Hot Hand: The Statistics Behind Sports' Greatest Streaks

by Alan Reifman

Overview

Upon witnessing a series of outstanding (or awful) performances, a sports fan or announcer may wonder, What are the odds of that happening? In fact, statisticians have shown that, for the most part, athletic streaks occur about as often as would be expected by random chance. If one flips a coin a thousand times, many “streaks” of consecutive heads (or tails) will occur along the way. This counterintuitive finding implies that the notion of momentum in sports is greatly overstated.After a brief initial foundation on the study of streaks and relevant methods of statistical analysis, Alan Reifman focuses on actual sports streaks, from the famous—Joe DiMaggio getting at least one hit in fifty-six consecutive games in 1941 and the Los Angeles Lakers winning thirty-three straight games in the 1971–72 season—to the less well-known, such as the University of Dayton men’s basketball team going 0-for-24 on three-point shot attempts in a 2008 game. Reifman also examines psychological and physiological mechanisms in sports performance, as well as the implications of those mechanisms for coaching and sport psychology practice. Thought-provoking for stats freaks and regular fans alike, Hot Hand illuminates one of the most fascinating and little-understood phenomena in sports.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781597977135
Publisher:	Potomac Books
Publication date:	11/30/2011
Pages:	192
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Alan Reifman teaches in the College of Human Sciences at Texas Tech University and writes the popular blog Hot Hand. He lives in Lubbock, Texas.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix

I Foundations x

1 Introduction 3

2 Statistical Methods 10

3 Evidence Supportive of a Hot Hand 17

4 "We Are a Team of Runs" 23

5 Evidence Against a Hot Hand: Basketball 30

6 Evidence Against a Hot Hand: Baseball 36

7 Revisiting Golf (Briefly) 45

II Extreme Hotness 49

8 Joe DiMaggio 51

9 Hot Teams 58

10 Hot Basketball Shooting 78

11 Hot Hands in Other Sports 91

III Cold Streaks and Oddities 107

12 Cold Streaks 109

13 Unusual Streaks (Neither Hot Nor Cold) 115

IV Two Noteworthy Athletes 119

14 Alex Rodriguez 121

15 Kobe Bryant 126

V Moving Forward in Our Understanding

16 Theories of What Helps (or Hinders) Athletes from Exhibiting Streakiness?and Why Fans Believe in It 131

17 Conclusions

Notes 141

Bibliography 151

Index 167

About the Author 181