Saturday, March 08, 2008

A couple of items from this afternoon's Big 12 men's basketball play:

In Baylor's 86-73 win at Texas Tech, the Red Raiders were "Dunn in" by the Bears' LaceDarius Dunn. A solid enough three-point shooter coming into the game (.416), Dunn went 6-of-9 from behind the arc. According to this online binomial calculator, the probability of a prior .416 three-point shooter making 6 (or more) out of 9 is .12 -- not stunningly low, but still fairly rare. Meanwhile, Texas Tech's Alan Voskuil, a .512 three-point shooter coming in, went 0-for-5; the probability of that, given Voskuil's baserate, would be only .03.

On the opposite side of the state from Lubbock, in College Station, Kansas knocked off Texas A&M, 72-55. In their defeat, the Aggies missed 16 of their last 17 field-goal attempts of the game. Beyond a standard "cold hand" explanation (e.g., loss of confidence, poor concentration), another storyline could be that, as a team (such as A&M in this instance) falls further and further behind, it attempts more of the high-risk/high-yield three-point shots and rushes it shots, in general, to try to get points as quickly as possible. Of A&M's late misses, 11 were on two-point attempts and 5 were on threes (play-by-play sheet).

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