Having a ball: evaluating scoring streaks and game excitement using in-match trend estimation

IF 16.4 1区化学 Q1 CHEMISTRY, MULTIDISCIPLINARY

Accounts of Chemical Research Pub Date : 2022-06-17 DOI:10.1007/s10182-022-00452-w

Claus Thorn Ekstrøm, Andreas Kryger Jensen

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引用次数: 1

Abstract

Many popular sports involve matches between two teams or players where each team have the possibility of scoring points throughout the match. While the overall match winner and result is interesting, it conveys little information about the underlying scoring trends throughout the match. Modeling approaches that accommodate a finer granularity of the score difference throughout the match is needed to evaluate in-game strategies, discuss scoring streaks, teams strengths, and other aspects of the game. We propose a latent Gaussian process to model the score difference between two teams and introduce the Trend Direction Index as an easily interpretable probabilistic measure of the current trend in the match as well as a measure of post-game trend evaluation. In addition we propose the Excitement Trend Index—the expected number of monotonicity changes in the running score difference—as a measure of overall game excitement. Our proposed methodology is applied to all 1143 matches from the 2019–2020 National Basketball Association season. We show how the trends can be interpreted in individual games and how the excitement score can be used to cluster teams according to how exciting they are to watch.

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拥有一个球:使用比赛趋势估计评估得分连胜和比赛兴奋

许多受欢迎的运动都是两队或两名球员之间的比赛，每队在比赛中都有可能得分。虽然整个比赛的胜负和结果很有趣，但它传达的关于整个比赛的潜在得分趋势的信息很少。在评估游戏内部策略、讨论得分记录、团队优势和游戏的其他方面时，需要在整个比赛中适应更细粒度的得分差异的建模方法。我们提出了一个潜在的高斯过程来模拟两支球队之间的比分差异，并引入趋势方向指数作为一种易于解释的比赛当前趋势的概率度量，以及赛后趋势评估的度量。此外，我们提出了兴奋趋势指数——在运行分数差异中单调性变化的预期数量——作为整体游戏兴奋程度的衡量标准。我们提出的方法适用于2019-2020赛季的所有1143场比赛。我们展示了如何在个别比赛中解释这些趋势，以及如何根据球队的兴奋程度来使用兴奋度评分来划分球队。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Accounts of Chemical Research 化学-化学综合

CiteScore

31.40

自引率

1.10%

发文量

312

审稿时长

2 months

期刊介绍： Accounts of Chemical Research presents short, concise and critical articles offering easy-to-read overviews of basic research and applications in all areas of chemistry and biochemistry. These short reviews focus on research from the author’s own laboratory and are designed to teach the reader about a research project. In addition, Accounts of Chemical Research publishes commentaries that give an informed opinion on a current research problem. Special Issues online are devoted to a single topic of unusual activity and significance. Accounts of Chemical Research replaces the traditional article abstract with an article "Conspectus." These entries synopsize the research affording the reader a closer look at the content and significance of an article. Through this provision of a more detailed description of the article contents, the Conspectus enhances the article's discoverability by search engines and the exposure for the research.