Average points difference through first N games

Time flies, and the Tar Heels played the season’s first 5 games already. And loosely speaking, they’ve played well so far (knocking on woods), to the eyes of just another casual fan here!

I’m not going to say anything about this season’s fate based on the results of the season’s first 5 games, but still I was curious how well this season compares to other seasons at this point. There could be many different ways to do just that, but I thought looking at each season’s running average of points difference after each regular season game might be interesting.

Looking through the 5th game of each season, the current season sits at 19th out of total 69 seasons since 1949-50 campaign as it shows in the next table. Also note that 3 of the top 6 seasons in the table (2017, 1993, and 2009) were championship winning seasons.

Table 1: Average points difference through season’s first 5 games (showing 5th game opponent)
Rank Season Opponent Tm Opp Avg_Diff
1 2017 Chaminade 104 61 28.8
2 1998 Seton Hall 95 65 28.4
3 1973 Kentucky 78 70 27.6
4 1993 Houston 84 76 27.6
5 1987 Miami 122 77 26.8
6 2009 Oregon 98 69 25.0
7 1992 Seton Hall 83 54 24.8
8 1970 Virginia 80 76 24.2
9 1974 East Tennessee State 81 63 23.4
10 1986 Nevada-Las Vegas 65 60 23.4
11 1991 Connecticut 79 64 23.4
12 1976 East Tennessee State 104 67 23.0
13 1972 Wake Forest 99 76 22.6
14 2008 Brigham Young 73 63 22.4
15 2012 South Carolina 87 62 22.4
16 1967 New York University 95 58 22.0
17 1969 Clemson 90 69 19.4
18 2004 George Mason 115 81 19.2
19 2018 Arkansas 87 68 19.2
20 2018 Arkansas 87 68 19.2

When we look at the running average of points difference each season, it seems to be stablizing after first couple of games each season. Maybe it’s after the first 5 games, or maybe it’s after the beginning of the conference games, but regardless, considering first few games each season are usually “easier” than later games, that observation seems to make sense.

I tried to distinguish three different types of seasons in the plot: (1) 6 NCAA championship winning seasons (in black), (2) current season (in carolin blue), and (3) all the other seasons (in grey).

And what’s with that high flying season in grey that had average points difference of 30+ through the first 15 games ?

Table 2: Average points difference through season’s first 15 games (showing 15th game opponent)
Rank Season Opponent Tm Opp Avg_Diff
1 1986 Fordham 92 68 33.93333
2 2009 College of Charleston 108 70 25.00000
3 2005 Georgia Tech 91 69 24.93333
4 2007 Florida State 84 58 24.80000
5 1993 Clemson 82 72 24.26667

It turns out it was the 1985-86 season, and it must have been a somewhat disappointing season without the championship trophy after blazing through opponents early in the season. Seems like their last game was against U of L.

Season Game_Date Type Where Opponent_School Result Tm Opp
1986 1985-11-24 REG H UCLA W 107 70
1986 1985-11-25 REG H Iona W 110 67
1986 1985-11-29 REG N Missouri W 84 63
1986 1985-11-30 REG N Purdue W 73 62
1986 1985-12-01 REG N Nevada-Las Vegas W 65 60
Season Game_Date Type Where Opponent_School Result Tm Opp
30 1986 1986-03-02 REG A Duke L 74 82
31 1986 1986-03-07 CTOURN H Maryland L 75 85
32 1986 1986-03-13 NCAA N Utah W 84 72
33 1986 1986-03-15 NCAA N Alabama-Birmingham W 77 59
34 1986 1986-03-20 NCAA N Louisville L 79 94

Next up Spartans! Go Heels!