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Learner Reviews & Feedback for Math behind Moneyball by University of Houston

4.5
stars
97 ratings

About the Course

Learn how probability, math, and statistics can be used to help baseball, football and basketball teams improve, player and lineup selection as well as in game strategy....

Top reviews

HA

Feb 5, 2017

Pretty good course where you learn how to analyse performance via various statistical analysis techniques. You also learn quite a bit in MS Excel.

JO

Mar 7, 2018

Excellent course if you like statistics, probabilities, and how to linh sport with math. Well explained. Maybe it needs more "movement" on forums

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1 - 25 of 28 Reviews for Math behind Moneyball

By Steven M

•

Apr 4, 2018

I am equally disappointed in Coursera and the instructor. Test 18 provided a dead link for how we were supposed to solve the problem and there was no instruction on how to complete otherwise. I reached out to Coursera on multiple occasions asking for support and was basically ignored not counting a couple of useless responses. I will never take a Coursera course again after the embarrassing level of customer service and given the fact the course clearly had not been updated in so long that the content was so far out of date that we are receiving dead links to content. I was supposed to complete this course months ago and am just finishing now because the only way to finish this test was to blindly guess at numbers and loosely make some of those guesses based off of the feedback from other students who were struggling with this on the discussion board as well. It's a shame I leave with this impression because the course has potential and I did learn a fair amount from it, but I will not get past how poorly I was treated by Coursera's customer service and how little they cared that the course was setting students up for failure. I took this course because I do not have a strong analytics skill set and it was described as being for beginners. This content missing makes that a completely misleading description as we were not provided the knowledge or content necessary to successfully complete this course in the appropriate amount of time.

By Andrew D

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May 18, 2020

I thoroughly enjoyed the sports analytics strategies and Microsoft Excel experience that came with this course. Having a background in statistics and sports is huge, I can see how the class could be challenging for those who do not. There is a 10 week + final exam calendar but that's more of a guideline as I finished in 6 weeks. Readings are not necessary at all. Grade is solely based on Quizzes (4 per unit) and 10 question MC Final. Each of these evaluations allows 3 tries every 8 hours, so basically unlimited attempts.

By Scott P

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Jul 25, 2017

Great course, however very heavy emphasis on Baseball and NFL. Resultantly some of the assessment questions proved impossible given the knowledge needed about the sport.

By Parth S

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May 21, 2020

The professor needs to appear on the discussion forums as, there are very few candidates for this course. Doubts needed to be solved on various questions. I didn't have any basic knowledge of American football or baseball, the course needs to specify that knowledge of rules of baseball, American football and basketball is prerequisite for clearing the course.

By Michael S

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Nov 10, 2017

This is one of the very the best classes I've ever taken. It provided the tools in Excel and the methods to model various sports outcomes so that I can start creating my own models. The examples were wide ranging and interesting. I thoroughly enjoyed listening to Professor Winston and appreciated all the additional references he pointed out during the lectures. I would love to see a second course in sports analytics . I do wish this course was called "Introduction to Sports Analytics", or "Sports Analytics I" so it would be easier to find. It seems like this course should have many more reviews than it does. Also, some of the course data may need updated. Highly recommended to anyone interested in sportsbetting or fantasy sports.

By John T

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Aug 26, 2018

If you want to understand why some of the excel formulas are used you need to books recommended in the course. With the instructor just doing voiceover with excel there isn't a lot of depth given. Still, pretty cool to see how decisions and betting done using data

By Bret

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Jun 16, 2017

Wow, this is quite the crash course in sports analytics and Excel tricks! I was familiar with most of the concepts, but enjoyed seeing how easily all of these advanced stats could be calculated, and learned some really useful Excel functionality (what-if analysis, solver). The amount of material that is covered is really impressive!

Biggest problem with this course: it doesn't turn up when you search for "sports analytics" in Coursera's search - luckily for me mooclist.com knows about it

By Kyle G

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Aug 13, 2020

Very useful course, would recommend. You learn a lot of basic excel information which is very crucial no matter your profession which evolves into more in depth stuff as you get further into the course. Also a must take for an avid sports fan, lets you learn a-lot more about a-lot of sports: golf, football, basketball, and baseball mainly.

By AAYUSH T

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Jun 23, 2020

a challenging course but brilliantly taught and elaborated by the instructor. After completion, I feel confident in working with Microsoft Excel. This course is a must for those who aspire to become a sports analyst.

By Javier F N

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Oct 20, 2016

Great course! I suggest to everyone interested in sports analytics to do this course. It is difficult to find courses like this focused on sports analytics.

By Hanye L

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Dec 12, 2019

This is a very enlighting course for me, as an esports analyst, I found many analytic methods in traditional sports inspirational. Thank you, Prof.Winston

By Hasan A

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Feb 6, 2017

Pretty good course where you learn how to analyse performance via various statistical analysis techniques. You also learn quite a bit in MS Excel.

By Javier O

•

Mar 8, 2018

Excellent course if you like statistics, probabilities, and how to linh sport with math. Well explained. Maybe it needs more "movement" on forums

By Gerardo B

•

Jun 4, 2020

Very complete, with great explanations and interesting during the whole course. I like it a lot and give a view of Moneyball

By Thomas D

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Oct 20, 2020

Very interesting course. Great way to get to know how analytics departments behind the scenes of professional sports work.

By Mateus V A

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Jul 27, 2020

Great course for who loves sports and would like to understand how statistics are being used to improve teams and players

By David T

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Dec 18, 2022

I really liked this class, I learned a great deal about math and how to use excel to analyze sports.

By Paul R W

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Jun 1, 2020

Great class. Longer to complete than the estimates though.

By Nelson C

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Oct 1, 2016

Useful, broad, and practical.

By Juan M

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Mar 21, 2020

Nice

By arnav r

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Apr 20, 2020

The content was extensive and well explained. It was also nice that we were dealing with real life data that kept the course practical and every operation was carried out over Excel. This thus helps enhance both your Excel knowledge as well as your ability to use data analytics to improve and predict sports outcomes. Professor Winston also provides the students with multiple anecdotes in connection to sporting scenarios that often help comprehension and lightens the mood.

The negatives however are with regard to the scoring of tests. If you get the test answer right you get 100 and 0 if you get it wrong with the criteria being 1% to pass. I would suggest giving marks for reaching certain steps building up to the answers so that people don't end up not completing the course simply because they couldn't clear a test. I would also recommend a sort of method to get in touch with the instructor/author of the course in the event of not being able to understand a concept sufficiently well.

By Adam W

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Jun 15, 2020

The content of course is great for sports fans. But there are few improvements and adjustments should be made.

First of all, the forum is like a ghost town. Professor did not answer students' questions.

Second, some quizzes are too difficult to be solved without tips about format or background knowledge of specific sports.

Last, the lecture videos are all voice over with Excel, which is hard to comprehend the topic in short period of time. Btw, the videos are somehow outdated too.

If you speak Chinese, here's my review on this course. https://medium.com/@adamp3/math-behind-moneyball-%E4%BF%AE%E8%AA%B2%E5%BF%83%E5%BE%97-567bc8315d92

By Jessica C

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Jan 29, 2021

As an avid sports fan, I found the topics covered in this course to be very interesting and thoroughly enjoyable. However, some of the materials in the lecture videos, including website links, have become outdated, making the course unnecessarily difficult at times. It should also be noted that basic knowledge of sports statistics and Excel functions would be beneficial prior to starting this course (the only assistance available is from other students, not the professor, in the discussion forums).

By Zack H

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Jul 19, 2020

Great course for sport fans who want to learn about sports analytics. But need to have extensive knowledge on game rules and specific terms for MLB, NFL, NBA