Lance Stokes

Complete Visualization Here

My project involves my lifelong interest in Carolina basketball. My earliest memories are of watching games with my father, so I've been a fan for over 50 years.

At some point I remember hearing an announcer mention that Dean Smith's teams had shot over 50% for many years running.

After the institution of the 3 pt shot, I wondered if that 50% field goal shooting percentage would still hold, plus I wondered abut the added benefit of shooting a three point shot, even if the overall shooting percentage suffered.

When this project was assigned, and given that we were in the prime of basketball season, I thought it might be interesting to visualize this dynamic. As I explored it, I found that a metric called "Effective field goal percentage" existed which took the extra point score on three point baskets into consideration and created a composite number which more accurately reflects a team' s shooting performance.

For my project, I will assemble a database of Carolina teams' season shooting since the beginning of the Dean Smith era until the end of last season (2014-15). What I want to do is to create an interactive graph showing each year's percentages, both two and three point shots and then graph them beside the Effective FG% metric (eFG%). Furthermore, I'd like to also include the head coach for each year on the same graph to examine any trends that might appear under the leadership of each coach.

C- I’ve created a visualization that explores the shooting performance of UNC’s basketball team from 1961-2015 and allows a large number of intertwined variables to be considered at once.

U- This visualization will be used by die hard Carolina fans who have a longstanding interest in the trends that have been discussed, but not visualized.

T- The user can explore several aspects of shooting performance over a 60+ year time frame at UNC. I’ve represented 2 pt shooting, 3 pt shooting and a metric that normalizes all shooting, effective field goal shooting. Further, I’ve included the overall filed goal shooting percentage as well as the total number of 3’s attempted each year. As a frame for the data points, I included the top overall scorer each year so the viewer can have a sense of the era in question.

D- I created the excel spreadsheet for this viz from data that is publicly available on the goheels.com site for UNC athletics. The data itself is continuous variable, with the exception of the names of the coaches, which is nominal.

D-This viz is formatted for a laptop, which seems likely to be the display on which t is most likely to be used. However, Tableau allows for easy reformatting for virtually any imaginable display.

V- This viz was created in Tableau. It consists of multiple line graphs as well as banded horizontal area which designate each coach’s tenure. Also, I added a horizontal reference line at 50%.