In-game win probabilities
by Ken Pomeroy on Saturday, April 3, 2010
Remember when Billy Packer declared the 2008 Final Four game between Kansas and North Carolina over? Billy got a bit of blowback for that, especially after UNC was able to pull within four points midway through the second half. I always felt like Billy was on safe ground with his statement. Granted, I supposed “over” taken literally means that there was no chance of the game becoming interesting. I took it to mean UNC had no chance of winning, although of course there was some small chance of winning. But just how safe was Billy’s statement?
Previous attempts to quantify in-game win probabilities in college basketball are limited and have left me unsatisfied because none of them accounted for information known before the game starts. For instance, if Kansas and Alcorn State were tied five minutes into a game, we could come up with a better estimate than just…