Comments on: Penn State Conference Only Efficiency Numbers http://www.happyvalleyhoops.com/2008/05/09/penn-state-conference-only-efficiency-numbers/ a Penn State basketball blog with an APBRmetrics twist Tue, 20 Oct 2009 04:23:18 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: spartansweblog http://www.happyvalleyhoops.com/2008/05/09/penn-state-conference-only-efficiency-numbers/comment-page-1/#comment-101 spartansweblog Fri, 09 May 2008 15:20:28 +0000 http://www.happyvalleyhoops.com/?p=425#comment-101 Rationales for third-order polynomials: 1) They look nice. 2) Football Outsiders use them for the 16-game NFL schedule. And FO is big time! From what I've read, there's no real standard for what order to use, other than intuitive judgment as to the appropriate number of shifts in performance over the sample size. Two peaks in an 18-game schedule seemed about right. As I noted in my post, you can't guarantee the trends are statistically significant, but you're never going to cross that threshold in a single college basketball season. I think they're great for discussion purposes, though. Rationales for third-order polynomials:

1) They look nice.

2) Football Outsiders use them for the 16-game NFL schedule. And FO is big time!

From what I’ve read, there’s no real standard for what order to use, other than intuitive judgment as to the appropriate number of shifts in performance over the sample size. Two peaks in an 18-game schedule seemed about right.

As I noted in my post, you can’t guarantee the trends are statistically significant, but you’re never going to cross that threshold in a single college basketball season. I think they’re great for discussion purposes, though.

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