A Statistical Analysis to Improve Basketball Strategy
WSUN Working Paper
19 Pages Posted: 30 Apr 2008
Date Written: January 1, 2005
Abstract
Decision-making and competitive strategies in major American sports have often relied on heuristics and conventional wisdom. Recently, statistics and quantitative methods have been used in the sport of baseball to help teams improve their chances of winning. However, the use of mathematical methods to improve strategy has not been as prevalent in sports such as basketball.
In this paper, we discuss a strategy based on statistical information that improves a team's probability of winning. In particular, we claim that the expected benefit of the strategy proposed could have affected the outcome of 17.5% of the 2004 NCAA tournament games.
Keywords: basketball, strategy, statistics, probability
JEL Classification: C10, C60, C70
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation