FINAL FOUR, ACHILLES' THUMB, THE MONTE HALL PROBLEM, ETC.
NCAA HOOPS POST MORTEM:
The NCAA Finals almost always feel like a bit of an anticlimax--after all the chaotic excitement of the preceding two weeks. March Madness giving way to April Order. And Ordinariness. Although that said: What this year's Final Four lacked in underdog appeal (Four Number 1 seeds and a snooze button), it made up for in the gripping last second theatrics of Memphis's charity stripe clank-fest and Mario Chalmer's answered prayer.
Yeah, Memphis really blew it. Shot free throws like shot puts. And the only thing the highly touted Derrick Rose showed me down the stretch and in OT was an impressive ability to let the ball roll for like 5 seconds on the inbound pass in the backcourt before he picked it up. Sort of like an extended pantomime of a yoyo champion walking the dog. I couldn't help but thinking that Stephen Curry had a chance to beat Kansas at the buzzer on a 3-pointer from almost the exact same spot where Chalmers hit his from--but he passed on the shot and gave it to some startled looking teammate who heaved up an airball. Would have loved to have seen him and his fellow Davidsonians in the Championship game.
NBA FANTASY HOOPS COMMENTARY OF THE DAY:
And speaking of anticlimactic: Nothing underscores the shameful divergence between fantasy hoops rooting interests and traditional fan rooting interests more than the fact that the fantasy season playoffs correspond not with the actual NBA playoffs but with the final two weeks of the NBA regular season--a time when teams that have clinched a playoff spot are resting their top guys and teams that have fallen out of the playoff race are shutting guys down left and right. Thus: If you are successful enough to make it to your rotisserie post season, your fate is most likely determined not by the likes of Kevin Garnett, Chauncey Billups and Shawn Marion, but by the likes of Leon Powe, Rodney Stucky and Chris Quinn. The peak of your season corresponds to the nadir of the actual NBA season. But that said: I'm totally psyched to be duelling it out in the finals with my boy Danny Brassem--confirmed fantasist. Danny B. (and I recognize that none of this could possibly be of interest to anyone but me and Danny B--and yet I am strangely powerless to stop myself from prattling on about it) is a beast to guard in the post. But I'm hoping to back his ass down into the fantasy paint and slam dunk over him. With my my left hand. I'm enough of a realist to know that in my current condition, I couldn't slam with the right.
SUCKY SPORTS NEWS OF THE DAY:
I've rebroken my thumb in the exact same place as last time. On a nearly identical play--on an actual rather than fantasy basketball court. Strange to say, but my Achilles Heel is my thumb.
ALMOST COMPENSATORILY GOOD SPORTS NEWS OF THE DAY:
I ended up getting the steal on that final play and our team won the game.
SIGN OF END TIMES OF THE DAY:
There was no line at Trader Joe’s
THOUGHT EXPERIMENT OF THE DAY:
Imagine a dog or a kid in New York City named Honk. Actually not the word "Honk" but the unspellable sound of a honk.
MORE INTERESTING THOUGHT EXPERIMENT OF THE DAY:
OK, so Monte Hall says you can pick door number 1, 2 or 3. There's a goat behind two of the doors and a new car behind the third. You pick a door and then he opens one of the two doors you did not select to reveal a goat standing behind it. Now he asks you: Would you like to swap the door you've selected for the remaining door. Every fiber in your being will insist that there is no benefit to swapping the door you've chosen for the one you're now being offered. That the revelation that a third door was not the winning door should have no possible impact on the relative likelihoods of either of the two remaining doors being right or wrong. And yet, in flagrant defiance of both one's intuition and one's sense of logic, it turns out that it is in fact in your interest to swap your selection for the other door. This is called the Monte Hall problem and it is a famous--and famously maddening-- logic and probability problem.
More on it later if anyone is interested. But I've been thinking about it pretty much non-stop for the better part of this afternoon.
OBSERVATIONS OF THE DAY:
a)
There is always a last time for everything.—although we are rarely blessed or cursed with knowing when it is happening.
b)
Dried plums taste an awful lot like prunes.
PROPOSED SOCIAL EVENT OF THE DAY:
Blood pressure party. (Where everyone gets their blood pressure taken and then does various things to see if they can make it go up or down.)
QUOTE OF THE DAY:
"I wish every day was Wednesday."
--d.b.
PROVOCATIVE MAGAZINE COVER OF THE DAY: (On this month's Atlantic Monthly)
Is Israel Finished?
DANGLING CLAUSE OF THE DAY:
And I say that with full respect for your thwarted heterosexuality.
RANDOM SINGLE SENTENCE PORTRAIT OF THE DAY:
He was determined to win his fifth reunion.
posted by teddyvegas at 12:36 PM
5 Comments:
excitement of the past two weeks? this tourney was real low on close games that went down to the wire ... we were owed a great final, and got one ... most of the game was fun, tense, back and forth, hotly contested ... yes, we'll now remember it in part for memphis' free throw woes (and chalmers' shot), but it was a really good game
love the monte hall problem. if i recall correctly from when i read about this (big piece in the times several years ago!), the reason to switch is based on the fact that if you picked the goat originally, the host was compelled to open the goat door he opened, whereas if you picked the car originally, the host had a choice of goat doors. then some important statistics logic step follows :) which i can't remember :(
7:38 AM
i'm all over the monte hall thing. the math on it is pretty straightforward, but the mind balks because we think of it as a 50-50 proposition, instead of the 66-33 proposition that it actually is.
one way that i like to explain it is that, instead of 3 doors, imagine that there are 100. you choose door number 1. i then show you goats in doors 3-100, leaving only doors number 1 and number 2, then ask you if you want to switch... here, you have to figure that your odds just went from 1/100 to 1/2, so making the switch is obvious, but it is really the same rationale for switching once you have seen the goat(s) as in the original 3-door proposition.
and rather than goats, the original prop involved donkeys, making those of you who wouldn't switch... asses.
8:29 AM
thanks for the fine explanation, shuggy...it should be part of your pedagogical letter 23. and, yeah, abner, i was definitely exaggerating the excitement of the preceding rounds of the tourney. i guess what i meant was that it's almost always sort of a let down to go from the dense and crazy schedule of the early rounds to the more predictable (and sparsely scheduled) match-ups of the final four. and getting back to the monte hall theme: i sure hope the knicks play a little let's make a deal during the off season, so that they may be watchable next year. but knowing their recent history, i suspect that no matter what the odds are, they'll pick the wrong door.
9:42 AM
p.s. just realized i made this comment while logged in my friend trey's account. i don;t want to sully his pristine rep by attributing these less than stellar thoughts to him.
t.v.
9:43 AM
Thanks for the mention Ted. I WOULD like to say, even though I'm not sure if I should be proud or embarrassed, that I have won my sed(said?) fantasy basketball leagues for 6 years straight, so that is just more motivation for you to beat me in the finals this week(and into Tuesday of next).
Danny Brassem
2:33 PM
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