FanPost

Graphs Of The Game 9: Undefeated Gamethreads!

EDIT NUSS: This is fun. I like fun. Therefore, it's now on the front page. Enjoy!

I have had a few data visualization projects sitting around half done for a few months so I thought I would push them out before the new school year gets into full swing here.  For once instead of charting data gleaned from the sports teams, I decided to visualize some data generated by us, CougCenter commenters.  And what better way than to see how we are performing during the games as well: in the gamethreads! (OK, maybe a bit oversold). 

This graph below is a bubble graph that shows the relative number of comments in each gamethread during the10-11 football and basketball seasons plotted by time. 

Interestingly the comments reached their zenith during the SMU game during the football season, relatively early on.  They then dwindled in size from there on out.  The basketball season did the exact opposite, not reaching its peak until the second UW game.  Perhaps this is simply the result of football being out of postseason contention almost as soon as the season started, and the basketball team being on the verge of the NCAA tournament until Selection Sunday really being out of it.

Gamethreads2_medium

And here is a histogram of the second UW game, the one the Cougs won in Seattle. What you are seeing is the number of posts per minute in the game thread for each minute of the game. The two halves of the game have been shaded in yellow and several representative comments have been overlaid from each portion of the game (they are left hand justified to the moment in time they were posted).  Here a slow first half of the game yielded a somewhat slower commenting rate, but after the half and the Cougs began to pull away from the Huskies, the commenting really picked up.  All of this culminates in a frenetic final 10 minutes which sees a double technical on the court and in which comments were being posted an average of every 5 seconds.

Wash_medium

I was hoping to bust more of these out for more games, but did really have the time.  Perhaps if there is the interest, I can make one of these up after each football game this year.  Let me know what you think.

This FanPost does not necessarily reflect the views of the site's writers or editors, who may not have verified its accuracy. It does, however, reflect the view of this particular fan, which is just as important as the views of our writers or editors.