Jurassic Park vs. Duke Men's Basketball

"Chaos theory originally grew out of attempts to make computer models of weather in the 1960s. The behavior of this big complicated system always defied understanding. A butterfly flaps its wings in Peking, and weather in New York is different." - Dr. Ian Malcolm, Jurassic Park

Why does my basketball team suck, according to ESPN? "Well," responds, for example, a sports analyst like Tony Kornheiser, "This is a team that fundamentally lacks experience. Nobody seems to be on the same page. They haven't fallen into their roles comfortably yet; you can't have your 'outside shooter' only show up to play once every four games, you can't have a point guard with a bad attitude whose frustration is evident in his careless play, and you cannot have your big man down low averaging 9 turn-overs a game!" (NOT an actual quotation)

In a 30-second, bullet-point film clip, that is why my basketball team is greatly separated from Duke- and UNC-quality teams. None of this information is false or misapplied because when I watch my team play, the above argument seems true.

But consider the absurdity of really trying to analyze or predict the outcome of a sporting event. Whole cities and multi-million dollar industries are wrapped up in such speculation. Think of the countless variables, both physical – pertaining to a game’s external environment – and mental – affecting an athlete’s performance – which contribute to a simple 50/50 probability of W or L in the record column.

As an example, consider the possible physical differences between one basketball court and another: the thickness of the hard wood, the type of finish used, the amount of polish, the presence of liquids or other particles, the color of the wood – all determining the precise bounce of the ball (which ball also varies within any given game), the footwork of the players or their running and jumping, or their eyesight. Does a player’s sense of his surroundings not make it significantly different to play on Vanderbilt’s square, black and yellow, wide-spread court than in Ole Miss’s blue and red, coliseum-style stadium? Maybe a player has been mentally sluggish lately, not waking up until 15 minutes after his alarm, particularly tired from hard work-outs, testing schedules, or satisfying his girlfriend last night, all of which affect his play, all of which are dependent on other grosses of variables. Crowd noise, team mates’ attitudes, competitors’ ability, air temperature, diet, coaching schemes, shoes, shooting sleeves, or a thousand other unknowns could be the difference between scoring a game-winning basket or not, or even the cause for their being consistently terrible.

Evidently, no 30 second film clip of Tony Kornheiser’s could ever begin to mathematically account for what produces quality basketball. To use Jurassic Park language, not even three Cray XMP supercomputers (which gave InGen more computing power than any other privately held company in America) could do it, and those bad boys were driving T-Rex gene sequencing.

Philosophically speaking, if we were able to define the complete series of causes and effects that should lead to a win, would science alone adequately predict the outcome? Who is to say some X-factor or Cosmic Interference wouldn’t obliterate the whole goddam logical system?

“Any sort of complex system where there is confusion and unpredictability…we can find an underlying order. Okay?” – Dr. Ian Malcolm

Despite the above musings, there is no denying that coach Mike Kryzyewski (pronounced “cry” “zi” “eeeew” “skee,” right?) and the folks over at Duke basketball have found a successful formula. They’ve had only one losing season in the past 25 years and won 3 championships in that time. And they haven’t cloned any dinosaurs in the process (though Sheldon Williams gave us hope they were trying).

Some of the more sapient among us seem to have developed an enlightened understanding of the sport, an all-encompassing comprehension and feel for the game which trumps the oppressive hordes of chaotic probability, assimilating them in their favor. Coach K is not sitting in a Jurassic Park-like Control Room all day tapping out calculations. He is also not dropping LSD and taking pipe-dream trips into the furthest echelons of human thought in order to decipher what his team must do to win (though the Duke Lacrosse team may have tried this).

Probably, he is just a man of unsurpassed dedication to his methods. Through trial and error, he has accumulated an admirable set of practice routines, coaching strategies, and philosophical approaches which have made him consistent. He uses his talent well, which attracts more fan support and more talent, which helps him fine tune his system even more, and thus his team returns to ESPN prime-time spots and the Big Dance every year.

And we are left with all of the same old analytical clichés from TV anchors: “This Duke team has experienced veterans, fires on all cylinders, and has clutch-shooting under pressure” etc. We never tire of them because we never cease to be amazed at the beauty of a game where men unconsciously, or maybe super-consciously, prevail against the odds. Why bother really trying to explain the details when you can just sit back and watch the show?

Just keep in mind: even Duke is susceptible to that one losing season once in awhile, though their program is as “proved” as any that exists.

“The history of evolution is that life escapes all barriers. Life breaks free. Life expands to new territories. Painfully, perhaps even dangerously. But life finds a way.” – Dr. Ian Malcolm