Saturday, December 29, 2018
NBA Heat Map Dec 29 2018
The last full week of 2018went out with some good games and some teams really showing a lot. The Pacers continue to promote a stifling defense, while the Bucks and Heat also smothered their opponents. The Rockets on the other hand went on a hot streak to lead O Rating for the week.
Friday, December 28, 2018
The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs: A New History of a Lost World Review
For almost every millennial there was a period in life where the prime obsessiion in their life was dinosaurs. Whether it was triggered by Jurassic Park or something else, everyone I have known has at some point loved dinosaurs. They still are one of the most fascinating species to have ever walked this Earth. The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs: A New History of a Lost World is a wonderful examination of how these beasts came to be the massive creatures they were, and how they so quickly disappeared from the planet.
Author Steve Brusatte is quite gifted. His presentation is a mixture of his experiences and people he's met hunting for fossils as well as the tale of those fossils. The book reads quite easily, but it is jam packed with interesting information about dinosaur life. It begins in the Permian world, tracking down differences in sprawling creatures that would resemble modern day crocodiles most. It traces their lineage through the early Triassic period, where dinosaurs were small and definitely at the bottom. They rise however in a world that was breaking apart as the continents drifted and weather became more stable Brusatte spends several chapters developing the dinosaur lineage, coming to dominance of the behemoth Tyrannosaurus Rex and his contemporaries like Triceratops. Each chapter follows Brusatte as he's excavated a set of fossils pertaining to that period of dinosaur development, or a quest by a dear colleague of his to find some new information about a specific species. If there is one critique it is the name dropping that is persistent, but its only a very minor annoyance by the end.
This book is an absolute classic. It is entertaining throughout, and filled with wonderful new information. It is a definite 5/5 stars and I would recommend it to everyone who has any interest in dinosaurs or even if they dont to discover just a wonderful sotry
Thursday, December 27, 2018
NFL Predictions Week 17 2018
We enter the final week of the regular season with a lot of drama for some teams. The Colts, Texans, Chargers and Chiefs are all still vying for their respective division crowns, while the Rams and Bears both need a win to secure their spot as the number 2 seed in the NFC.
Wednesday, December 26, 2018
NFL Power Rankings Week 17 2018
Coming into the final week, the AFC North remains an ultra tight battle as the Ravens have been quite understated in just how good they've been. The Chiefs have been coming back down to earth, while the Texans stumbled at just the wrong moment to let the Pats back into the bye. The top 10 still tilts AFC heavy, but the top 15 is just about even at 8 AFC teams and 7 NFC teams.
NBA Weekly Predictions for Dec 26 to Dec 31st
A bit of a short week this week with the Christmas holiday. Lots of good games that should be close throughout, as the Rockets look to get right against the Celtics and the Kings look to win a battle of California against the Lakers.
Tuesday, December 25, 2018
NBA Power Rankings Dec 25th 2018
Merry Christmas everyone! The top teams remain pretty much the same in the NBA, as the Warriors and Thunder swap spots but only by a few fractions of a point. The Sixers make a move into the top 10 from number 14 earlier, thanks largely to blowing out the Raptors.
Monday, December 24, 2018
College Football Playoffs Preview 2018
The playoff this year does not seem to be able to produce much excitement in terms of who's going to win. The program all year has said Bama was the best team, and the odds predictor now gives credence to that. Bama has a 63% chance overall to win the title now, the highest I've seen it while looking at these games.
This of course doesn't mean that there wont be exciting moments. The Sooners and Crimson Tide both meet with the two top scoring offenses in College Football this year. Both teams are lead by exciting young signal callers, and both can make games a shoot out. The Sooners have needed that this year, as their defense has been lacking, ranking 108th in yards surrendered per game. Its this disparity that gives the Tide an 88% chance to win the game. The Sooners will have to find a way to be better at limiting big pays, after ranking near dead last in allowing 209 plays of 10 or more yards this past season. The Tide were pretty adept at pulling these plays off, picking up 254 of their own big chunks. This game is going to come down to OU's offense being able to match play for play and getting the ball last.
On the other side of the bracket Notre Dame and Clemson match up in a battle of a air of QBs that won their jobs after some controversy. The Irish had Ian Book step onto the field against Wake Forest and complete reinvigorate that offense. It ended up being the right choice, as Book completed 70% of his passes and leading the tam to score 30 or more in six of his nine starts. A large part of that success was the Irish limiting their QBs getting hit, allowing 19 sacks this season That will be tested heavily against this Clemson front, that compiled 46 sacks. Clelin Ferrel lead the team with 10.5 this year, while he and two other players also had 7 more hurries to the total. The Tigers defense was impressive all year, allowing just South Carolina to hit that 30 point mark. Trevor Lawrence was able to win the starting QB job and never looked back, tossing 24 TDs to just 4 Ints. This game the program projects a bit closer, giving it as a 68-32% Clemson to ND chance to win.
This playoffs looks to go pretty chalk, with Clemson and Alabama likely to advance. Both though need to take care, because the Sooners and the Irish have the explosive ability to turn every game into a shootout.
On the other side of the bracket Notre Dame and Clemson match up in a battle of a air of QBs that won their jobs after some controversy. The Irish had Ian Book step onto the field against Wake Forest and complete reinvigorate that offense. It ended up being the right choice, as Book completed 70% of his passes and leading the tam to score 30 or more in six of his nine starts. A large part of that success was the Irish limiting their QBs getting hit, allowing 19 sacks this season That will be tested heavily against this Clemson front, that compiled 46 sacks. Clelin Ferrel lead the team with 10.5 this year, while he and two other players also had 7 more hurries to the total. The Tigers defense was impressive all year, allowing just South Carolina to hit that 30 point mark. Trevor Lawrence was able to win the starting QB job and never looked back, tossing 24 TDs to just 4 Ints. This game the program projects a bit closer, giving it as a 68-32% Clemson to ND chance to win.
This playoffs looks to go pretty chalk, with Clemson and Alabama likely to advance. Both though need to take care, because the Sooners and the Irish have the explosive ability to turn every game into a shootout.
Saturday, December 22, 2018
NBA Heat Map Dec 23rd 2018
Another week another good set of games. The Heat were one of the best shooting teams of the week whole the Nets continue to be one of the fastest. The Celtics struggled with effeicient defense coming in near the bottom of defensivev rating for the week.
Thursday, December 20, 2018
NBA Power Rankings Dec 20th 2018
The Clippers continue their December swoon, now falling all the way to 13 after going 2-7 so far this month. The Bucks remain in the top spot, thanks to an offense that's near the top in the league. The Hawks meanwhile languish thanks to having one of the worst defenses in the league but running at the fastest pace.
NFL Predictions Week 16 2018
Make or break week for a lot of teams now as every playoff race is super tight. The Chiefs face an extremely tough road test, while the Texans have a chance to win against a newly invigorated Eagles team to lock down the 2nd seed in the AFC.
Tuesday, December 18, 2018
Vance Joseph was wrong to kick the field goal, but it wasnt the worst choice
As Denver lost a game that they should have won yet again, the talk amongst Bronco's country centered on a key 4th down decision near the end of the game. With fourth and one to go, down by four, Vance Joseph sent out the Field Goal unit to bring the game to within one and hope his defense could get a stop. It worked to a degree, as Denver did in fact get another possession, but it ended as it has far too often this season with a Case Keenum sack on fourth down.
Vance Joseph made a mistake in kicking the field goal. I do however not think this was the Largest Play Call Error sine 2011, as EDJ Sports put it. Their analysis was a -33.3% chance to win. But this is largely based on some incorrect analysis of the actual decision game states. Let's look at the table below, a compilation of game states and their win percentages as produced from the Pro Football Reference Win Calculator. Please note these values were taken before all the stats were updated on PFR for this week, so new calculations will be updated to have these game values in it, so percentages will be slightly different if you run it now.
At the moment Denver ran the failed third down play, they still had a 47.2% chance of winning the game. Any play after that then will end up affecting the win states.
The coaching staff took time to decide what to do, and ended up taking a delay of game penalty burning nearly a minute off the clock. This left just 4:35 on the game clock, giving Denver a 42.2% still to pull things out. A defensive lapse that allowed Nick Chubb to run for 40 yards meant that Denver got the ball back with 1:49 to go, resulting in only a 27.4% win chance. This is where the EDJ sports analysis goes wrong. The field goal kick only dropped the Win Chance by 5%. The rest of the drop was by Denver's poor resultant play. Imagine for an instant that Denver kicks the field goal, and Cleveland fumbles the ensuing kick off at their own 1. Denver's odds to win are pretty high at that point. That possibility for that is contained within Denver's immediate win chance after the kick. As was the possibility that Cleveland uses up all the remaining clock and the game ends. This is why we have to look at this decision at the moment the Field goal was kicked, not the resultant play after that.
Let's look a little closer into why that choice was likely wrong for Vance to have made though. Kicking the field goal, as we said before left Denver with a 5% less chance to win. Denver going for it and converting it increased their odds by 10%, while going for it and missing dropped their odds by 17%. That would almost lead us to believe that Denver should not have gone, as their odds to win go down by much more than they go up. This is where some meta analysis is required as well. Over the past three weeks Denver has faced one yard situations to go thirteen times, picking up the first or scoring a TD on eight of those plays. That trend continues let's say, and Denver ends up with a 61% chance to convert 4th and 1. The two probabilities then, of Denver winning by going for it, are 35.3 (by converting) and 12% (by failing). Denver having a 47.3% win chance by going for it. This is why it was wrong to kick the field goal, because in the end, going for it gave Denver the best chance to win.
If we are looking to critique a coach, its better to get the analysis right than to be outlandish. The mistake in kicking really resulted in a 5% drop. I would argue the choice to run the ball on 3rd and 1 was actually worse, since it allowed nearly a minute to run off the clock was far worse in retrospect, since that gave Denver a full minute less to work with.
Vance Joseph made a mistake in kicking the field goal. I do however not think this was the Largest Play Call Error sine 2011, as EDJ Sports put it. Their analysis was a -33.3% chance to win. But this is largely based on some incorrect analysis of the actual decision game states. Let's look at the table below, a compilation of game states and their win percentages as produced from the Pro Football Reference Win Calculator. Please note these values were taken before all the stats were updated on PFR for this week, so new calculations will be updated to have these game values in it, so percentages will be slightly different if you run it now.
At the moment Denver ran the failed third down play, they still had a 47.2% chance of winning the game. Any play after that then will end up affecting the win states.
The coaching staff took time to decide what to do, and ended up taking a delay of game penalty burning nearly a minute off the clock. This left just 4:35 on the game clock, giving Denver a 42.2% still to pull things out. A defensive lapse that allowed Nick Chubb to run for 40 yards meant that Denver got the ball back with 1:49 to go, resulting in only a 27.4% win chance. This is where the EDJ sports analysis goes wrong. The field goal kick only dropped the Win Chance by 5%. The rest of the drop was by Denver's poor resultant play. Imagine for an instant that Denver kicks the field goal, and Cleveland fumbles the ensuing kick off at their own 1. Denver's odds to win are pretty high at that point. That possibility for that is contained within Denver's immediate win chance after the kick. As was the possibility that Cleveland uses up all the remaining clock and the game ends. This is why we have to look at this decision at the moment the Field goal was kicked, not the resultant play after that.
Let's look a little closer into why that choice was likely wrong for Vance to have made though. Kicking the field goal, as we said before left Denver with a 5% less chance to win. Denver going for it and converting it increased their odds by 10%, while going for it and missing dropped their odds by 17%. That would almost lead us to believe that Denver should not have gone, as their odds to win go down by much more than they go up. This is where some meta analysis is required as well. Over the past three weeks Denver has faced one yard situations to go thirteen times, picking up the first or scoring a TD on eight of those plays. That trend continues let's say, and Denver ends up with a 61% chance to convert 4th and 1. The two probabilities then, of Denver winning by going for it, are 35.3 (by converting) and 12% (by failing). Denver having a 47.3% win chance by going for it. This is why it was wrong to kick the field goal, because in the end, going for it gave Denver the best chance to win.
If we are looking to critique a coach, its better to get the analysis right than to be outlandish. The mistake in kicking really resulted in a 5% drop. I would argue the choice to run the ball on 3rd and 1 was actually worse, since it allowed nearly a minute to run off the clock was far worse in retrospect, since that gave Denver a full minute less to work with.
NFL Power Rankings Week 16 2018
The top 3 of the power rankings remains the same for another week, largely thanks to two teams losing. The Saints looked dreadful on offense against the Panthers, but their defense since week 12 has been one of the best. The AFC continues to hold a 6-4 advantage in the top 10, but the top 15 this week is evened out with and 8-7 AFC advantage. The Seahawks were this week's biggest faller, after a rough performance against the 49ers.
Monday, December 17, 2018
NBA Predictions for Dec 17 to Dec 23 2018
Another great week of NBA action is upon us. A lot of mismatches early in the week, but by Friday we have an almost full slate of games expected to be within a couple of possessions. I'll be very interested to see the Nets and Lakers dueling it out, since the Nets have been one of the most entertaining teams to watch.
Sunday, December 16, 2018
NBA Heat Map Dec 16 2018
Ugh, a weekend of food poisoning has this going up late. This has games from Saturday to Saturday.
The Pacers, Celtics and Bucks all played great defense this week. The Celtics also however played very good offense, posting the second highest ORTG for the week.
The Pacers, Celtics and Bucks all played great defense this week. The Celtics also however played very good offense, posting the second highest ORTG for the week.
Friday, December 14, 2018
NBA Power Rankings December 14 2018
The Clippers fell back a bit this week, as they drop to eleventh after a rough week. The Blazers also tripped up a bit, as they continue their woeful December. The Pacers did take a leap as one of the biggest riser, going from 15 to number 7, as they've been to a torrid pace, winning seven of their last 9 and all five in December.
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