Most frequent margin of victory in basketball?

[mizagot]

Anyone know what the most frequent margin of victory in basketball (college or pro) is? I would guess 1, 2, 3 and 4 would be, but wondering if there is data to back this up.

Thanks - hopefully not a silly question.

 

[rfb]

282730 home team points
235846 visitor team points
46884 difference
18.61214768 avg difference


this is based on records i have since october of 2003...NBA...
some 2528 games
differences are between home and away teams....seems high to me...i'll have to check the formulas used

 

[mizagot]

Wow! Does seem a bit high.

I think there must be a bigger difference in college games (lots of bad matchups) than in the pros (less teams, less talent mismatch).

Thanks for responding.

 

[uscmd]

Good question. We use that # in football. I'll look for it

 

[mizagot]

Yeah, I would imagine football is a little easier to peg (e.g. 3, 4, 7, etc.). Basketball's probably a little more unwieldy.

 

[GoCreighton]

i bet the IRS knows the answer but is hiding it

 

[Fishhead]

NBA

2
7

These are your two most LIVE spread numbers.

 

[mizagot]

Holy crap! 2 and 7?! That's quite surprising.

 

[Salain]

closest thing to a key number in cbb is 3, which hits about 6.8%
2 hits 5.8% and 4-5-6 5.2%

6.8 is statistically significant, 99% confidence interval is +/- 0.3%.

 

[mizagot]

Good stuff, Salain!

I was tending to think (in my original post) that so many games (even mismatches) come down to the last minutes - or it at least seems that way - and so the margins closest to one score (1, 2, 3) would be quite frequent.

Course, I don't know how to parlay this into anything :lolBIG: (though middlers probably can run with it?)

 

[ElIguana]

closest thing to a key number in cbb is 3, which hits about 6.8%
2 hits 5.8% and 4-5-6 5.2%

6.8 is statistically significant, 99% confidence interval is +/- 0.3%.

This would mean that games end on 2-6 points about 18% of the time, sounds about right.