THE POWER RANK

Podcast: Jonathan Bales on sports, entrepreneurship and push-ups

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On this episode of The Football Analytics Show, I’m joined by Jonathan Bales, a co-founder of Fantasy Labs and author of multiple books on fantasy sports.

Among other things, we discuss:

  • How he did 2400 push-ups in 12 hours (2:16)
  • The value of Fantasy Labs for daily fantasy sports players (8:13)
  • Why there is still value in getting started with DFS (10:00)
  • Jonathan’s counter intuitive tips for starting a business (12:33)
  • Why this pandemic is a time of great opportunity (18:41)

Jonathan is one of the most interesting people in the sports world, and I think you’ll get a lot out this conversations, sports and otherwise.

To listen here, click on the right pointing triangle.

To listen on Apple Podcasts, click here.

Podcast: Benjamin Robinson predicting the 2020 NFL draft

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On this episode of The Football Analytics Show, I’m joined by Benjamin Robinson, creator of grindingthemocks.com. He uses the wisdom of crowds in combining mock drafts to predict the 2020 NFL draft.

Among other topics, we discuss:

  • the 3 different methods he uses to analyze mock draft data (5:49)
  • expert versus media versus fan (13:54)
  • breaking down the quarterbacks in the 2020 NFL draft (18:17)
  • a surprise prediction for the upcoming draft (33:14)

To listen here, click on the right pointing triangle.

To listen on Apple Podcasts, click here.

Podcast: Cliff Sargent on finding a great book

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You gain more knowledge about yourself and world you inhabit. It’s to help people in their darkest moments realize that they’re not alone. It’s where the channel came from.

With the lack of sports during the spring of 2020, it’s a great time to find a book. On this episode of The Football Analytics Show, I’m joined by Cliff Sargent, who helps you find a great book through his YouTube channel Better Than Food.

I ask Cliff to recommend some books for folks that enjoy football and analytics (10:00). He immediate mentions the work of Ernest Hemingway, William Falkner, Charles Bukowski and other well known authors.

Cliff also offers 4 less well known books that might also interest you. The links are to his reviews over at Better Than Food, while the time stamps refer to the time in the podcast in which we discuss the book.

To listen to the episode, click on the right pointing triangle.

To listen on Apple Podcasts, click here.

Bracket Wisdom #5: Do matchups matter in college basketball?

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Suppose West Virginia is elite at offensive rebounding but Iowa State is awful at defensive rebounding. Can we use this to make a more accurate prediction?

I dig in by first explaining the four factors of basketball. Then I describe the work of Jordan Sperber on matchups in college basketball.

Timing isn’t great given the lack of a NCAA tournament, but at least this episode is evergreen. The content was also part of my ultimate guide to predictive college basketball analytics.

To listen, click on the right pointing triangle:

You can also grab the episode on Apple Podcasts by clicking here.

Bracket Wisdom #4: How to make college basketball predictions

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Ever wondered how to make a college basketball prediction based on efficiency? To explain, I dig into points per possession and how to estimate this quantity from the box score.

Then I discuss the least squares algorithm and how it leads to the rankings on kenpom.com. Finally, I talk about going from these efficiency rankings to a prediction for a game.

This episode formed the basis for part of my ultimate guide to predictive college basketball analytics.

To listen, click on the right pointing triangle.

To get the episode on Apple Podcasts, click here. You can subscribe to the podcast to make sure you get every episode of this daily series.

The Bracket Wisdom series is also available on Google Podcasts, Spotify and Stitcher.