Friday, January 30, 2009

The consecutive made free-throw streak of Toronto's Jose Calderon, which we'd been following in recent days, ended tonight at 87 during the Raptors' game against Milwaukee. As noted in this article, Calderon's stretch of free-throw perfection was "the second-longest streak in NBA history behind Minnesota's Micheal Williams, who made 97 straight in 1993."

***

Last night, the UCLA men's basketball team reeled off a 20-2 run in the second half against Cal, as the Bruins bested the Golden Bears. The spurt expanded UCLA's 31-28 lead to 51-30 (play-by-play sheet).

1 comment:

Tucson ExPat said...

If you view this as a simple binomial probability problem (which isn't really necessary), this is a remarkable feat. The best career free throw shooter of all time was Mark Price with 90.4%. The probability of Mark Price hitting 87 in a row is approximately .0001. In game situations, he would accomplish this feat approximately 1 out of every 6500 attempts. Using the best season percentage (95.8%, Calvin Murphy, 1980-81), The probability is still only 0.024, considerably more likely, but still an impressive feat. 87 in a row is one hell of a hot hand.