Applied Sports Science newsletter – March 23, 2019

Texas Rangers pitcher Ariel Jurado did not have many Panamanian ballplayers to watch when he was growing up.

So he became a fan of Cliff Lee.

“He’s a lefty but I liked him,” Jurado said Tuesday through an interpreter. “His pitches were incredible, the way he dominated on the mound.”

The 23-year-old Jurado studied Lee’s games on television. But he has a long way to go to approach the accomplished career of Lee, who pitched 13 seasons with the Cleveland Indians, Seattle Mariners, Texas Rangers and Philadelphia Phillies.

… In 2014 at Georgia, Gurley had an ACL tear in his left knee. The arthritis is presumably in the same knee.

The news of arthritis is not a shock.

The important question is how much and to what extent.

It is not uncommon for arthritis to begin with an ACL tear. If the articular cartilage is like tread on your tires, arthritis can be considered any wear or tear to the tread of the tire. Most tires have wear and tear. The problem arises if there is too much.

Severino received a cortisone shot Wednesday after being shut down due to rotator cuff inflammation

At 32, the three-time Olympic track star says she’s more passionate about running than ever. Needless to say, she knows a thing or two about staying focused and in love with the sport for the long haul. Here, she shares her secrets to success when it comes to getting older, wiser—and faster.

… “I was unsatisfied with how we had finished the year before, losing in the Alamo Bowl, losing the Pac-12 Championship,” Love said, explaining why he chose to return for his senior season. “From that, I was just motivated to come back and help contribute to the team’s success. Regardless of how the season ended up, I had the opportunity to play through it, and I feel like we left a solid foundation as seniors.”

Love, who is still recovering from surgery, believes he can be an every-down back in the NFL.

… Entering March, Antetokounmpo had improved his 3-point percentage each month this season, reaching 40 percent in February. He’s also made noticeable progress on pull-up 3-pointers, a key weapon for a lead ball handler. In 2018, Antetokounmpo shot just 5.6 percent on pull-up 3s, which ranked last of the 76 players who attempted at least 15 such shots. Since Jan. 1, he is shooting 36.8 percent (7-of-19) on pull-up 3s. He still can’t be described as a good 3-point shooter, but a player with so many other skills needs only to be a confident and competent one.

When the Eagles open the 2019 season in a little less than six months, Ronald Darby has every intention of being one of their starting corners that day.

“My rehab is going great,’’ Darby, who tore his ACL last November, said on a conference call with reporters Monday. “My goal is to be back by Week 1.

“It’ll be up to the doctors and the trainers, and we’ll see how everything goes. But that’ll be right around 9-10 months, which is right on pace for how long it takes to get back” from an ACL injury.

When you don’t get enough sleep, you can feel drained, sluggish and lazy. So, we sip our coffee, attempting to make it through the day, until it’s time to slip back into bed. But besides the fact that we feel terrible if we don’t get enough, researchers have struggled to figure out why humans and animals sleep.

A new study by scientists at Bar-Ilan University in Israel, though, may help us find out. While studying brain activity in live zebrafish, they found that DNA repaired itself much more quickly at night than during the day.

The main aim of this study was to identify which combination of external intensity training load (iTL) metrics capture similar or unique information for different training game (TG) formats and official matches (OMs) in football using principal component (PC) analysis. Ten metrics of iTL were collected from 24 professional male football players using global positioning technology. A total of 348, 383, 120, 127, 148, and 207 individual files for small-sided possession games, medium-sided possession games, small-sided games, medium-sided games, large-sided games, and OMs, respectively, were studied. Principal component analysis was conducted on each game format. Extraction criteria were set at an eigenvalue of greater than one. Varimax rotation mode was used to extract more than one PC. Intensity training load metrics with PC “loadings” above 0.7 were deemed to possess well-defined relationships with the extracted PC. In each TG and OM, 3 PCs were identified. For the first PC, eigenvalues for each game format ranged from 3.89 to 4.45, which explained 39-44% of the information (i.e., variance) provided by the 10 iTL metrics. For the second PC, eigenvalues ranged from 2.17 to 2.47, explaining 22-26% of iTL information. For the third PC, eigenvalues ranged from 1.41 to 1.98, explaining 14-20% of iTL information. This would suggest that TG and OM have multidimensional demands; so, the use of only a single iTL could potentially lead to an underestimation of the physical demands. Consequently, a combination of 3 iTL metrics is required during professional football game formats.

As part of our wrap-around athlete development program here at Lincoln University we have our athletes use the Metrifit system. This system allows our strength and conditioning staff to monitor our athletes and intervene if necessary. Using the information from the Metrifit in this way allows us to keep on top of acute or ongoing athlete problems and generate or stimulate conversations to clarify information and/or educate our athletes. It also acts as a central place of storage for all our testing data, programmes, nutrition, mind-space records, educational material and a record of communications.

As part of our holistic approach to athlete training and care, in 2018, we decided to look at the longitudinal data of all athletes over a 4 year period to see whether the averaged information could tell us anything about the way our athletes were dealing with the overall training program. It is well understood that not every athlete is the same and so applying the correct training loads to get effective adaptation with adequate recovery can be difficult. In addition, our athletes are unusual because they are required to take a full-time university study alongside their sports training commitments and therefore are under academic stress along with training and performance stress.

One of today’s most attention-grabbing topics among sports researchers, coaches and managers have to do with the study of maximal demand scenarios, also known as “worst case scenarios”. In recent years, we’ve seen a number of new studies that describe the demands of competition in different sports – with a particular focus on these moments of maximal activity (Martín-García et al., 2018). Recently, an article was published in the International Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research in which the authors compare the activity of these maximal demand scenarios during competition, with the average demands of two very common training tasks currently in use: 4 vs. 4 situations in a 39 x 39 m space (152 m2 per player) and 6 vs. 6 situations in a 47 x 43 m space (144 m2 per player), both of which include goalkeepers as part of the exercise. During the games that were analyzed, an average match value was obtained for each of the physical variables studied. In addition, the highest value was obtained via the Rolling average method over 5-minute periods. The results of the study show how these types of training situations – in terms of distance covered per minute – do not reach the values for the maximal demand scenario within an actual match (137.0 ± 9.9 m·min-1). They show values close to those obtained for the match average (match average = 117.2 ± 8.6 m·min-1; 115.9 ± 8.9 and 106.4 ± 11.4 m·min-1 in 4 vs. 4 and 6 vs. 6, respectively). These differences between match demand (peak and average) and the training task demands are maximized when we analyze runs performed at high speed (>19.8 km·h-1) and at a sprint (>25.2 km·h-1). However, these short-sided game situations do appear to replicate the demands of the maximum demand scenarios in actual competition with respect to accelerations·min-1 and player load·min-1, with higher values in the smaller format (4 vs. 4 + goalkeepers in 39 x 39 m). Furthermore, in both training situations, the values obtained exceed those obtained in the match average, both in terms of the acceleration variable as well as player load per minute.

… As they’re expending energy in just about every possible way, it’s imperative that student-athletes get as much high quality sleep as possible. If not, they’re leaving learning potential on the table, increasing the risk of illness and injury, and contributing to emotional/psychological issues (see Matthew Walker’s book Why We Sleep for more info). And yet, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention note that 57.8 percent of middle schoolers say they don’t get sufficient sleep, with 12 percent sleeping less than six hours a night. The picture looks even worse with high school students, 72.7 percent of whom report not getting enough Zzzs, with 20 percent slumbering for less than six hours.

We have a duty to do better by our young athletes. That’s why I hit up Dr. Chris Winter, who authored the brilliant book The Sleep Solution, is board certified in sleep medicine by both the American Board of Sleep Medicine and by the American Board of Internal Medicine, and helps everyone from pro sports organizations to youth teams improve their sleep strategies. He’s also a parent of active kids.

… Dr Nemanja Vaci, corresponding author of the study, Department of Psychiatry, University of Oxford, said: “One explanation for the findings is that once the decline in physical performance begins, more knowledgeable or more able players may utilise knowledge (i.e. motoric and context specific information) from earlier in their career to help effectively preserve their performance while ageing.”

The new study, Large Data and Bayesian Modeling – Aging Curves of NBA Players, investigated ‘development and aging’ and how the interactions of these two factors provide insight into the rates of development and deterioration of skill over the course of a player’s life. It has potential applications beyond performance research as it indicates that a person’s knowledge structures may sustain in the brain, even when there is a decline in their information processing speed known as ‘executive function’.

Sixty million kids participate in organized athletics each year with ever increasing amounts of children specializing in one sport before the age of 14 with hopes of a college scholarship or professional career on the line. However, researchers presenting their work at the AOSSM/AANA Specialty Day today reveal that this early intense participation might come at the cost of increased injuries during their athletic careers.

“Our research indicated that athletes who specialized in their varsity sport before the age of 14 were more likely to report a history of injuries and multiple college injuries during the course of their athletic career,” said author, Brian M. Cash, MD from the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery at the University of California at Los Angeles.

PURPOSE:

High vertical ground reaction force (vGRF) loading rates are thought to contribute to lower extremity injuries in runners. Given that elevated lower extremity stiffness has been reported to be associated with increased GRFs, the purpose of the current study was to determine if overall lower extremity stiffness, or individual joint angular excursions and/or torsional stiffness are predictive of the average vGRF loading rate during running.
METHODS:

Forty heel-strike runners (20 males and 20 females) ran overground at a speed of 3.4 m·s. Average vGRF loading rate, lower extremity stiffness, as well as hip, knee and ankle joint excursions and torsional stiffness from initial contact to the first peak of the vGRF were quantified. Step-wise multiple linear regression was performed to determine the best predictor(s) of average vGRF loading rate.
RESULTS:

Lower extremity stiffness was found to the best predictor of average vGRF loading rate (R=0.68, p<0.001). The second variable that entered the step-wise regression model of average vGRF loading rate was knee joint excursion (ΔR =0.03, p=0.023). CONCLUSIONS:

Increased lower extremity stiffness immediately following initial contact may expose heel-strike runners to higher vGRF loading rates.

The 7 Key Sleep Recovery Indicators (KSRIs) are the building blocks of the R90 Technique, they are the 7 steps to take to improve your sleep. Adopting even just one of them could go a long way to improving your life, sleep and recovery.

1. Circadian Rhythms

Hamstring strain injury (HSI) is one of the most prevalent and severe injury in professional soccer. The purpose was to analyze and compare the predictive ability of a range of machine learning techniques to select the best performing injury risk factor model to identify professional soccer players at high risk of HSIs. A total of 96 male professional soccer players underwent a pre-season screening evaluation that included a large number of individual, psychological and neuromuscular measurements. Injury surveillance was prospectively employed to capture all the HSI occurring in the 2013/2014 season. There were 18 HSIs. Injury distribution was 55.6% dominant leg and 44.4% non-dominant leg. The model generated by the SmooteBoostM1 technique with a cost-sensitive ADTree as the base classifier reported the best evaluation criteria (area under the receiver operating characteristic curve score=0.837, true positive rate=77.8%, true negative rate=83.8%) and hence was considered the best for predicting HSI. The prediction model showed moderate to high accuracy for identifying professional soccer players at risk of HSI during pre-season screenings. Therefore, the model developed might help coaches, physical trainers and medical practitioners in the decision-making process for injury prevention.

PURPOSE::

This investigation examined the inter-day reliability and usefulness of reactive strength index (RSI) derived from a maximal 5 rebound jump test (5max RJT) and a maximal 10 rebound jump test (10/5 RJT).
METHODS::

Twenty male field sport athletes (24.5±3.0 y; 1.78±0.1 m; 84.9±5.2 kg) performed 2 maximal repetitions of the 5max RJT and the 10/5 RJT on two testing days following a specific warm up. A one week period separated each testing day and these sessions were proceeded by a familiarisation session. RSI was calculated by dividing jump height (m) by contact time (s). The 5max RJT and the 10/5 RJT trial with the highest RSI on each testing day was used for reliability and usefulness analysis.
RESULTS::

Both tests were deemed reliable for determining RSI for male, female and pooled male and female cohorts as the ICCs ≥ 0.80 and the CV ≤ 10%. Only the 5max RJT was rated as ‘good’ at detecting the smallest worthwhile change (SWC) in performance for female athletes (SWC: 0.10 > TE:0.07). The 5max RJT for males and the 10/5 RJT for males and females were rated as ‘good’ in detecting a moderate change in performance only.
CONCLUSIONS::

Both tests are reliable for the determination of RSI but the usefulness of the tests in detecting the SWC is questionable.

PURPOSE::

This study compared the effects of performing different unilateral strength training interventions on unilateral and bilateral jumping performance and their related asymmetries in young soccer players.
METHODS::

Forty-five male young (U-17) soccer players were randomly assigned to three eccentric overload training programs: The first group executed the same volume with both legs starting with the weaker leg (SVW, n=15), the second group carried out the double volume with the weaker leg and also starting with the weaker leg (DVW, n=15), and the third group performed the same volume with both legs starting with the stronger leg (SVS, n=15). Jumping performance assessment included a single-leg horizontal jump test, a triple single-leg horizontal jump test, a bilateral countermovement (CMJ) jump test and unilateral countermovement jump test. Asymmetries were also analyzed in the unilateral jumping tests.
RESULTS::

CMJ was improved (effect size [ES]: 0.27-0.48) and CMJ asymmetry was possibly reduced (ES: 0.08-0.24) in all groups. Substantial improvements were found in triple hop (ES: 0.52-0.71) in SVW and DVW, and triple hop asymmetry was substantially decreased (ES: 0.88) in DVW. Between-group analysis showed a substantial better performance in triple hop and horizontal hop with right leg in SVW and DVW compared to SVS.
CONCLUSIONS::

Unilateral strength training programs were shown to substantially improve bilateral jumping performance, while unilateral jumping was substantially enhanced in those groups that started the training session with the weaker leg. Finally, between-limbs asymmetries in the triple hop were mainly reduced through performing the double volume with the weaker leg.

Results have recently been published from a study of collegiate athletes at the University of Connecticut’s Korey Stringer Institute.

The study examined resting heart rate (RHR), heart rate variability (HRV) and percentage of time in slow-wave sleep (SWS) in female cross-country runners over the course of an entire season, looking at the changes in each metric and the relationships between them.

To collect the data, the participating athletes wore WHOOP 24/7.

… Led by ITN Energy Systems, in partnership with Molex, ENrG, Sunray Scientific, and University of Rhode Island, the project aims to develop ultra-thin charge control circuits for an optimized ultra-thin battery as a renewable, self-recharging, lightweight, flexible power source. The battery will power sensor systems for mobile applications. Compared to today’s commercially available batteries, the power package is expected to be smaller, feature greater sensitivity and response time, enable lower power consumption and support optimal temperature and humidity ranges.

The team will first demonstrate a monolithically integrated power module with integrated ultra-thin charge control circuitry and photovoltaics.

Teens are wired. Technology is so integrated with teenagers’ lives that creating useful and usable websites and apps for them is more critical than ever. To succeed in a world where the next best thing is a click away and text message interruptions are the rule, not the exception, website and app creators must clearly understand what teens want and how to keep them on a site.

To understand the expectations of a generation that grew up with technology and the internet, we conducted qualitative usability studies with teenage participants to identify guidelines for how websites can be improved to match this age group’s’ abilities and preferences.

What if your smartwatch — or another digital device you wear daily — could identify when an irregular heart beat could be a sign of something more serious?

New research from the Apple Heart Study suggests that it can.

Stanford Medicine researchers today presented preliminary findings of the unprecedented virtual study of more than 400,000 participants. The results show that a mobile app using data from a heart-rate pulse sensor on the Apple Watch was able to flag irregularities that subsequent testing confirmed to be atrial fibrillation — a condition that can lead to blood clots, stroke, heart failure and other complications, but that often remains hidden because many people don’t experience symptoms.

New guidelines that reduce the amount of rest required for children recovering from a concussion have been developed by CanChild, a McMaster University research centre.

“For children, recovering from a concussion is like a snakes and ladders game, as there are times where they may have rapid improvement and climb through the steps more quickly, and other times where returning symptoms mean they have to take a slide back,” said author Carol DeMatteo, professor of rehabilitation science and a CanChild researcher.

“Our new research, along with our review of studies from all over the world, has led us to update the guidelines for recovery, and we have different but compatible guidelines for returning to school and for returning to activity including sport.

… The ACL is reportedly one of the most commonly injured knee ligaments among professional- and recreational-level athletes, with a high risk for primary and secondary ACL injuries found with participation in pivoting and cutting sports, such as football, basketball, skiing and soccer.

“Multiple investigators have demonstrated second ACL injury rates [in adolescent athletes] ranging from 25% to 40%, which is certainly unacceptable. The causes are multifactorial and have been identified as modifiable or extrinsic and non-modifiable or extrinsic risk factors,” Frank A. Cordasco, MD, MS, professor of orthopedic surgery at Weill Cornell Medical College and attending orthopedic surgeon in the sports medicine and shoulder service and senior scientist in the research division at Hospital for Special Surgery, told Orthopedics Today. “The impact is significant given that these are structural knee injuries in adolescent athletes who have their whole lives ahead of them.”

Take Home Message: While 84% of people expected to return to preinjury levels of activity after an anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction, only 24% of them actually did within 12 months of surgery.

The aim of this study was to prospectively analyse the relationship between workloads and injury in elite football academy players. Elite football academy players (n = 122) from under-19 (U19) and under-21 (U21) of a professional football team competing in UEFA European Cups were followed during 5 seasons. Injuries were collected and absolute workload and workload ratios (4-weeks, 3-weeks, 2-weeks and week-to-week) calculated using a rolling days method with the help of the session Rate of Perceived Exertion. There was no association between absolute workload or workload ratio with the injury incidence in the U19. In the U21, the level of cumulative absolute workloads during 3-weeks (RR = 1.39, p = 0.026) and during 4-weeks (RR = 1.40, p = 0.019) were associated with an increase in injury. There was no association between workload ratio and injury in U21. The significant link between high cumulated 3-weeks and 4 weeks workloads and injury in U21 confirmed the requirement to monitor the internal subjective workload in U21 in order to prevent injury. Further studies exploring the relationships between workload and injury are required in football academy.

The right amount of magnesium may be needed to optimize vitamin D levels, says a new study that highlights how different nutrients work together to boost health and wellness.

The global cannabis market stands at $150 billion today and legal sales are expected to grow to represent 77% of the total global market by 2025. With such growth on the horizon, Euromonitor released a white paper that explores the effects this ingredient will have on FMCGs.

The paper noted alcoholic drinks are by far the most embedded consumer packaged good in the cannabis sector. It indicated there is an expectation for “THC” to replace “ABV” as an indicator of intoxicant levels in adult beverages.

Euromonitor also noted it expects to see global sales of CBD-infused packaged foods to double during the next two years.

Warren Gatland has told Eddie Jones to mind his own business after the England coach said Wales looked “tired” before their Six Nations decider with Ireland in Cardiff. Jones also believes the Irish are “peaking” at the right time and says Scotland can expect “a bit of an explosion” from an England team still hoping to claim the title.

The final weekend hardly needs extra hype as an unchanged Wales seek to win a third Grand Slam in 11 years but, with England needing Ireland to do them a favour, Jones has queried whether Gatland’s side have enough in the tank to complete a clean sweep. “I’m just saying what I see, mate,” he said. “I see a team that’s looking tired; I see an Ireland team that’s peaking.

The international players union FIFPro has called on FIFA to abandon plans for a revamped Club World Cup and expansion of the 2022 World Cup until it has reviewed the game’s “crowded” international match calendar.

The founders of Diamond Charts, which made a name for itself providing many of the top college baseball and softball programs as well as a handful of Major League Baseball teams with hitting and pitching analytics, is now running a new play.

The Noblesville-based company, which was founded with $200 in early 2013, has started offering analytics for football and to date has signed deals with 12 NFL franchises. An expansion into college football is coming soon, the company’s founders said.

“The response we’ve gotten from this [new offering] has been great, and it has given us confidence that this [software] can be used in any level of football or any other sport where data can be quantified,” said company co-founder Jeremy Hochstedler.

… Van Wagenen, 44, doesn’t see it as a reach. He had several clients with the Mets, including ace righthander Jacob deGrom, and a long relationship with chief operating officer Jeff Wilpon. As a Connecticut resident who worked in Manhattan, Van Wagenen had a first-hand sense of the Mets’ strengths and their many foibles.

CAA also had its own analytics department and was involved in player development, albeit on a smaller scale.

“I understood the marketplace and I felt this was a sleeping giant,” said Van Wagenen, who played at Stanford. “There was a great platform here to build on with our starting pitching and create a sustainable winner.

Rashan Gary has been clocking sub-5-second 40s at 280-plus pounds since since his freshman year in high school. He eventually made his way to the top of 247Sports Composite and was the unanimous No. 1 prospect in the industry-generated ranking for the 2016 class.

The ability he displayed at the 2015 Opening Regionals and Finals on the defensive line as a junior helped cement that status. His is now hoping his performance at last week’s NFL Scouting Combine helped state his case to be a top selection in this year’s NFL Draft.

Gary didn’t always consistently produce at an elite level on the field in his three years at Michigan, but he certainly looked the part during testing and drills in Indianapolis. The 6-foot-4.5, 277-pounder has actually shed 10 pounds since his previous combine participation as a junior in high school and considerably improved on his testing numbers in the 40 (4.86 to 4.58 seconds), shuttle (4.64 to 4.29 seconds) and vertical jump (32.6 to 38 inches).

… Mid-inning pitching changes are a plague upon pace, and the game. They stop the action, and add none in return. The fewer of them we see, the better.

More pitchers, more mid-inning breaks

In 2018, there were 799 different pitchers to appear in a game, a new all-time record. This is a record that’s been broken each year since 2013, unsurprisingly. If we go back to 1998, the first year of the 30-team era, there were 557 pitchers, appearing in 4,864 games. In two decades, in a nearly identical number of games, the number of pitchers per game has shot up by 2.6, from 6.1 to 8.7.

… NFL teams try to achieve a perfect balance in the offseason between signing players in free agency to “team-friendly” deals while also replenishing their roster with young, talented players in the draft. If a team goes too heavy in one of those areas, a rebuild will be inevitable. Several teams take chances in free agency by going all-in and hoping to win a Super Bowl before the overhaul while others stay committed to the style of stocking draft picks to plan for the future and electing to have a “learning” season. In 2018, both of those strategies were seen.

In a wild but expected outcome, the Super Bowl consisted of two teams that the consensus predicted before the start of the year. Looking past that, only five teams returned to the playoffs– the New England Patriots, Kansas City Chiefs, New Orleans Saints, Los Angeles Rams, and Philadelphia Eagles. Interestingly enough, four of the five made their respective conference championship games.

Youth sports is of special interest to me — I practice pediatric sports medicine at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, and perhaps 90% or more of the patients I see regularly participate in youth sports.

The topic is of great interest to this journal as well: for example, CJSM will publish later this year a themed issue on topics in youth sports medicine, guest edited by my friend and colleague, pediatrician Alison Brooks M.D. of the American Medical Society for Sports Medicine (AMSSM).

Youth sports has long been recognized as a valuable activity for the individuals and families who choose to participate. An abundance of evidence points to the health benefits — physical, mental, academic — that can be achieved by children and adolescents engaging in sports.

Last year, Georgia running back Nick Chubb was the leader in the bench press. This year, Kansas State running back Alex Barnes — who led the Big 12 in rushing — was your top muscle man. The bench press is an exercise that measures upper body strength, but it is biased in favor of heavier players and shorter players.

The best-fit formula to project bench press reps for the 2019 Combine was:

Expected BP reps = 45.00 -0.7513 * Height (Inches) + 0.1240 * Weight (Pounds)

… On Thursday, the announcement came down from Major League Baseball and the MLB Players’ Association that several of the significant rule changes proposed in recent weeks would now be implemented for the 2019 and 2020 seasons. Yet I flipped no tables over, and went on no weird Twitter rants that involved Norse gods smiting Rob Manfred under a vermilion sky (we’ll save that imagery for the CBA negotiations). I’m…happy? Apart from the decided lack of robots, that is.

Many National Football League players are celebrating this weekend. Some of them are recipients of massive deals from the prior week, which included a combined amount of roughly $1.7 billion promised to players in the future with $842 million of that guaranteed.

However, the celebrations are slightly tamed for a few by the events that took place in Key Biscayne, Florida during the players’ annual meeting. Tempers flared at that meeting, which was attended by almost 200 active NFL players. It was not because of an issue by and between the players and their union, but instead due to alleged acts of a growing group of certified Contract Advisors who are bargaining for a bigger role with, and even threatening to litigate against, the NFL Players Association.

On March 15, the NFLPA disseminated a memorandum to all Contract Advisors that highlighted discussions between said group of agents and members of the union’s Executive Committee. The meeting included six certified Contract Advisors: Peter Schaffer, Christina Phillips, Jayson Chayut, Steve Caric, Pat Dye Jr., and Adisa Bakari. Approximately sixty players attended the meeting.

The Buffalo Bills have again raided the front office of a division rival.

A team spokesman confirmed Tuesday that the organization has hired Dr. Dennis Lock as the team’s director of football research and strategy. Lock previously worked as the Miami Dolphins’ director of analytics since 2015, building that department from the ground up.

Lock has a doctorate from Iowa State University in statistics. A 2017 profile on him in The Ames Tribune detailed his numbers-heavy background. Both of Lock’s parents have doctorates in mathematics, while his siblings have doctorates in statistics. The family even wrote a statistics textbook together, according to the article, with the co-authors Lock, Lock, Lock, Lock and Lock.

Hoping for an edge in this year’s March Madness office pool? Have a longstanding argument with your friends on which team’s fans are the most loyal? Always wondered how much of a difference it makes to be able to throw the last stone in the initial curling end? You can find your answers in the work of the Harvard Sports Analysis Collective (HSAC), a student-run organization dedicated to the quantitative analysis of sports strategy and management.

Since its founding in 2006 under the tutelage of “Moneyball”-cited statistician and Professor Emeritus Carl Morris, HSAC has been answering a variety of sports-related questions, employing often-sophisticated statistical models to get to the bottom of longstanding debates or offer context to those eye-popping and head-scratching numbers that excite, and boggle the minds of, sports fanatics and pundits all over the world. (The collective just posted its analysis of this year’s March Madness college basketball tournament.)