Warning: rather off-topic, but not really, though the connections to quizbowl are left as an exercise for the reader. Nathan notes that they've disproven the concept of hot shooting hands and whatnot. I have to note that what they actually have shown, to the best of my knowledge, is that totally random events would produce roughly the same distribution of streaks as we currently get. This says next to nothing, however, about causality. There's nothing keeping a player from having a "hot hand" X amount of the time and being on a "cold streak" Y amount of the time, and neither the rest of the time, and coming out at a certain average; all the studies have shown is that it's perfectly conceivable for each shot/whatever to have the same x% amount of success and still account for Larry Bird's fourth-quarter heroics or whatever. Human psychology is such that we want to ascribe streaks to "hot hands" or "clutch play" or whatnot, and it's interesting that this isn't necessarily the case. But speaking from lots of first-person and observational experience, I believe that both of those things exist, and they have not been disproven. --Nate --- In quizbowl_at_yahoogroups.com, thefool75 <no_reply_at_y...> wrote: > 1. For whoever suggested (a Kansas player?) that to oppose > overweighted playoffs indicated that maybe one was afraid of clutch > performance etc....no, I don't think anyone is afraid of beating you > either during a round robin or a playoff.... > > 2. For whoever posed the hypothetical (Lee Henry?) about Florida > and Athens State in separate brackets followed by a semifinal and a > final--I think you're missing the point--that would be fine and an > upset would not be a problem--since the teams hadn't met before, > they were in separate brackets in your example--their w-l and ppg > stats within their own brackets are almost meaningless for play > outside of the bracket. > > 3. As for the sports analogies---in most sports (leaving aside the > spectator effect)--the games are played over a fairly long season > and wins and losses are not necessarily created equal when taking > place at different points in the season--injuries, team growth > etc...qb works the same way--otherwise NAQT would just use S- values > to declare a national champ after regionals. Even the NCAA > tournament in most sports is played over a period of days, the > season, if you will (besides qualification purposes), serves to > train, develop etc. for the real season--the concluding tournament- - > that is how one can justify starting from scratch at the end (of > course, they essentially don't do that in college football anyway)... > > In other words, you've been comparing pinto beans to coffee > beans...the analogue to a qb tournament is not an entire season, or > a 30 day long NCAA (or 60 day NHL) tournament, but rather one game > of a sport. Let's pick the NBA--guess what! Points scored in the > 1st quarter count just as much as points in the fourth quarter! > Where's the competition in that? Where's the room for clutch > performances etc....when the 1st quarter counts just as much as the > last? Gosh, basketball must be a boring game. (BTW, there's no > statistical evidence for clutch performances in basketball either, > Reggie Miller notwithstanding (who statistically was not such a > great 4th quarter player); they've also demonstrated that a "hot > shooting hand" doesn't exist either. > > 4. This isn't an issue of the partisans of one format against the > adherents of another--it's simply--do you think that the point is to > win games; or do you think that the point is to only win the games > around dinner time... > > My 3 cents, > nathan freeburg
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.4.0: Sat 12 Feb 2022 12:30:46 AM EST EST