Are we seeing a reversion to the mean for our local college teams? In other words, everything averages out in the end, though such a phrase would make a statistician cringe.
Just like how the Gonzaga men finish close games this season makes its followers cringe. Or how their counterparts in Pullman have been playing recently. Did the Cougars catch lightning in a Modelo bottle to start the season and are they reverting to the mean these days?
Latest example? Last night in Moraga. Against the presumptive — and defending — West Coast Conference regular season champs.
A chance to make the race something more than a runaway slipped through the Bulldogs fingers down the stretch, just as happened in six other games this season. They have seven losses. All of them have come in two possession games. Or in overtime, which, no matter the final score, is a one-possession outcome. And, according to Connor Hope, who writes for the online publication The Almanac, it is, at least in the past 10 years. Every close game has been deposited in the loss column.
After their home win, the Gaels have a pretty-tough-to-see-slip-away three-game loss-column lead over USF and Gonzaga. The Zags? Is the close-game record a reversion to the mean after a mark in such games the last nine seasons? Or is the the outlier and, before the season ends, they will be closer to.
