check
"Nonlinear Physics Seminar: Statistics of Basketball Scoring and Lead Changes" | The Racah Institute of Physics

"Nonlinear Physics Seminar: Statistics of Basketball Scoring and Lead Changes"

Date: 
Wed, 11/02/201512:00-13:30
Location: 
Danciger B building, Seminar room
Lecturer: Prof. Sidney Redner
Affiliation: Santa Fe Institute
Abstract:
Exploiting recent availability of comprehensive
data on all scoring events in recent NBA
basketball games, the statistics of scoring and
lead changes are investigated. Except for
anomalies at the start and the end of the
game, basketball scoring is well described by a
continuous-time anti-persistent random walk,
with essentially no temporal correlations
between successive scoring events. We also
determine the criterion for when a lead of a
specified size is "safe" as a function of the time
remaining in the game.
Finally, we show that the distribution of times
when the last lead change occurs and the
distribution of times when the score difference
is maximal are both given by the celebrated
arcsine law, a prediction that is in excellent
agreement with basketball game data.