Re: Why Matt is right and a bunch of you are either inane or obtuse

• From: thefool75 <no_reply_at_yahoogroups.com>
• Date: Wed, 26 Feb 2003 08:40:48 -0000
• Message-ID: <b3huig+spg8_at_...>

Isn't Occam's razor relevant here?  Certainly (and as someone who 
played a little Div 3 level ball) one can have a brief period where 
balance, court vision etc. all come together to create a shooting 
streak; however, since this happens no more than would be predicted 
by knowing one's shooting average...is that really what the TV 
commentator means by a hot hand or clutch shooting?  In organized 
games from the high school level up, I exactly once made 5 3's in a 
row in a game...over several hundred games...does that really work 
out to anything more than mere chance?  but this is getting off-
topic, i won't post on the subject again... :)
  
--- In quizbowl_at_yahoogroups.com, nate_1729 <no_reply_at_y...> wrote:
> 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