Altitude, Attitude & Denver's Home Field Advantage

With NFL teams scrambling for playoff positioning -- sports analysts have been talking about the Broncos and Seahawks trying to clinch home field advantage -- as they march towards to the Super Bowl.  Most sports fans know that home teams have a home field advantage.  But how much of an edge is home field?  We took a look at statistics over several decades worth of data:

• In the NFL, home teams win 57.3% of the time.
• In MLB, home teams win 53.9% of the time.
• In the NBA, home teams win 60.5% of the time.  

Success at home can be attributed to the impact of the crowd, getting favorable calls from officials (related impact of crowds and peer pressure) -- and the players being in familiar surroundings.  This could include idiosyncrasies of the playing field -- or merely being in the comfort of their homes (and less travel).  

Home Field Advantage for Individual Teams: Denver

To study home field advantage for individual teams -- and to adjust for stronger and weaker teams -- we compare team records at home versus their records away.  Over the longer-term time-frame, we see that:

• NFL teams win 57.3% of the time at home, thus winning 42.7% on the road -- for a 14.6% difference.  
• Similarly, we see that the difference for baseball is 53.9% - 46.1% = 7.8%, and 
• For the NBA: 60.5% - 39.5% = 21.0%.  

When you add high altitude to the mix, it is clear that teams that are based in Denver may have a significant advantage over their opponents.   ...   The Rockies, the Nuggets and the Broncos all have strong records at home. Over the past decade, the Colorado-based teams have combined for one of the best home-field advantages of all major professional sports.

In the NBA, the Nuggets are about 30% better than the league average for home-field advantage (+27.6% home-field edge). In baseball, the Rockies almost double the league home-field advantage at +13.8%. Interestingly, the Broncos are only about average in terms of home-field advantage, at +12.5% over the past decade - although previously, the Broncos home-field advantage was notably strong.

Over the past decade, the Rockies and Nuggets have consistently placed at the top of their respective leagues in terms of home-field advantage, and in total the Colorado-based teams can boast "attitude at home," in addition to the "altitude advantage."

Read more here: http://EzineArticles.com/8211155

Seattle Seahawks: Noise

In recent years, the Seattle Seahawks have had one of the largest home field advantages in the NFL.  This has been attributed to the noise levels of their home crowds, exacerbated by their stadium, which seems to funnel the noise levels.

The noise routinely wreaks havoc on opposing offenses as quarterbacks struggle to call plays or audible at the line scrimmage without the use of non-verbal communication. Offenses are often baited into false-start and delay-of-game penalties due to the noise at CenturyLink.

Read more here:
http://www.nola.com/saints/index.ssf/2013/11/extreme_decibel_levels_give_th.html


Home Field Advantage and Confidence

No matter what NFL playoff teams clinch home field advantage, they will have a decided edge.  And -- home field advantage for the Broncos and Seahawks can go a long way in determining this year's Super Bowl participants.

Home field advantage for these teams are related to attitude, confidence and mental toughness -- concepts of sports psychology that can improve teams' chances of winning games and winning championships.


Please visit our "Who Will Win" blog for a Monte Carlo simulation of the college football BCS game. 

Congrats to Red Sox; Quant Facts now 36-22 (62.1%)

Congratulations to the Boston Red Sox, who have now won three World Series in the past ten years!   Although our quant facts article in the New York Times gave the edge to the underdog St. Louis Cardinals, several people (including co-author Jay Granat) pointed out the emotional high and mental toughness related to "Boston Strong."  That factor is hard to measure, but certainly helped with the Red Sox drive to the championship.

I (Carlton) was torn with my loyalties in this World Series, because our article pointed to the Cardinals, but my heart was with the Red Sox, having been up in Boston (well, in Cambridge) during my college years.  At least in spirit, I was with my friends up in New England, at "Little Fenway."  :)

Red Sox fans might like some of these pictures and the party at Little Fenway.

http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/article/20131030/NEWS02/310300022/Chills-thrills-Little-Fenway?gcheck=1

***

Congrats also to the St. Louis Cardinals, who had a great season; the Cards have won two World Series in the past ten years.

Our quant fact predictions now stand at 36-22, or 62.1% -- using sports psychology factors that are often overlooked by sports analysts.  This is a decent result, because we sometimes go against the grain and pick underdogs (like this year's World Series).


Carlton Chin, CFA, enjoys applying quantitative techniques to study everything from sports analytics to the financial markets and asset allocation.  His work has been used by sports organizations, institutional investors and college universities.  Dr. Jay Granat is a psychotherapist and founder of StayInTheZone.com.  Dr. Granat works with athletes of all levels, from high school athletes up to Olympic gold medalists, and has been named one of America's Top 10 Mental Gurus.  

Andy Murray takes Wimbledon!

Less than a year ago, we had a popular post on our blog about Andy Murray's win at the U.S. Open -- and his relationship with new coach, Ivan Lendl.  The blog post talks about their relationship, Lendl's history -- and tennis tactics.

At the time, it appeared that Andy Murray had "gotten over the hump" -- and that perhaps the added confidence could take him to other Grand Slam titles.  Fast forward nine months -- and that is, indeed, the case.  This past week, Murray continued the stretch of confidence that has now brought him the Wimbledon crown -- and perhaps will challenge for the #1 spot in the tennis world.

Andy Murray's story is great for sports psychology and persistence -- and in particular, the power of:

• Confidence,
• Mental toughness, and
• Coaching.

Sports & Tennis fans: please complete our poll on the left-hand-side!

Sports Psychology: Being a Mentally Tough Pitcher

With the MLB playoffs getting set to start, many analysts focus on the playoff contender's pitching staffs.  Dr. Jay Granat, psychotherapist and founder of StayInTheZone.com -- and co-author of "Who Will Win the Big Game," recently helped with a study on how mental toughness develops in young pitchers.

Working with Anthony Cinelli of Boston University, Granat, interviewed college pitchers and learned that:

Many young baseball players are first introduced to this sport by their fathers. So, their dad is often their first coach. Therefore, fathers often play a crucial role in how an a pitcher develops physically and mentally.

Apparently, the young pitchers started to model some of the behaviors, attitudes and actions that were demonstrated by their fathers in the world of work. In short, they took what they observed their dad's doing in their lives and brought some of these attitudes and behaviors to the baseball field.Some of the pitchers interviewed also attributed the learning of mental toughness was function of watching their fathers behavior in their careers and in their businesses.

Others pitchers stated that fathers taught them valuable lessons about being accountable, taking responsibility and learning to accept good and bad performances.

Read more here:
http://ezinearticles.com/?Sports-Psychology-And-Baseball:-How-To-Be-A-Mentally-Tough-Pitcher&id=7310959



Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/7310959

Congrats to Andy Murray on winning the tennis US Open

Hearty congratulations go to Andy Murray on winning his first Grand Slam -- and to his coach, tennis great Ivan Lendl, who helped Murray on his path to a Grand Slam Championship.  In some ways, both Murray's and Lendl's stories -- are about how different people find their ways to championships in different ways.
Some champions have an easier route to success, but we're sure Andy Murray's U.S. Open win is very sweet to Murray and his camp.

In our blog, we often talk about championship characteristics such as "mental toughness" and confidence.  Murray followed his Olympic Gold Medal with this Grand Slam -- and this added confidence will only make Murray a tougher opponent for the current tennis triumvirate of Federer, Nadal & Djokovic.  Tennis fans are in for a treat because every major tournament now has at least four legitimate contenders.  Back in June, the NY Times had a good article on Murray and Lendl -- that was both prescient about the potential for success -- but was also questioning:

Tennis’s new odd couple flew back to Florida and put in two hard weeks in Delray Beach, and in his next semifinal encounter with Djokovic in the Dubai Duty Free tournament, Murray beat him soundly. The next day in the finals, however, he was smoked by Federer. The following week, still deflated, he lost his first match at Indian Wells in California, and by the time I caught up with Murray and Lendl at the next tournament, the Sony Ericsson in Key Biscayne, the sudden improvement was looking like the spike medical researchers find when the control group is given a placebo.

“Whenever there’s a new relationship,” says Todd Martin, who worked with Djokovic for eight months in 2009 and 2010, “hope springs eternal. This is the girl for me. This is the coach for me. I’ve picked the right college. But eventually reality sets in.” 

On Andy Murray's style:

In the era of power tennis, tactical niceties can seem obsolete. A player bangs his serve, runs around his backhand and whales away with his forehand until his opponent submits — and the prototype for this brute style was Lendl himself, who bludgeoned rivals with his one-off Adidas racket as if he were clubbing baby seals.

Murray, an avid boxing fan and admirer of the great counterpuncher Floyd Mayweather Jr., disdains haymakers. Instead of going toe to toe — or as Murray says, “flat, flat, flat” — he subjects his opponent to an unsettling mix of topspin and slice, hard and soft, low and high, angle and depth. As his mother puts it pithily, “Andy messes them about.”

In today's game of professional tennis, Lendl says:

“Tennis,” he told me later, “is basically a game where you try to create an opportunity for yourself to finish the point, because you can’t wait for the opponent to miss anymore. Well, if you create an opportunity and don’t take advantage of it, you let the opponent back to even, then you are just starting the point over, so you have to take advantage of them.”

On how Lendl could help him, Murray said:

“He was at the top of the game for a while before he broke through,” Murray says. “He knows about all that stuff. That was the other thing — he understands and is very sympathetic, whereas a lot of people aren’t.”

The NY Times article can be found here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/24/magazine/can-ivan-lendl-lead-andy-murray-to-tennis-greatness.html?pagewanted=all

Co-Author of "Who Will Win" interviews Shannon Miller

One of the authors, Dr. Jay Granat, of "Who Will Win the Big Game?" had a chance to sit down with Olympic Gold Medalist and two-time All-Around World Champion gymnast Shannon Miller to discuss mental toughness, getting into "the zone," and what it takes to be a winner.

Some excerpts:

Q: Shannon, almost every athlete wants to learn how to get into the zone more often. Many of the athletes who come to see me for counseling ask about how they can best do this. How would you describe the zone?

A: The zone is the place you enter where everything else disappears. If there are television cameras or a million people watching you, it does not matter. For some people, entering the zone is innate. For others it is learned. For me, it was a combination of both.

Q: Managing injuries is an issue for many gymnasts and for many athletes. How did you learn to perform when you were not feeling well?

A: No athlete is healthy 100 percent of the time. I learned that working through a sickness or injury, being able to truly focus on the competition at hand was an extremely important skill. At the Olympics in 1996, I was battling a severe wrist injury. Not only was I having to learn how to train and compete with the pain but also understanding the importance of doing "smart" gymnastics.

Q: Were you born mentally tough?

A: I'm not really sure. I know that I was not the strongest, most flexible or most naturally talented athlete. I knew that I had to find another route to success. For me it was hard work. I was a work horse. I also found that being mentally tough; not allowing others to derail you or get into your head made me a fierce competitor."

Q: Do you have three tips for athletes who are trying to excel at their sport?

A: Set long and short term goals. Don't limit what you can accomplish and don't let others limit you in any way. Keep believing in yourself every day.

Read more here:

http://www.northjersey.com/community/family/reflections/136792228_How_does_an_Olympic_champion_stay_mentally_tough_.html?c=y&page=1

Dr. Jay Granat, a psychotherapist and sports psychologist, is co-author of "Who Will Win the Big Game? A Psychological & Mathematical Approach" with Carlton Chin, CFA, an MIT-trained "quant" and fund manager. Granat is founder of StayInTheZone.com and Chin is chief investment officer of CARAT / Adamah Capital.

Wimbledon: Ladies' Final

The 2011 Wimbledon Ladies' Final pits popular Maria Sharapova against relatively unknown, Petra Kvitova.  Sharapova is the #5 seed at Wimbledon while Kvitova is #8.  Kvitova has been rising steadily and rapidly in the world rankings.  Sharapova is a slight favorite to win the Championship, and our "Big Point Performance" favors Sharapova as well.

In previous tennis blog posts, and in our book, we devised a measure to study a player's recent performance on Big Points.  This measure of focus and mental toughness looks at break point conversions -- often the key to winning tennis matches.  Our Big Point Performance (BPP), gives the nod to Maria Sharapova to win another Wimbledon title, because she outperformed Kvitova in this stat during their quarterfinal and semifinal matches.  (This selection will count as part of our book's blog's "quant fact" prediction.)

Granat Interviewed by CBS on Jets

Dr. Granat, co-author of the book, "Who Will Win the Big Game? A Psychological & Mathematical Approach," by Carlton Chin & Jay Granat, was interviewed by CBS. Granat discusses sports psychology concepts such as confidence and mental toughness. Below is an excerpt from the interview. The entire link is below, which has a video clip:

“His freewheeling style; his playful style is freeing up the players, at least this group of players to perform to their fullest potential,” Dr. Granat said.

"I think he thinks out what he’s gonna do before he does it very often. Take a second look, because you can’t argue with success,” Dr. Granat said.

And Dr. Granat said psychologically, when looking at Rex Ryan you can’t forget the impact of his legendary coach father, Buddy Ryan.

“That family style, this is the way they approach the game. They’re not soft-spoken. They’re tough. They’re probably mentally tough. They believe in themselves. And they’d rather err on the side of being overconfident than under-confident,” Dr. Granat said.

Some opponents and teams say Rex Ryan is crazy. But if you talk to a sports psychologist, what you hear is crazy … like a fox.

http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2011/01/18/fans-jets-rex-may-indeed-be-crazy-like-a-fox/