Bill James, the much revered analyst of all things related to stats and baseball, has weighed in on the sport of college basketball in a recent online column.
James, an avid Kansas Jayhawks fan, asks: "How do you know when the contest is not officially 'over,' but the outcome is no longer in doubt?" To answer his own question, he devised the following formula:
* Take the number of points one team is ahead.
* Subtract three.
* Add a half-point if the team that is ahead has the ball, and subtract a half-point if the other team has the ball. (Numbers less than zero become zero.)
* Square that.
* If the result is greater than the number of seconds left in the game, the lead is safe.
I can already think of one game that violates the formula.
Consider that James says: "A 10-point lead, plus the ball, gives you a 7.5-point safety margin. It's safe for 56.25 seconds—56, rounded down." In other words, he says a 10 point lead with 56 seconds is right at the line of being an impossible lead to relinquish.
Clearly, James wasn't watching this game.
-- Tim Lemke
Comments (1)
Actually, he may have had that game in mind while generating his formula. Duke had the ball with the 10 point lead and 54 seconds left.
10-3-0.5 = 6.5
6.5^2 = 42.25 seconds
So 54 seconds is plenty of time to blow the lead (with a little help from the refs... and the Terps fans chanting O-VER-RA-TED). Now let us never speak of this game again.
I wonder if he also thought of this game...
18.7 seconds left, with the ball, down 6.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtPaMgyz4ec
The BJ Formula says only a 6 point lead with 6 seconds is safe, so Spike Lee better watch out with 18.7 on the clock! Reggie only needs 5.5 sec, though ;o)
Posted by Bill OB | March 18, 2008 3:30 PM