A couple years ago, an article by Bill James on ‘How Safe a College Basketball Lead’ is given a point differential between two NCAA basketball teams was published. This article identified a method for estimating the number of seconds a lead is safe. The algorithm is given as follows: Take the differential and subtract three points. If…
With week 14 of the NFL kicking off on Thursday with a tight Kansas City Chiefs 21-13 victory over the Oakland Raiders, the playoff landscape immediately changed with Oakland falling out of the West Division lead into the top wild card spot. Before the Sunday games, the current NFL standings are: We then perform the…
As week 12 completed on Thanksgiving day, we finally hit the 164 game mark of the 256 game NFL season. With almost two-thirds of the season being completed, we take a quick look at our power rankings, a combination of win-loss total by team-vs-team match-ups and points scored versus points allowed by team-by-team match-ups. Currently…
On August 29, 2014, Michael Brown, an 18-year old black male, was fatally shot by Darren Wilson, a 28-year old white male police officer, in Ferguson, Missouri, after an altercation stemming from a pedestrian stop relative to a recent robbery in the vicinity. The shooting, mixed with contradictory testimony from several onlookers, ignited civil unrest with focus…
Only a few days delayed due to an impromptu trip to Ottawa and a swing through Sacramento to catch the Kings upend the Minnesota Timberwolves 106-103 last night, my pre-season predictions are finally available for your viewing pleasure. In this edition, we take a look at the rosters on opening day and compute their expected…
With the playoffs starting tomorrow, we take a look at the probabilities of each team winning the world series. But first, let’s take a look at the postseason: The playoffs begin tomorrow with the Baltimore Orioles (89-73) traveling to the Toronto Blue Jays (89-73) with a one game playoff in the Wild Card “series.” The…
After another 92 games this past week, we watched the Cubs and Rangers continue to scorch the competition, the Red Sox finally catch the Blue Jays for first in the A.L. East, the Dodgers maintain pace for a lead in the N.L. West, and the Tigers surge to put a little separation on the Royals…
Recently overheard in an airport, “I am a really smart kid. I scored a 27 on my ACT, which is near perfect. But my grades were pretty bad, because I didn’t apply myself well enough. Think of me as an A student who got C’s.” It’s the common thing I heard as a faculty member…
As of the morning of August 28th, the Atlanta Braves were 27 games out of first place in the National League East, while only 20.5 games back of the National League Wild Card. While, we do not see an asterisk next to their name, indicating elimination from the playoffs, we are interested in identifying the…
In our fifth to last installment of making the playoffs, we begin to shift gears and take serious looks at the races for the MLB playoffs over the final month of the season. As of the morning of August 28th, each team has approximately 33 games remaining. Technically, the Twins, Braves, Brewers, and Reds have been effectively…