View topic - The "hard to beat a team 3 times in a season" bullshit

[relictele Profile]

It's the media focusing on coincidence again - too lazy to do a real analysis so non-stories like third-time matchups and/or bogus numerology are trotted out.

[HereWeGo Profile]

thats why the week leading up to these kind of games sucks. i dislike anything that comes from the tv regarding 'sports analysis'. anyone that has done some homework knows the 2-time winner wins the 3rd 63% of the time.

im not worried about the recent screwings of the pooch at home either. we are a different team compared to then. hines wont let it happen.

[logjammin Profile]

b) The Steelers are 4-0 when facing a team for the third time (Houston twice: in the 70s; the Browns twice: '94 & '02).

If you mean, after sweeping the regular season series...

The stillers didn't sweep the Oilers in 3 games, ever. Both of those AFCCG wins over the Oilers after the 78 and 79 regular seasons, the 2 teams split the regular season games.

If you mean literally,

b) The Steelers are 4-0 when facing a team for the third time

with no stipulation on the outcome of the regular season games, then the record is better than 4-0, I think.

There is some inaccuracy coming from the news-media lately about this sort of thing. These 2 examples from today:

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09018/942649-66.stm

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09018/942661-66.stm

The first one states, in the 4th paragraph from the bottom:

<< When they beat an opponent twice in one season, as they have the Ravens this year, they've never lost a third meeting such as this. They are 7-0. >>

The Stillers have PLAYED a team 3 times in a season on 7 occasions in franchise history (and won the playoff game all 7 times). The stillers swept the 2 regular-season games in only 2 of those instances. Not all 7.

In the second link, there is a small caption/blurb/what-have-you, maybe not written by the journalist the article is credited to, which states:

<<The skinny: Teams have met three times in the same season 18 times, with 11 sweeps.>>

Actually, there have been much more than 18 times that teams have met 3 times in the same season. 11 sweeps is accurate, I think. But 18 is the number of times teams have met for a 3rd time AFTER A 2 GAME SWEEP BY ONE OF THOSE TEAMS IN THE REGULAR SEASON. There have been many other times a pair of teams has met a third time after splitting 2 regular season games. 4 of those instances directly involve Pittsburgh's Stillers, as I've noted before.

[Teegre Profile]

LogJammin'

You are indeed correct.
[Note: I was thinking about the 1989 Oilers in the play-offs. Man, my memory is so fuzzy these days.]

Anyway, does this sound more correcter:
a) In the AFCCG, that record is 3-1 for the team who won the first two.
b) The Steelers are 7-0 when facing a team for the third time.
c) The Steelers are 2-0 when facing a team that they have beaten twice in the regular season (1994 Browns, 2002 Browns).

Regardless, the point is, while the rest of the league is about 63% in third match-ups, the Steelers are much betterer.

[Teegre Profile]

Actually...
As I mentioned in the last part of my original post, the Steelers are healthier. Ergo, they win.
Everything else is just "stats."