Clark vs DeJean, A Fairly Competitive Game of One-on-One

A follow-up to my post, "Lavar vs Jordan, An Incredibly Lopsided Game of One-on-One". Cooper DeJean, professional football player and former Iowa Hawkeye, made headlines when he declared he could win a game of one-on-one against Caitlin Clark, professional basketball player and former Iowa Hawkeye.

Setting aside Austin Rivers's commentary on the crossover appeal of basketball/football players, Clark holds the all-time points record in both men's and women's college basketball. DeJean was a very good high school basketball player though, scoring more points in the state of Iowa than Carolina great Harrison Barnes, and recording more steals in the state of Iowa than Carolina great Marcus Paige.

So I set out to simulate DeJean's claim that if he lost, it would be by one or two. Using Clark's college senior year statistics at Iowa, compared to DeJean's high school senior year statistics at OABCIG, I simulated a game to 21 by ones and twos.

And he's right! I have Caitlin Clark winning 53.5% of the time by an average score of 21 to 20 - a very evenly matched game.

Notwithstanding the relative quality of competition, DeJean's high school statistics are fairly comparable to Clark's last year at Iowa - but where Clark wins out is her 3-Point Attempt Rate. Not her 3 Point percentage - Clark shot 37.8% her (college) senior year, compared to DeJean's 39.5%. But 60% of Clark's field goal attempts were threes - a ridiculously high volume compared to DeJean's 21.5%. 

Especially in a game of ones and twos, Clark's range and 3-point volume would give her the edge.

WNBA Finals 2020 Bracket Math

My NBA Finals simulations had the Heat as decent favorites, and I've adapted my NBA simulator again for the WNBA Finals.

There are some minor rule differences, with the largest change being the length of the game - NBA has four 12-minute quarters, while the WNBA has four 10-minute quarters. 

This was easy to adjust by simply changing the expected pace for each team - the Las Vegas Aces' pace/40 has been 78.5 in the playoffs, with the Seattle Storm at 79.5, for an average expected number of possessions of 79. Comparatively in the NBA going in to the Finals, the Miami Heat were at 97.4 and the Los Angeles Lakers were at 98.7, for an expected number of possessions of 98.1.

The neutral court, best-of-5 series should be excruciatingly close - in any given game, the Aces win 50.2% of the time, by an average score of 84.44 to 84.43. They win the series 50.3% of the time.

# Games	LAS in...	SEA in...
3	12.6%	12.4%
4	18.9%	18.6%
5	18.8%	18.7%
	50.3%	49.7%