Sports Science of Free Throw Distractions & the Speedo Guy

[bk18]

[Billiken Rich]

What you really need is a set of those fake old-lady boobs from "There's something about Mary" You start dangling those things around and speedo guys could be on fire and nobody would notice......

[billikenfan05]

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/11/magazine...ection3-13.html

Every basketball fan knows that the seats behind a backboard don't afford a great view of the court, but they do provide an opportunity to affect a game's outcome. By waving ThunderStix - those long, skinny balloons that make noise when smacked together - or other implements of distraction, fans sitting behind the basket can unnerve an opposing team's foul shooters and make them miss. But not, a new theory holds, unless the fans gesticulate in a particular way.

According to Daniel Engber, a basketball fan with a master's degree in neuroscience, the standard "free-throw defenses" are too haphazard to be effective. Fans tend to wave their ThunderStix willy-nilly, creating a unified field of randomly moving objects. Because of the way the human brain perceives motion, free-throw shooters can easily ignore this sort of visual commotion. "Fans might think they're doing something by crazily waving their ThunderStix," Engber says, "but to the players it's all just a sea of visual white noise." Which is why, Engber surmises, N.B.A. teams' free-throw percentages at home and on the road are nearly identical.

The key to a successful free-throw defense, Engber argues, is to make a player perceive a "field of background motion" that tricks his brain into thinking that he himself is moving, thereby throwing off his shooting. In other words, fans should wave their ThunderStix in tandem.

Last season, Engber proposed this tactic to the Dallas Mavericks' owner, Mark Cuban, who took him up on the idea. For three games, Cuban had members of the Mavs' Hoop Troop instruct fans to wave their ThunderStix from side to side in unison. And as Engber subsequently reported in the online magazine Slate, the initial results were encouraging. In the first game, the Mavericks' opponent, the Boston Celtics, shot 60 percent from the line, about 20 percent below their season average. In the second game, the Milwaukee Bucks shot a meager 63 percent. But in the third game, the Los Angeles Lakers shot 78 percent - about the league average. Which apparently was enough to persuade Cuban to abandon the strategy.

Engber, however, remains a believer. "It's a pretty basic idea when you're studying what kind of perturbations of the visual world affect movement," he says, "that something systematic will have more of an effect than something random."

[normanorr]

I say we find a rather large fellow and institute the Utah State method:

http://www.buzzfeed.com/provincialelitist/...row-shooter-4t5

[kcbilliken]

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/11/magazine...ection3-13.html

Every basketball fan knows that the seats behind a backboard don't afford a great view of the court, but they do provide an opportunity to affect a game's outcome. By waving ThunderStix - those long, skinny balloons that make noise when smacked together - or other implements of distraction, fans sitting behind the basket can unnerve an opposing team's foul shooters and make them miss. But not, a new theory holds, unless the fans gesticulate in a particular way.

According to Daniel Engber, a basketball fan with a master's degree in neuroscience, the standard "free-throw defenses" are too haphazard to be effective. Fans tend to wave their ThunderStix willy-nilly, creating a unified field of randomly moving objects. Because of the way the human brain perceives motion, free-throw shooters can easily ignore this sort of visual commotion. "Fans might think they're doing something by crazily waving their ThunderStix," Engber says, "but to the players it's all just a sea of visual white noise." Which is why, Engber surmises, N.B.A. teams' free-throw percentages at home and on the road are nearly identical.

The key to a successful free-throw defense, Engber argues, is to make a player perceive a "field of background motion" that tricks his brain into thinking that he himself is moving, thereby throwing off his shooting. In other words, fans should wave their ThunderStix in tandem.

Last season, Engber proposed this tactic to the Dallas Mavericks' owner, Mark Cuban, who took him up on the idea. For three games, Cuban had members of the Mavs' Hoop Troop instruct fans to wave their ThunderStix from side to side in unison. And as Engber subsequently reported in the online magazine Slate, the initial results were encouraging. In the first game, the Mavericks' opponent, the Boston Celtics, shot 60 percent from the line, about 20 percent below their season average. In the second game, the Milwaukee Bucks shot a meager 63 percent. But in the third game, the Los Angeles Lakers shot 78 percent - about the league average. Which apparently was enough to persuade Cuban to abandon the strategy.

Engber, however, remains a believer. "It's a pretty basic idea when you're studying what kind of perturbations of the visual world affect movement," he says, "that something systematic will have more of an effect than something random."

Anytime you can get the shooter from thinking about anything besides shooting a free throw we've done our job as students. It works really well against mentally weaker or easily distracted players. it really depends on the person shooting though. i doubt reggie miller would even notice queen elizabeth running naked with a football helmet on behind the hoop because he was so focused on making a shot ha. but again the stuff we do does work especially on 18-20 yr old college basketball players. good article though. doesnt surprise me cuban tried that ha

[BACKHANDtheRICAN]

I say we find a rather large fellow and institute the Utah State method:

http://www.buzzfeed.com/provincialelitist/...row-shooter-4t5

awesome.

[joe_davola]

awesome.

Haha...you can see number 3 laughing in between free throws. Classic.

[billikenfan05]

I definitely think if we can combine the jumping with a guy in a chewbacca suit and maybe get a fat guy or a speedo guy we can definitely catch any shooter by surprise!

[Pirahna]

AMDG unit posted in another thread earlier that our student section is looking for a unique identity and I think maybe being the most random student section in the country would be an excellent idea. Not only does it promote free thinking and unique ideas it is something that we can hang our hats on. It also keeps things fresh if people are dressing up, bring random items, blowing up pictures and so on; this keeps people coming to the games trying to out do the next person. This creates a great atmosphere that should be well worth the $10 ticket.

[billikenfan05]

AMDG unit posted in another thread earlier that our student section is looking for a unique identity and I think maybe being the most random student section in the country would be an excellent idea. Not only does it promote free thinking and unique ideas it is something that we can hang our hats on. It also keeps things fresh if people are dressing up, bring random items, blowing up pictures and so on; this keeps people coming to the games trying to out do the next person. This creates a great atmosphere that should be well worth the $10 ticket.

I definitely like "random" as the identity with the signs, the heads, the costumes. IMO it should still be grounded in wearing blue and group chants(ie defense, s-l-u, etc....).

[DirtyRican]

I say we find a rather large fellow and institute the Utah State method:

http://www.buzzfeed.com/provincialelitist/...row-shooter-4t5

We were watching a Utah State game last Wednesday after our RI win and this guy was amazing. They did a run down on all of his outfits and the names of each. Pretty darn funny.