"How is this a tie game?" A documentary on 2025 Indianapolis playoff basketball

🧵 for any stat-obsessed volleyball moms or dads (or students): I've created some code that will pull publicly available high school data and then use them to create a strength of schedule adjusted team ranking for your league (see thread). Example for Marymount (a top CA team):

I hate why I have spent part of this afternoon reading things Kaleb wrote, but if you ever needed an example of why so many people have been so effusive about his writing, a mission statement for what writing's supposed to be, or both, well, you could do a hell of a lot worse than this.

High School Volleyball stat report: Win probability chart Daughter's team probably played their best game of the season so far, winning in straight sets on the road. Not much difference between serve and receive success for this match. The serving team won 49.6% of points.

The Mercury came back from 20 down to beat the Lynx. It was the 6th most improbable comeback in the history of the WNBA playoffs.

With conference play getting underway this week for many leagues, we've put together projections for who will win each league! Here are the power conferences, starting with the ACC:

no, you spent your monday evening coding up a strength-of-schedule adjusted ranking system for your daughter's volleyball league

Indiana playoff basketball

As an 8.5 point underdog, the Fever weren't favored to win the game until they took the lead with 0:07 left.

Week 2 NFL Tiers Grain of salt with SF/CIN/WAS and their opponents

Another nice fundamental stat you can derive just from set scores: number of service opportunities for each team. In volleyball, the team that won the previous point serves on the next point. From that, you can derive the following formula: 1/

Advanced stat report from my daugher's 2nd volleyball game of the season. I decided to track average rally length this time: Average "possessions" per point: 1.83. I'm defining a possession as when the team successfully gets the ball across the net (excluding serves).

It's a great time to learn creative coding! We’re all surrounded by utilitarian software so it can feel refreshing to just build something for creativity’s sake. Here's a free p5js resource I put together that starts from the basics: perthirtysix.com/explore-creative-coding-with-30-p5js-sketches

Stat report from my daughter's 1st high school volleyball game of the season. I decided to track service ace rate and service error rate, and compare to current rates in NCAA D1 womens volleyball. Service Ace Rate: 15% (NCAA D1: 7%) Service Error Rate: 17% (NCAA D1: 11%)

New this year: Evollve weekly recap! 🏐Biggest upset 🏐Biggest comeback 🏐Clutch player of the week ...and our top 25! evollve.substack.com/p/weekly-rec...

Watched Wargames last night for the first time in a long time and I can confirm that it is still an absolute perfect movie. It’s a movie about the dangers of handing over important decisions to a hallucinating AI.

Thought of this after seeing Weapons last night (which I really liked):

The Fever were down by 14 with 6:25 left in the game. It was the 4th most improbable comeback of the season. Kelsey Mitchell's +75% win probability added is the 2nd highest mark of the 2025 season.

What I tell myself after spending several hours dealing with annoying NCAA data issues, team abbreviation re-mappings, etc:

New airport experience today. Waiting for our flight and someone pulled out a fiddle and just started playing. Right in the middle of terminal B. I’m not sure how I feel about normalizing this kind of behavior.

We've been playing a lot of Euchre while visiting family this past week. I'm assuming Euchre is a "solved" game, given its simplicity. Without looking up any research, I would guess the following: 1/2

Naz Hillmon

History of Rock and Roll, I and II Professor Glenn Gass - Indiana University The only class I never skipped. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glenn_G...

Random modeling tip: If you're doing any type of modeling with recency weighting, I've found that the following weight works well across a variety of models and sports: recency weight: 1 / (constant + time_elapsed) This tends to work better than exponential decay or linearly decreasing weights.

If you’re ever in San Marcos, TX, you should check out North Street Beer Bar, a TexMex/Curry Shop fusion. The curry queso dip is life changing.

Pace and efficiency trends for the WNBA going back to 1998. To the left -> faster pace To the top -> more efficient offense I didn't realize what an outlier those 2007-2010 Mercury teams were on pace. As with the NBA, there has been a recent trend towards faster pace and more efficient offense.

RIP Tom Lehrer. "If, after hearing my songs, just one human being is inspired to say something nasty to a friend, or perhaps to strike a loved one, it will all have been worth the while."

My hobby: Trying to reverse engineer the root cause of a software glitch. I'm fairly confident that the mid-July record temperature in Pasadena is higher than 84.6 degrees. Best guess: They're pulling the record temperature as of midnight, but comparing at any point in the day. From msn weather:

just try to make stuff that moves you that’s really all that matters you can’t worry about the outside response you gotta just focus on how you feel about the thing you’re making if you think it’s good and cool then it’s a success

*whispers* our new investigation is responsible for why I have been sleeping very little for the last two weeks. but it's worth it. @tomhaberstroh.bsky.social @darthamin.bsky.social youtu.be/c4u9--GM9to?...

Thinking about our April 6 story on all the ways Trump + Musk’s cuts shifted risk to average Americans

🚨HISTORIC MOMENT ALERT🚨 The W is leveling UP — three new teams, three new cities, one unstoppable future. ⭐ Say hello to our newest expansion teams: 🟣 Cleveland- coming 2028 🔵 Detroit - coming 2029 🔴 Philadelphia - coming 2030 New energy. New legacies. New era. #WelcometotheW

guess I’ll sign off for this NBA season but naming some of the possibly lesser known folks who have consistently upped my enjoyment of this league. In no order @owenphillips.bsky.social @keerthikau.bsky.social @caitlinmaycooper.bsky.social @crumpledjumper.bsky.social @wtevs.bsky.social

That’s a wrap. Brutal end to what was the best and arguably most memorable run ever for the Pacers. To everyone who subscribed or followed along with my work this season, thanks for letting me add to your experience. It was a blast, while it lasted. Your support means everything.

Pace and efficiency trends in the WNBA through the 1st 82 games. Pace is measured in seconds per possession, so faster pace shows up lower on the y axis.

This is an extremely rare NBA Finals that has been played at a faster pace than the league's regular season average

Since 1997, there have been 8 NBA playoff series that went to Game 7 where the lower seed won the 1st, 3rd, and 6th game. The lower seed went on to win in 3 of those 8 series.

Lu Dort's shot arc is absurdly high. You have time to grab a drink from the kitchen while the ball is airborne.

Pacers with a 1.45 points per possession off of defensive rebounds.

It's crazy that possibly the best Simpsons episode was from season 3.

Lost a few sources from last year (so shout if you know of others), but bringing back the #WNBA Composite Power Ratings for now! Sources @espn.com: BPI @inpredict.bsky.social: Inpredictable @positiveresidual.com: Positive Residual

[If you're looking for more NBA accounts to fill up your timeline with for tonight's pivotal Finals game, here's a reminder that there are two huge NBA starter packs featuring hundreds of users you can follow - 99% of whom are active. Pack 1: go.bsky.app/5YP4x2U Pack 2: go.bsky.app/DiLDwo6 ]

Good Simpsons joke in today’s NYT Connections puzzle.

pacers in 6

Here are the most frequent ways an NBA playoff series plays out (higher seed here means the team with home court advantage). Most common - higher seed sweep. Next most common - your typical gentleman's sweep.

Least surprising Pacers stat: nearly all their net win probability gains this playoffs have been in the 4th quarter.

Four factors breakdown of the Pacers win. Turnovers were key for the Pacers. OKC typically wins this battle by +14%.

Our roster pronunciation database is updated! Hear WNBA players say their names in their own voices. Big thanks to @lasparks.bsky.social for the assist! We're working to include as many current and former players as possible. HerHoopStats.com

A top 5 album of all time: open.spotify.com/album/5Mtnj5...