How do I learn to use statistics for high school basketball?

[Miloslav]

I was recently made a manager of my high school's basketball team. I have been asked to look into creating a program that will allow statistics to be used in sports. I do not know much about sporting statistics, so I was wondering if anyone could help me figure out what direction to look in. Thanks!

 

[hsetennis]

I'm not familiar with sabermetrics and sports statistics, but minitab and SAS (and MS Excel's stats extension) are generally sufficient for most inferential statistics. A more sophisticated package would be better for hard core data mining. What kind of statistical tests do you want to run?

btw: the wikipedia page for apbrmetrics has some promising external links
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/APBRmetrics

 

[Stephen Tashi]

Perhaps your main job will be to keep accurate records and retrieve data from them. (As opposed to making statistical predictions about the next game etc.) You'll need a database program. I suggest you ask for suggestions about what program to use in the sections of the forum that deal with computers since that isn't a "math question".

 

[chiro]

Hey Miloslav and welcome to the forums.

On top of Stephen Tashi's advice, I would look at simple statistics like the mean and simple probabilities of winning and losing with respect to certain conditions (like against a particular team or whether they have a home advantage).

These are very simple techniques and provide a lot of information for your audience.