This repository contains R scripts, data, and results from Vance Zuo's semester project for Yale's STAT 230 -- Introductory Data Analysis course. It is designed to analyze basketball free throws from data files from https://basketballvalue.com/.

The scripts themselves are located in the "scripts" directory. Data used in the project is located under "data", and resulting tables, figures, and other output under "result".

• R version 2.15 or higher

The scripts require the R programming language to be run, which can be downloaded from https://www.r-project.org/.

Although the scripts were programmed to study only one year's worth of basketball free throw data, they should be easy to configure to analyze basketball data from https://basketballvalue.com/ for any season.

To run the scripts, change the strings in the lines in "Processing.R"

playsURL <- "playbyplay20120510040.txt" # Change to appropriate path if needed

and

playersURL <- "players20120510040.txt" # Change to appropriate path if needed

to the paths to play-by-play and players data files from https://basketballvalue.com/ for a given season, respectively. Currently, the paths specify 2011-2012 regular season data files that are assumed to be in the same directory as the currently working directory (usually the directory of the scripts themselves).

After that, run "Processing.R", which will produce a relatively raw CSV file where each row represents a single free throw instance. This can be analyzed as is, but it is recommended to also run "Refining.R", which computes some statistical parameters and produces a CSV ("ft clean.csv") that prunes invalid rows. The user can then run "Analysis.R", which does various statistical tests and produces graphical/textual results using "ft clean.csv" data, or they can run their own analyses.