Mag's Team Previews at ESPN

[Lulu]

Hate to start a new thread, but didn't see this discussed anywhere.

ESPN has The Mag's team previews, which are an interesting read to begin with, but I couldn't help notice one more peculiarity regarding ESPN's recent taste for Duke. Every team in this article is given a number, called "The Number", emphasizing some characteristic stat that makes them so good. Well... that's almost the case, as one team has a number that emphasizes how not good we supposedly are. It's our 0.519 winning percentage after Jan 13 the past 2 years.
http://sports.espn.go.com/espnmag/story?section=magazine&id=3684860

I'm not going to argue the relevance of the number. It's probably very relevant to the team and perhaps a crucial number for us to not overlook. This point has been made for a few years now and might do us some good. It might even be a disguised compliment that our number is a negative one, since it is an indicator of how well we are expected to do by everyone. That said, we're still the odd one out.

[Ignatius07]

I really don't feel like we deserve to complain about it. Duke has to change that with it's play on the court, plain and simple.

[Lulu]

Well I'm not sure we have a right to complain either really; it's the truth after all.

However, there are a lot of numbers with negative connotations that could have been used for the other teams, numbers such as tournament records, inside/outside scoring disparities, ft%, records against top 25 opponents, etc etc. It just seems ESPN wears a different lens when they look at Duke.

Basically, it's the difference between "What makes Duke so bad?" vs. "What makes team X so good?".

[Jumbo]

Hate to start a new thread, but didn't see this discussed anywhere.

ESPN has The Mag's team previews, which are an interesting read to begin with, but I couldn't help notice one more peculiarity regarding ESPN's recent taste for Duke. Every team in this article is given a number, called "The Number", emphasizing some characteristic stat that makes them so good. Well... that's almost the case, as one team has a number that emphasizes how not good we supposedly are. It's our 0.519 winning percentage after Jan 13 the past 2 years.
http://sports.espn.go.com/espnmag/story?section=magazine&id=3684860

I'm not going to argue the relevance of the number. It's probably very relevant to the team and perhaps a crucial number for us to not overlook. This point has been made for a few years now and might do us some good. It might even be a disguised compliment that our number is a negative one, since it is an indicator of how well we are expected to do by everyone. That said, we're still the odd one out.

Wow, I didn't take that away at all. It looks like each team had a key number spotlighted, and I didn't notice a negative/positive bias in any way. Take Michigan State. The number is 6, and it talks about the difference in Raymar Morgan's scoring in wins and losses. Is that negative or positive? Or Oklahoma -- the number spotlighted is a -20.8 losing margin against top 15 teams. Or Wake -- 48.5 effective FG%, worst in the ACC. And there are plenty of other negatives written about in the numbers that look positive. Check out UCLA -- the number is all about their rebounding, but then talks about all the post players they need to replace.

It's really easy to find bias if you go into something looking for it. It doesn't mean it's actually there.

[Lulu]

Ok, I confess, I didn't make it all the way through the article. I failed. I apologize. Will be more careful next time. Still, wasn't looking for bias, was trying to guess what Duke's number would be when I got there.

[miramar]

That is the kind of thing you want to put in the back of your locker as an incentive. With more depth and experience, I don't think we are going to be a .500 ball club towards the end of the season.