Does a Good Pre-Season Matter?

[shrink]

http://www.realgm.com/src_feature_artic ... es_matter/

I stumbled across this article from last year, which may have new significance for us this year. A couple interesting issues:

Overall, there's a 0.35 correlation over the last eight years, which shows a "moderate positive correlation and evidence that preseason games might not be as completely worthless as some would like to suggest."

It was further broken down to teams that won more than 62.5% of its games, there was a 0.23 correlation that they'd do well in the regular season. Less, but still a good note.

[4ho5ive]

It definitely doesnt hurt to have a good preseason

[Devilzsidewalk]

it matters more than the NFL preseason, put it that way.

[Vega06]

Yeah i think for a young team like ours it was a good confidence builder heading into the season

[Mcfale313]

it means a lot~~~
especially for us, it means our team chemistry is doing the right thing and gives our young guys confidence and a winning spirit~~It never hurt to win a lot b4 the regular season starts

[shrink]

I'm trying to temper my excitement, because I think our good pre-season record may be an artifact of all the extra time they spent playing together this summer, and will rapidly evaporate.

The team is better, and we have talent, but our 7-2 start doesn't have me rushing out to buy play-off tickets. I like the change in the mind-set though.

[andyhop]

Same process from 82Games including last year.

http://www.82games.com/preseason0809.htm

the rare poor prior year team that strings together some wins in the preseason has seen an average gain of 17 wins in the next year!

teams that have improved their preseason win% over last year by .400 or more gain an average of 17 wins