three-inning baseball game. If the two teams are tied after the initial three rounds -- which was the case between Vancouver and Anaheim -- then an "extra-innings" system is used. As soon as one team scores in a round and the other team doesn't, the game is over.

After the Canucks and Ducks completed the main three-round shootout tied at a goal apiece, one extra round after another kept passing by with neither team able to score. Here is a line score I created from a narrative summary in the above-linked game article.


That's right, the shootout lasted for 13 rounds! Both goalies -- Vancouver's Roberto Luongo and Anaheim's Jonas Hiller -- sparkled in the shootout. Luongo was beaten only once by the Ducks in the shootout, whereas Hiller stopped 11 straight Canuck shots before giving up the game-winner.

(Unsuccessful attempts can be divided into saves, shots that would have gone in but for the presence of the goalie, and misses, shots that were off-target wide or high. I would argue that goalies still deserve some credit for misses, as good goaltending likely induces shooters to take risky shots, such as aiming for corners of the net.)

The question I decided to pursue was as follows: Given these goalies' prior success rates, what was the probability of each netminder doing as well as he did in last night's shootout?

In conducting this analysis, I was aided greatly by the amazing website NHLShootouts.com, which provides extensive, up-to-date data on shootouts.

Hiller did not have a lot of experience in shootouts; other than last night's, he participated in three shootouts last season, giving up 5 goals in 12 shots overall. The NHL Shootouts website gives Hiller a save percentage of .583 (evidently not distinguishing saves from misses). I next went to the Vassar College online binomial calculator and asked how likely it was that a goalie with a prior .583 success rate could stop 11 (or more) shots out of 13. The answer comes to a probability of approximately .05, a level social scientists would traditionally consider "statistically significant."

A similar analysis was conducted for the more experienced Luongo. Over the three seasons preceding the current one, Luongo had participated in 30 shootouts, compiling a cumulative success rate of .714. For a goalie with such a percentage to rebuff 12 (or more) shots out of 13 yields a probability of .08. Another way to look at this finding is that Luongo is a better shootout (if not overall) goalie than Hiller (albeit based on small sample sizes), so Luongo's stellar shootout performance would be less surprising.

For the record, last night's Canuck-Duck marathon was not the longest shootout since the NHL started using it as an ultimate tie-breaker in the 2005-06 season. The record is at least 15 rounds, from a November 2005 contest (the score was 4-3 within the shootout).