Related papers: Improving upon NBA point-differential rankings
We argue for supplementing the process of training a prediction algorithm by setting up a scheme for detecting the moment when the distribution of the data changes and the algorithm needs to be retrained. Our proposed schemes are based on…
While PageRank has been extensively used to rank sport tournament participants (teams or individuals), its superiority over simpler ranking methods has been never clearly demonstrated. We use sports results from 18 major leagues to…
Basketball shot location data provide valuable summary information regarding players to coaches, sports analysts, fans, statisticians, as well as players themselves. Represented by spatial points, such data are naturally analyzed with…
In this paper, we propose a shot percentage distribution strategy among the players of a basketball team to maximize the score that can be achieved by them. The approach is based on the concepts of game theory related to network flow.
Drafting strong players is crucial for the team success. We describe a new data-driven interpretable approach for assessing draft prospects in the National Hockey League. Successful previous approaches have built a predictive model based on…
We consider the problem of inferring an unknown ranking of $n$ items from a random tournament on $n$ vertices whose edge directions are correlated with the ranking. We establish, in terms of the strength of these correlations, the…
A methodology that seeks to enhance model prediction performance is presented. The method involves generating multiple auxiliary models that capture relationships between attributes as a function of each other. Such information serves to…
Ranking is used in sport leagues to determine a champion and/or to decide on promotion/relegation of teams. Arguably, the best known ranking method relies on scores obtained by cumulating the points associated with the wins and the draws of…
Predicting the outcome of sports events is a hard task. We quantify this difficulty with a coefficient that measures the distance between the observed final results of sports leagues and idealized perfectly balanced competitions in terms of…
Basketball analytics has significantly advanced our understanding of the game, with shot selection emerging as a critical factor in both individual and team performance. With the advent of player tracking technologies, a wealth of granular…
Predicting performance outcomes has the potential to transform training approaches, inform coaching strategies, and deepen our understanding of the factors that contribute to athletic success. Traditional non-automated data analysis in…
Fantasy Premier League (FPL) performance predictors tend to base their algorithms purely on historical statistical data. The main problems with this approach is that external factors such as injuries, managerial decisions and other…
Differential equations are a ubiquitous tool to study dynamics, ranging from physical systems to complex systems, where a large number of agents interact through a graph with non-trivial topological features. Data-driven approximations of…
The goal of this paper is to develop an adjusted plus-minus statistic for NHL players that is independent of both teammates and opponents. We use data from the shift reports on NHL.com in a weighted least squares regression to estimate an…
Ranking entities such as algorithms, devices, methods, or models based on their performances, while accounting for application-specific preferences, is a challenge. To address this challenge, we establish the foundations of a universal…
Any collection can be ranked. Sports and games are common examples of ranked systems: players and teams are constantly ranked using different methods. The statistical properties of rankings have been studied for almost a century in a…
This paper studies the relationship between basketball teams' four factors and efficiency ratings as defined by Oliver (2004). The paper introduces an equation showing how a team's four factors in conjunction with its field goal and free…
Previous work on fantasy basketball has established methods for optimizing team construction for head-to-head formats. This has been facilitated by the straightforwardness of calculating the objective function for those formats, given that…
We propose a multidimensional tensor clustering approach for studying how professional basketball players' shooting patterns vary over court locations and game time. Unlike most existing methods that only study continuous-valued tensors or…
This note proposes a penalty criterion for assessing correct score forecasting in a soccer match. The penalty is based on hierarchical priorities for such a forecast i.e., i) Win, Draw and Loss exact prediction and ii) normalized Euclidian…