4 ms·

How Don Knuth's computer skills helped his college basketball team

46 points by charrington 16y ago

scrrr 16y ago
I think nowadays such analysis plays a big part in sports. For example when Germany's football team beat Argentina in this year's World Cup I couldn't help but think that the German coach knows something the other coach (legendary Diego Maradona) doesn't.
- dpapathanasiou 16y ago
  "For example when Germany's football team beat Argentina in this year's World Cup I couldn't help but think that the German coach knows something the other coach (legendary Diego Maradona) doesn't." I agree with you in general, but that's not the best example you could have used there. Maradona spent most of the tournament boasting about not needing a gameplan, and saying things things like: "Nobody ever told me where to play. So I shouldn't have to tell Messi where to play, either".
  - philwelch 16y ago
    I wonder what Pep Guardiola (Messi's coach at Barcelona) thought about that remark. Messi, like many players[1], has played significantly better for his club than for his country. [1] The entire England squad, for example.
- spinchange 16y ago
  I lack specific examples or links, but had heard a few years ago that U.S. pro sports franchises like the Boston Red Sox and New England Patriots, to think of two, use a lot of "Quant" analysis in addition to traditional coaching methods. I'm sure everyone is doing it across pro sports now.
  - pchristensen 16y ago
    The MIT Sloan Sports Conference http://www.sloansportsconference.com/ http://www.sloansportsconference.com/ is a mix of fan/stats/business people discussing numerical analysis of sports. Bill Simmons (http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/simmons/index http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/simmons/index ) has interviewed his friend Daryl Morey of the Houston Rockets about this. One interesting point is that there is no "salary cap" for sports statisticians, so rich teams are not restricted about what they spend on numerical analysis. Morey hinted that several (most?) NBA teams spend in the 7-figures on it.
  - ybot 16y ago
    Interestingly enough, Bloomberg has started offering "Quant" tools to MLB teams: http://www.bloombergsports.com/proofferings/ http://www.bloombergsports.com/proofferings/ They specialize in providing data and analytics on financial data. Clearly they didn't think it was too much of a leap to go from analyzing securities to analyzing baseball players. As far as specific links, the Red Sox employ Bill James (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_James http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_James), who is a fairly famous statistician, to help them run the team. He invented Sabermetrics, "the analysis of baseball through objective evidence". (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabermetrics http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabermetrics)
- eru 16y ago
  Interestingly the German coach was never an extra-ordinary player himself. But he is very well respected as a coach in Germany.
dfield 16y ago
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1671519 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1671519
mrud 16y ago
best part: fed to an ibm computer, capable of making 50k calculations per _minute_
Perceval 16y ago
Reminds me a little bit about this article on Shane Battier: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/15/magazine/15Battier-t.html?_r=1 http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/15/magazine/15Battier-t.html?... It goes into how Battier gets to see the charts and statistics for the players on the opposing team, so that he'll have better odds when defending against their jump shots.
knarf_navillus 16y ago
Is the K in Knuth supposed to be pronounced?
- xtacy 16y ago
  From: http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~uno/faq.html http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~uno/faq.html It's pronounced: Ka-NOOTH
nocman 16y ago
Jerry Lucas used his own memory system and his personal collection of data on opponents to his advantage during his extremely successful basketball career. The video at the following link discusses it briefly. At the moment I can't find any more detailed discussion of it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vK6yf3qaT4A http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vK6yf3qaT4A
zackattack 16y ago
Knuth seems very tall. I wonder if he plays basketball as a hobby.

46 points by charrington 16y ago

scrrr 16y ago

I think nowadays such analysis plays a big part in sports. For example when Germany's football team beat Argentina in this year's World Cup I couldn't help but think that the German coach knows something the other coach (legendary Diego Maradona) doesn't.

dpapathanasiou 16y ago
"For example when Germany's football team beat Argentina in this year's World Cup I couldn't help but think that the German coach knows something the other coach (legendary Diego Maradona) doesn't." I agree with you in general, but that's not the best example you could have used there. Maradona spent most of the tournament boasting about not needing a gameplan, and saying things things like: "Nobody ever told me where to play. So I shouldn't have to tell Messi where to play, either".
- philwelch 16y ago
  I wonder what Pep Guardiola (Messi's coach at Barcelona) thought about that remark. Messi, like many players[1], has played significantly better for his club than for his country. [1] The entire England squad, for example.
spinchange 16y ago
I lack specific examples or links, but had heard a few years ago that U.S. pro sports franchises like the Boston Red Sox and New England Patriots, to think of two, use a lot of "Quant" analysis in addition to traditional coaching methods. I'm sure everyone is doing it across pro sports now.
- pchristensen 16y ago
  The MIT Sloan Sports Conference http://www.sloansportsconference.com/ http://www.sloansportsconference.com/ is a mix of fan/stats/business people discussing numerical analysis of sports. Bill Simmons (http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/simmons/index http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/simmons/index ) has interviewed his friend Daryl Morey of the Houston Rockets about this. One interesting point is that there is no "salary cap" for sports statisticians, so rich teams are not restricted about what they spend on numerical analysis. Morey hinted that several (most?) NBA teams spend in the 7-figures on it.
- ybot 16y ago
  Interestingly enough, Bloomberg has started offering "Quant" tools to MLB teams: http://www.bloombergsports.com/proofferings/ http://www.bloombergsports.com/proofferings/ They specialize in providing data and analytics on financial data. Clearly they didn't think it was too much of a leap to go from analyzing securities to analyzing baseball players. As far as specific links, the Red Sox employ Bill James (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_James http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_James), who is a fairly famous statistician, to help them run the team. He invented Sabermetrics, "the analysis of baseball through objective evidence". (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabermetrics http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabermetrics)
eru 16y ago
Interestingly the German coach was never an extra-ordinary player himself. But he is very well respected as a coach in Germany.

dfield 16y ago

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1671519 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1671519

mrud 16y ago

best part: fed to an ibm computer, capable of making 50k calculations per _minute_

Perceval 16y ago

Reminds me a little bit about this article on Shane Battier: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/15/magazine/15Battier-t.html?_r=1 http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/15/magazine/15Battier-t.html?... It goes into how Battier gets to see the charts and statistics for the players on the opposing team, so that he'll have better odds when defending against their jump shots.

knarf_navillus 16y ago

Is the K in Knuth supposed to be pronounced?

xtacy 16y ago
From: http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~uno/faq.html http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~uno/faq.html It's pronounced: Ka-NOOTH

nocman 16y ago

Jerry Lucas used his own memory system and his personal collection of data on opponents to his advantage during his extremely successful basketball career. The video at the following link discusses it briefly. At the moment I can't find any more detailed discussion of it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vK6yf3qaT4A http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vK6yf3qaT4A

zackattack 16y ago

Knuth seems very tall. I wonder if he plays basketball as a hobby.