Batting Practice #7: NBA Week 1 and College Football

The weekly sport analytics review and criticism from Wolohan Analytics

You can listen to the seventh episode of Batting Practice here:

This week we cover all of the major sports, talking about the first week of NBA games, the now set World Series matchup, the limbo month of November for NFL, and the exciting month of November for college football.

Baseball is here, but the Texas-Arizona matchup has a lot of folks wondering if the baseball playoff needs to be reworked. We think the format needs a change even bigger than the one Ken Rosenthal suggests.

In the NBA, we stand by our Manalytics Scores, and push back on the idea that the Suns are going to be a team to beat. Could Devin Booker jump out to an MVP candidate and change the calculus? Maybe. He finished 4th in 2021, but received no votes last year and has reached somewhat of a statistical plateau — mostly improving on defense.

November is a wait and see month in the NFL, as teams navigate the middle of the season. It’s too early to peak and the best teams have established significant division leads. We’ll check back in on the NFL around Thanksgiving when we can take stock of the first half of the season.

But in college football, everything happens in November. We expect Ohio State to cruise through their schedule until they play Michigan. And we’ll learn a lot more about Georgia over the next four weeks, as they play some earnestly tough games. Even a “down” SEC will give Georgia opportunities to prove their strength.