I promised the Frog-Jump editor, Ramius, I would do just one post a week on numerical curiosities beyond the standard fare T100 and Matchup Metric analytic “stuff.” Earlier this week, when I realized the Wentworth matches on Saturday represented a once in a season kind of event, having won two consecutive matches, both times with a lesser H%, I pounced on the opportunity to write “A Leopard Changes Spots.” Now I wake up this morning to see that Baruch defeated NYU, a surprising outcome in the neighborhood of 5% to most, except Baruch of course. Not pushing the “Holy Cow” needle for me all the way into its red-zone called “WOW,” but impressive enough none-the-less. Congrats Baruch!
However, I had to marvel at the fact when noticing every single set was a 2-pointer, only to then realize all but one of them went to “overtime,” too. The 2nd most rare event possible in a volleyball match score, knowing all 5 sets going to extra points could be the only thing to trump it. At that moment, my “Holy Cow” meter pegged the end of the red-zone so abruptly, it broke the lens. The score of this match itself, likely an anomaly to have never happened in history so far, but also played between two teams whose consensus ranking in 3 respected sources is roughly 40 spots apart adds to the lore.
I sampled 400 sets played this year between teams ranked within 40 spots of each other to find 20% of them were 2 pointers, roughly half of these going to extra points. That last part makes sense as a score of 24-23 has roughly a 50-50 chance to become 24-24, otherwise it ends 25-23. This means 10% of all sets played by teams like these generally are played to extra points. (95% C.I is 10% +/- 3% for any who care.) Now, it is true the likelihood of two teams playing a set to extra points increases slightly after having already done so once, and then twice, etc. – Anybody at Saint John Fisher’s gym last weekend recognizes this fact watching 6 of 9 against Juniata and Lasell go down that way! So I concede subsequent sets played, in particular a 5th set to 15, makes this 10% a little higher in the real world, but not so much to disparage the following.
In D3 Men’s Volleyball, roughly 15% of all matches go to 5 sets (203 out of 1393 last season is14.6%). Based on the condition a match does goes to a 5th set tie-break, there is a (.2)(.2)(.2)(.2)(.2) = .00032 probability for all 5 to finish with 2 point margins. The most rare of these events possible is to have all 5 of them go to extra points. (I suppose equally rare would be all 5 ending exactly 25-23, but the suddenness of overtime makes this less mind-blowing because of the drama extra points create). What happened last evening was the 2nd most rare because Baruch won the 2nd set 25-23 among the other 4 extra point games. C’mon NYU, couldn’t you have blocked Ari Osmanaj at 24-23 to create the stage for true immortality? LOL
There are 32 different ways all 5 sets can be won by the smallest margin possible if differentiating that to mean either in regulation or in overtime. In exactly 5 of those ways, just one of them would not go extra points, like last night. This is because the one set played to 25 (the 2nd one last night) could be any one of the 5 played. So that match last evening between NYU and Baruch going down in the manner it did had about a 1 in 133,333 chance of happening. This means what happened last evening in D3 Men’s Volleyball is a 1 in almost 90 seasons kind of event. Certainly no less rare than a once in 50 seasons for even those prickly numerologists out there who want to remind me of increased chances for subsequent sets to go extra points after the first one does. This the reason I just had to chime in a second time this week on Frog-Jump! Sorry R.
For those with a tough time gaining perspective on such remote chances, I will put it a different way. The probability of being hit by lightning in your lifetime is 1 in 15,300 according to the NWS. Most survive it, but roughly 1 in 8 of these folks will not. This nutty event in Men’s D3 Volleyball is such that the next time you get struck by lightning and do not survive it, go check the box scores of NCAA D3 Men’s matches because it will be time for this crazy outcome again! Oh wait…
I could go on and on about this stuff – Oops, already have! But I have to go fix my “Holy Cow” Meter so it can be ready for this weekend.