Strategy & Theory: Home Court Advantage is Real

For years sports bettors have known about Home Court Advantage (HCA).  This is a theory that says the home team has an advantage because they don’t have to travel before a game, which allows them to stay in their own environment, including their homes, their most familiar locker room, etc.  

Is this a real thing?  With the unfortunate events of 2020, there was an opportunity provided with the NBA bubble.  Researchers from Oregon Health & Science University studied information relating to the 22 teams that went into the NBA bubble.  There were some important findings that we’ll review below.  But first, it is important to know that during the course of a regular season, NBA  teams fly around 50,000 miles.  The schedule also has teams go across different time zones, often immediately after a game ends.

The first finding was that the performance on the road was dependent on getting adjusted to the new time zone and the quality level of the sleep obtained.  This specifically impacts accuracy.  Shooting performance was impacted by travel across time zones.  This was evidenced by historical numbers, compared to shooting performance inside the bubble.  Once inside the bubble, shooting performance improved significantly. 

Next, the study found that rebounding was impacted by travel in general.  Rebounding requires short bursts of effort.  The study determined that visiting teams didn’t rebound as well, even if the game was in the same time zone as their home.  This is because sleeping at home produces better sleep than hotel room sleep.  

Finally, the study found that the travel was most noticeable by East Coast teams playing on the West Coast.  If a game starts at 8pm on the West Coast, the body clock of the East Coast team thinks it is 11pm.  This means that when the game is in the 4th quarter, the bodies of the East Coast team think it is nearing 2am.

Keep this in mind the next time you are looking at an East Coast team that just finished playing back-to-back games and is flying to the West Coast.

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