ESPN.com reports on "the greatest streak in the history of college varsity sports; you've never heard of it."

Oklahoma State's women went 0-for-18 on three-point attempts last night against Texas Tech. That wasn't quite as bad as the Dayton men's 0-for-24 night behind the arc earlier this season, but was still pretty weak.

The Cowgirls entered the game hitting only .321 on trey attempts, which converts to a .679 rate of missing. We then raise .679 to the 18th power (representing the 18 misses), yielding .0009. Rounding up to .001, Oklahoma State's futility behind the arc would have had a prior probability of 1-in-1,000.

This calculation assumes independence of observations, that the outcome of one shot has no bearing on the next, like coin-flipping. A great deal of past research suggests that an independence model generally fits athletic performances well.

Saturday's men's college basketball action featured two players carrying their respective teams on their backs for large segments of their teams' games.

Maryland's Greivis Vasquez scored his team's first 16 points of the game against North Carolina (article, play-by-play sheet). One might expect Vasquez to have exhibited some amazingly hot shooting to accomplish this feat. However, before he made his seventh basket to reach 16 points (5 two-point hoops and 2 three-pointers), he had missed four shots. Vasquez then went through a 19-minute scoreless stretch (he scored his 16th point with 13:39 remaining in the first half and didn't score again until there was 14:39 left in the game), although he helped his team in other departments. He scored 11 points in the second half and eight in overtime, giving him 35 points. Combined with his 11 rebounds and 10 assists, Vasquez also recorded a triple-double in the Terps' win.

Halfway acress the country, as Texas handed Oklahoma its first Big 12 conference loss of the season, the Longhorns' A.J. Abrams became the go-to guy late. He scored 16 straight points, and 18 of his team's final 20, ending with 23 points in all (article, play-by-play).

Two college basketball games I saw on television today, the Texas Tech men's game at Oklahoma and the Texas Tech women's game at Nebraska, featured barrages of made three-point shots by individual players.

In the men's game, won by Oklahoma 95-74, the Sooners' Cade Davis made three treys in less than a minute late in the first half to get the OU blowout going (from 3:08 on the clock down to 2:18; play-by-play sheet). Tech's Nick Okorie made his first seven field-goal attempts of the game (six two-pointers and a three) to keep the Red Raiders in the game for a while.

On the women's side, Tech cut a 56-37 Cornhusker lead with 7:47 left in the game to just four points (60-56) with 50 seconds left, although Nebraska ultimately held on, 62-56. Giving the Lady Raiders hope was Jordan Murphree, who made three three-pointers in a little over a minute (2:05 to 0:50 left in the game; play-by-play).

This weekend we have two milestone anniversaries of amazing college basketball games. Today is the 10th anniversary of a hot-shooting Rayford Young leading Texas Tech to an upset comeback win over Kansas. Sunday is the 15th anniversary of Kentucky's comeback from a 31-point deficit against LSU with less than 16 minutes left in the game to defeat the stunned Tigers, 99-95.

Young's performance for Texas Tech, which I witnessed in person, was incredible in many ways...

*He scored 32 points in (roughly) the final nine minutes of the game (41 points in all).

*He went a perfect 18-of-18 from the free-throw line (including 12-of-12 in the closing minutes). The Red Raider squad as a whole went 30-of-32 from the stripe.

*For the game, Young hit on 5-of-7 three-point attempts.

In the Kentucky-LSU game, the Tigers at one point reeled off an 18-0 run, which the Wildcats answered with a 24-4 spurt.

The February 2, 2009 issue of Sports Illustrated (with LeBron James on the cover) includes a sometimes humorous, sometimes serious article by Richard Hoffer on the elusiveness of sports momentum as a documentable phenomenon (at this point, I've not been able to find an online version of the article). As the article's subtitle puts it: "Broadcasters and coaches love to cite it, but what exactly is the Big Mo?"

After citing some academic concepts and articles, Hoffer draws some conclusions:

If [momentum] were going to be that easy to explain, we'd have found a way to duplicate it, coach it and write best-selling books about it...

...at these upper levels of performance, the talent is so evenly distributed... that random events -- pieces of luck, an unlikely and inspired effort here or there, a boneheaded decision, a blown call -- are often the difference in a game, a season or even a career.

By handing the Cleveland Cavaliers their first home loss of the season this afternoon, the Los Angeles Lakers have earned the designation "streak-breaking Los Angeles Lakers" in this AP article. As the article notes:

The Cavaliers came in 23-0 at Quicken Loans Arena, but were stopped by the Lakers, who ended Boston's 19-game winning streak on Christmas Day and halted a 12-game run by the Celtics earlier this week.

Monday night's women's basketball game between Tennessee and Oklahoma had the potential to give Lady Vols' coach Pat Summitt her 1,000th win, but it didn't happen. Instead, though, the game had some notable streak-related aspects.

The Sooners' Courtney Paris saw her NCAA record streak of 112 "double-doubles" (double figures in both points and rebounds) come to an end. Paris scored 9 points and had 12 boards against Tennessee. To put the 112-game length in perspective, the second-longest double-double streak in NCAA women's history is 19 (by Old Dominion's Anne Donovan in the early 1980s).

Further, the game had a number of team scoring runs. As shown on this play-by-play sheet...

*Tennessee scored 16 straight to take a 33-18 lead.

*Oklahoma responded with a 23-1 spurt to take a 41-34 advantage.

*The Sooners later put together an 11-2 run to open up a 57-46 lead and 9-0 burst to turn the game into a blowout, 72-54 with around 6:00 to play.

In what might qualify as the understatement of the year, Summitt was quoted in the above-linked article as saying, "We are a long way from being a 40-minute team."

Denis Clemente was perfect offensively in two departments -- 12-of-12 on free-throws and 6-of-6 on three-point attempts -- as visiting Kansas State scored a shocking overtime win against the University of Texas in men's Big 12 basketball action Saturday afternoon.

Clemente's official statistic from behind the arc appears to deserve the proverbial "asterisk," however. Though the box score says 6-of-6, he missed a desperation three (narrowly) to try to win the game in regulation, which is documented on the play-by-play sheet.

Regardless of how this stat-keeping issue was -- or should have been -- resolved, there's no question that Clemente had an amazing game for the Wildcats.

The consecutive made free-throw streak of Toronto's Jose Calderon, which we'd been following in recent days, ended tonight at 87 during the Raptors' game against Milwaukee. As noted in this article, Calderon's stretch of free-throw perfection was "the second-longest streak in NBA history behind Minnesota's Micheal Williams, who made 97 straight in 1993."

***

Last night, the UCLA men's basketball team reeled off a 20-2 run in the second half against Cal, as the Bruins bested the Golden Bears. The spurt expanded UCLA's 31-28 lead to 51-30 (play-by-play sheet).

"Call 9-1-1 -- The House is on fire!" It was several years ago that I first heard some TV announcer use this line to narrate basketball highlights. In light of recent events, this exclamation is now as relevant as ever. The Celtics' Eddie House hit 8-of-9 three-point attempts last night. Further, according to this article, "House has hit at least seven 3-pointers in three of the last four games..."

Texas A&M's B.J. Holmes wasn't far behind last night. Against Big 12 rival Texas Tech, he was 6-of-7 from behind the arc.

Experts on the finer points of domestic living often talk of House and Home. Last night in the basketball world, the hot shooting belonged to House and Holmes!

***

Toronto's Jose Calderon did not get to the free-throw line at all in last night's NBA game against New Jersey, so his consecutive made free-throw streak remains at 86.

Nene, the Denver Nuggets' Brazilian forward who goes by one name, had a shooting performance last night that can be described in one word: perfect. In going 12-for-12 from the field, Nene tied Bobby Jones's 31-year-old franchise record for most made baskets without a miss.

Jose Calderon's streak of consecutive made free-throws is now at 86.

The Hot Hand page would like to pay tribute to North Carolina State women's basketball coach Kay Yow, who died today at age 66 following a 20-year-plus battle with cancer. Over the years, the cancer kept coming back, but each time Yow fought back even harder. Further, Yow's determination could, at times, fuel her team to heightened levels of performance. As noted in this article on Yow's passing:

Yow's fight was never more public than when she took a 16-game leave to focus on her treatments during the 2006-07 season. After her return, her inspired Wolfpack won 12 of its final 15 games with wins against highly ranked rivals Duke and North Carolina in a run that attracted plenty of fans wearing pink -- the color of breast-cancer awareness.

With Friday night's NBA win over Chicago on the books, Toronto point guard Jose Calderon now "has made 83 straight free throws dating to last season, the second-longest streak in NBA history. Michael Williams holds the record, making 97 in a row for Minnesota in 1993" (article).

In addition to making all four of his free-throw attempts to keep the streak going, Calderon shot 9-of-10 from the floor against the Bulls. Remarkably, Calderon's sharp-shooting performance came after a long stretch of inactivity due to a hamstring injury!

The next few games for the Raptors, during which Calderon conceivably could approach -- or even surpass -- the record, are as follows:

Sun, Jan 25 Sacramento
Wed, Jan 28 at New Jersey
Fri, Jan 30 Milwaukee

(Click here for the team's full schedule.)

As seen in Calderon's career statistics, this is his fourth season in the league and his annual free-throw percentage has never been below .818.

Check back for updates!

New Jersey Institute of Technology ended its 51-game losing streak in men's college basketball last night.

Long losing streaks would appear to stem from one (or both) of two factors: either a team is repeatedly overmatched physically, or it plays opponents of a comparable ability level but keeps losing due to a "momentum" of failure. The latter, which could include a randomness component, would consist of missed shots in the clutch, a loss of confidence, etc. The "overmatched" explanation would presumably yield a long streak of blow-out losses, whereas the "negative momentum" explanation would seem to call for a number of the losses to be by relatively small margins.

(Long winning streaks would represent the opposite patterns -- a team either being physically superior to its opponents or taking advantage of some combination of luck, clutch play, and confidence).

Which factor played a bigger role in NJIT's losing streak? Given that the team is currently making the transition from Division II to Division I play, one might be tempted to argue that inferiority of physical ability and talent is the culprit. Indeed, NJIT has played against many schools with well-established basketball (or general athletic) programs, such as Penn State, St. John's, and Rutgers.

However, if one looks at NJIT's page on Ken Pomeroy's statistical ranking website, one finds that a large share of the team's games appear to have been against comparably weak opposition.

NJIT is ranked No. 344 -- and last -- among Division I teams and several of its losses have come to teams ranked 250th or worse in the nation (Yale, 250; Towson, 268; Hartford, 274; Columbia, 294; St. Peter's, 296; Wagner, 299; Monmouth, 303; and Maryland-Eastern Shore, 334). Bryant University, whom NJIT defeated to end the streak, was ranked No. 329.

Admittedly, some of the games don't fit into my dichotomous scheme. NJIT lost to Yale by 29 points and to Columbia by 23 -- in other words, blow-out losses to teams with comparable rankings to NJIT. Go figure!

In losing yesterday to Arizona State, the UCLA men's basketball team appears to have borrowed a page from Notre Dame's protracted dry spell down the stretch against Louisville a few nights ago.

In men's college basketball last night, Kentucky's Jodie Meeks scored 54 points. He was a perfect 14-for-14 from the free-throw line, and hit on 10 out of 15 three-point attempts (article).

So much for momentum! One would have thought Notre Dame was on a clear path to victory against Louisville last night in Big East men's basketball action, when Luke Harangody made two free throws with 5:35 remaining to cap a 14-3 Irish run and give Notre Dame a 71-67 lead.

However, the Irish went on to score no more points in regulation (with Louisville only scoring four) and only two in overtime. The result: An 87-73 Cardinal win (play-by-play sheet).

I recently received the 2008 annual Baseball Research Journal (volume 37) from SABR (the Society for American Baseball Research). In it, Trent McCotter has published an article entitled "Hitting Streaks Don't Obey Your Rules: Evidence That Hitting Streaks Aren't Just By-Products of Random Variation."

McCotter, a recent Phi Beta Kappa inductee at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill who has written extensively on baseball hitting streaks, once again presents an interesting take on the statistical aspect of streak hitting in his latest effort.

McCotter and his faculty collaborator Peter Mucha started by creating a huge database of year-specific game-by-game hitting data for all players active from 1957-2006. Someone who played 10 years would thus have 10 different lines of data. Each line (hypothetically) would look something like the following, where H = getting at least one hit in a game, and N = no hits in the game; in reality, however, there would be up to 162 entries for a player, depending on how many games he appeared in:

HHNNN NHNHN...

For each player-year, McCotter and Mucha then re-sorted the sequences of H's and N's into some random alternative, such as the following (the number of H's and N's would, of course, be constant between the player's actual sequence and the random re-sorting):

NHNNH NHNNH...

In fact, each player-season was randomly re-sorted 10,000 times!

McCotter's reasoning was that, if lengthy hitting streaks were simply a result of random variation on a player's underlying hitting ability, the random simulations should produce as many streaks of a given length as actually occurred in a player's real-life hitting portfolio.

The initial results (summarized in Table 2 of the article) showed the actual frequency of lengthy hitting streaks to be greater than the frequency obtained in the random simulations. For example, 274 actual hitting streaks of 20 or more games occurred in real life, whereas the average of all the excess simulated hitting logs generated 192.43 streaks of that length. For streaks of 25 or more games, 62 actually occurred whereas 35.74 were generated randomly. Similar trends occurred for 30+ and 35+ hitting streaks, although the numbers started to get very small (i.e., 5 streaks of 35 or more games actually occurred in real life, whereas 1.48 were generated randomly).

The greater number of actual, real-life hitting streaks of a given length, relative to the random simulations, is consistent with the idea of a "hot hand" (i.e., a player systematically raising his underlying hitting ability when in the midst of a hot streak), but does not prove the existence of one. As McCotter acknowledges, there could be other reasons for a greater number of lengthy hitting streaks existing than would be expected by chance.

For example, a player could be highly aware of his hitting streak and take special action to perpetuate it, such as an aggressive pull-hitter "going with what he's given" and slapping an outside pitch to the opposite field for a single. Also, a hitter may benefit from a generous ruling of "hit" (vs. "error") by the official scorer. (As an aside, a theory of Joe DiMaggio achieving his record 56-game hitting streak in part through such generosity has been making the rounds.)

Further, McCotter noted that his original random simulations included games in which the batter had not started, which could downwardly affect the numbers of streaks in the simulated sequences (i.e., a non-hit game owing to when the batter only appeared once as a pinch-hitter, could insert itself between hit games in the random sequences, thus holding down the length of hitting streaks).

A second series of simulations was run, this time excluding non-start games. Indeed, much of the difference between the actual and simulated numbers of streaks disappeared. McCotter describes the following finding, as one example:

...in real life for 1957-2006, there were 274 streaks of 20 or more games; the first permutation (including non-starts) had an average of a mere 192 such streaks; and the second permutation (leaving out non-starts) had an average of 259 such streaks. The difference between 259 and 274 may not sound like much, but it is still very significant when viewed over 10,000 permutations, especially since we still aren't quite comparing apples to apples (p. 68).

McCotter concludes his article on the following note:

This study shows that sometimes batters really may have a hot hand, or at least that they adapt their approach to try to keep a long hitting streak going -- and baseball players are nothing if not adapters (p. 69).

To the extent McCotter is claiming evidence for a relatively modest-sized hot-hand effect, subject to other possible interpretations, I would concur with him.