idle curiosity

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grapesmoker
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idle curiosity

Post by grapesmoker »

Does anyone know if the John Kenney who writes for Knickerblogger is the same John Kenney who once played for UVA? I've been discovering all sorts of delightful connections between the NBA and quizbowl lately and I would very much like for this to be true.
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Irreligion in Bangladesh
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Re: idle curiosity

Post by Irreligion in Bangladesh »

grapesmoker wrote:Does anyone know if the John Kenney who writes for Knickerblogger is the same John Kenney who once played for UVA? I've been discovering all sorts of delightful connections between the NBA and quizbowl lately and I would very much like for this to be true.
Leo Wolpert being credited as one of the assists on that epic Rodman series caught my eye earlier today; what others, out of curiosity?
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Re: idle curiosity

Post by grapesmoker »

styxman wrote:
grapesmoker wrote:Does anyone know if the John Kenney who writes for Knickerblogger is the same John Kenney who once played for UVA? I've been discovering all sorts of delightful connections between the NBA and quizbowl lately and I would very much like for this to be true.
Leo Wolpert being credited as one of the assists on that epic Rodman series caught my eye earlier today; what others, out of curiosity?
Chicago old-timer Mike Zarren is with the Celtics doing statistical analysis. This is not particularly new, but there you have it.
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MLafer
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Re: idle curiosity

Post by MLafer »

It is not. Doing some stalking, that John Kenney is still an undergrad at Columbia.
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Re: idle curiosity

Post by grapesmoker »

Not that this matters terribly, but former UVA quizbowler Steve Perry is now apparently at med school at Pitt, while Jason Hong, who won an ACF title in 1995 with Georgia Tech and played for Berkeley after that, is an associate professor at CMU. Add to that Peter Freeman and Pittsburgh appears to be a convergence point for old quizbowlers.
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stevebahnaman
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Re: idle curiosity

Post by stevebahnaman »

Clay Davenport of Baseball Prospectus (who never became an "it guy" like Nate Silver or Joe Sheehan but did stuff like invent EqA) was a quizbowler.

Edit: Also a UVA person.
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Re: idle curiosity

Post by theMoMA »

I was never much of a fan of Davenport translations, but they were at least a valiant early effort in defensive statistics.
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Re: idle curiosity

Post by stevebahnaman »

It's kinda sad that the DTs get associated with defense since they were really about translating all stats to a common context. He was the first person to implement a full system of translations.
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