Home Court Advantage Among ACC Teams

[airowe]

Thought you intelligent basketball fans would enjoy this study I did on home court advantage. I took a look at 5 stats that I thought would tell a story of which team in the ACC had the biggest home court advantage. The results were surprising to me, so I'm guessing they will be to you.

Enjoy! http://www.dukehoopblog.com/2012/02/14/quantifying-home-court-advantage-for-acc-teams/

[airowe]

I didn't put these numbers in that post, but Duke has been so much better than the other teams in the conference over the last ten years it really is amazing.

2397

[Neals384]

Good stuff, airowe! As you say, the results are not quite what one would have expected - but that's why you run the numbers, right?

One question - the stats include non-conference, right? The data might not be easily available, but if you could get the number for regular season conference games only, it would take out strength of schedule, such as teams playing non-conference cupcakes at home.

BTW, I noticed one editing goof - in the section on total points per game, the text says UNC scores more on the road than at Chapel Hill. Should be the other way around, right?

Neal

[Kedsy]

Interesting stuff, Airowe. I posted the following as a comment on your blog, but figured I'd post it here, too:

Seems to me, the problem with using differential is it "penalizes" a team who performs well on the road. Duke won 71% of their road games during your study. If they won every single home game (best they could do) their win% differential would be 9th, barely ahead of the 10th place team. Same with all the other categories. If I'm reading the numbers properly, Duke is best or 2nd best in every category you charted except away defensive ft% and, not coincidentally, defensive ft% is the only differential in which Duke scores well.

Put another way, since your higher number is capped at 100%, using a differential skews your results against good teams.

[tommy]

Awesome work Airowe. I know that took a ton of time to compile. Major ups to you.

I wonder what certain other numbers that might be more amenable to a homecourt advantage playing a role would look like. I'm thinking of things like turnovers. When a big crowds gets whipped up, it seems to play into things like causing the opponent to turn the ball over more than they otherwise would, because of the anxiety caused by the crowd. Duke causes very few turnovers this year, which I suspect is a combination of some of our defensive shortcomings plus not having the same type of crowd we've grown accustomed to in the student section, anyway. I'm not asking you to do it, because it's too much work to put in after you've already done this much, but maybe someone else could take it on. Turnovers anybody?

[h8tarheels]

According to some media outlets, as well as other ACC teams (uhhmm....NC State....) we might be losing our home court advantage...

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2012/02/16/3017123/is-dukes-home-court-advantage.html

[sagegrouse]

According to some media outlets, as well as other ACC teams (uhhmm....NC State....) we might be losing our home court advantage...

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2012/02/16/3017123/is-dukes-home-court-advantage.html

2012 will likely be the third year in the last 20 or so where Duke has had a better ACC road record than home record (fingers crossed). In 2001, Duke was 7-1 away (losing to UVa) and 6-2 at Cameron, losing to Maryland and UNC. In 2000, 15-1 Duke was undefeated on the road, but lost to Maryland in Cameron.

WRT the loss of the home court advantage: Duke lost a huge amount of talent, and while good players returned, 2012 promised to be a year of ups and downs as the team tried to define itself. That's how it is turning out. While it is interesting there were two letdowns at home, resulting in losses, it is also interesting that a fairly inexperienced Duke team is undefeated on the road in the ACC, at least so far. Quite an accomplishment.

sagegrouse

[Jderf]

While it is interesting there were two letdowns at home, resulting in losses, it is also interesting that a fairly inexperienced Duke team is undefeated on the road in the ACC, at least so far. Quite an accomplishment.

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Wait just a minute, here. How am I supposed to interpret this? Are we soft because our team can't even pull itself together in the comfortable confines of our own home court? Or are we rock solid because we have banded together in hostile environments on the road? Which preconceived narrative am I supposed to apply? Agh! Lord knows you can't watch sports without a narrative.

[h8tarheels]

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Wait just a minute, here. How am I supposed to interpret this? Are we soft because our team can't even pull itself together in the comfortable confines of our own home court? Or are we rock solid because we have banded together in hostile environments on the road? Which preconceived narrative am I supposed to apply? Agh! Lord knows you can't watch sports without a narrative.

Sounds like it's a little bit of both. Now we need to find that rock solidness (is that a word?) in Cameron, and the Crazies need to be a large part of that!! According to the CO article above, it sounds like that is the angle K is trying to take... Hopefully it pays off in a 2012 regular season sweep of that time down the street!!! :cool:

[Bluedog]

I don't want to bump the "CALL TO ARMS FOR FELLOW CRAZIES" thread, but I thought I'd note that the student section was overcapacity (by about 250) for the Maryland game last weekend. In fact, there were 1,000 students lined up by midday. A large turnout is also expected tonight and there are 6 tents on the waiting list for blue tenting for UNC. Seems like the enthusiasm is back. Certainly, a buzzer beater against UNC didn't hurt that. Can we please get some national publications to follow up on their previous articles? ;)