Some Harvard University students are busy calculating what most of us won’t discuss publicly.
The Harvard Sports Analysis Collective on Wednesday estimated the Boston Bruins’ and Boston Celtics’ chances of winning the Stanley Cup and NBA Finals, respectively. The HSAC updated their numbers in the aftermath of the Bruins’ loss to the Columbus Blue Jackets in Game 3 of their second-round Stanley Cup playoff series and the Celtics’ setback against the Milwaukee Bucks in Game 2 of their second-round NBA playoff series.
Their respective defeats unsurprisingly lowered their chances of prevailing in their series and ultimately completing the “Boston Slam” — joining the Boston Red Sox and New England Patriots in winning championships in seasons that started in 2018 — later this spring.
We don’t know exactly how HSAC calculates the Bruins’, Celtics’ and “Boston Slam” probabilities, and the mechanics of their “Glicko model” aren’t of much concern to us.
Boston teams have won 12 championships in the 2000s, and we’d welcome even more. However, the prospect of the “Boston Slam” is real enough we don’t like to talk about it openly for fear of the dreaded jinx.
We’ll leave that up to those intrepid Harvard students to do that.
