An assistant professor of economics at Iowa State University is trying to use what he’s learned through statistical analysis to give sports fans a better breakdown of games and make projections on future matchups. Gray Calhoun created a website he calls VisualScoreboard.com.  The website has statistical graphs to visually represent scoring at points during a game. “So that way you can see if one team makes a big run and gets a big lead, and you can if the other team comes right back, or if they chip away for 15 minutes. So, you can see a lot more about what’s going on during the game,” Calhoun says. He started with calculations for N-F-L games as well as N-H-L at the request of a friend. Calhoun says his graphs use a number of variables.

“For different leagues instead of looking at win-loss percentage…just use statistics to keep track of what their opponents were. And so adjust the win loss percentage to kind of account for all the records of all the other teams that they’ve played,” he explains. While the website can give you an idea of the team that is statistically likely to win, there’s one factor that Calhoun says you can’t factor in. “If you follow sports then you kind of know this already — there’s a lot of luck,” Calhoun says. He cites the Baltimore Ravens which were a top 10 team, but not many people had them picked to win the N-F-L championship. Calhoun says the Ravens played well and they won. He says using statistics gets even tougher in the playoffs because most of the teams are usually pretty evenly matched. But Calhoun says the stats do give you an idea of past performance of teams and that can be an indicator of what they might do.

“So they tell you that about the stock market, past performance doesn’t predict the future, but if a fund has been doing badly, then you probably don’t want to invest in it. But you can still learn something,” Calhoun says. He says the website is something that’s a work in progress and he hopes to be able to do more with it in the future. Calhoun says the website for now is just a hobby, as the data collection and processing is very time consuming.

(Radio Iowa)