In basketball the team benches are near the baskets on opposite sides of the half court line. The coaches roam their respective halves of the court shouting directions to their team.
As in other sports the teams switch sides at halftime but the benches stay where they were. That means that for half of the game the coaches are directing their defenses and for the other half they are directing their offenses.
If coaching helps then we should see more scoring in the half where the offenses are receiving direction.
This could easily be tested.
Cheap Talk 
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April 2, 2012 at 12:56 am
Gavin M
Can’t it also be said we should see less scoring by the opposition when the coach is directing his defence? Wouldn’t the two cancel each other out?
April 2, 2012 at 2:44 am
mpatel415@gmail.com
No because both coaches would be near their team on offense at the same time or defense at the same time. Never would one coach be close to his team playing D while the other coach is close to his team on offense.
The question is an interesting one if we assume that being close to the offense or defense is really an important factor in how coaching directions/directing follow through.
April 2, 2012 at 7:39 am
jeff
Once you get the data (which should be easy to get for free if by no other means just by scraping) this is a 15 minute exercise in Excel.
If you do it I will publish everything you come up with here right away. If you are a Northwestern undergrad this is an instant honors thesis.
April 2, 2012 at 7:55 am
twicker
Quick note that the question is, “Does courtside coaching of the players then on the court during game play matter?” Any coach will tell you that the vast majority of what they do happens off the court. Further, on the court, a lot of the coaching that’s really effective happens during time-outs or when strategizing with players on the sidelines – or when deciding which substitutes to send in, when to rally the team by yelling at the refs (regardless of which side of the court they’re on), talking in the locker room, etc.
Definitely the easiest place to test for an effect, and – who knows? – maybe there’ll be something there. 🙂 However, given how little effect this very specific case/type of coaching would be expected to have, my bet is on an insignificant effect overall.
April 2, 2012 at 10:51 am
Tony
I don’t know much about this, but it looks like NCAA rules specify that the first half is always played where the basket is far from the coach (coaches directing their defenses).
http://grfx.cstv.com/photos/schools/mwc/sports/m-baskbl/auto_pdf/2011-12/misc_non_event/1113-bkb-ncaa-rulebook.pdf (See page 46, Section 4, Articles 1 & 2)
If coaches always direct their offenses in the second half, it would be hard to disentangle better coaching from end-game effects that are more prominent in the second half.
For example, teams that are behind late in the second half often use fouls to extend the game, which results in inflating second half scores of close games (lots of points from free throws). This strikes me as a high variance strategy, which is optimal at the end of the second half, but not at the end of the first half (winning is all that matters, having a fat upper tail is worth sacrificing a point or two in expected value).
More detailed data (i.e., non-urgent first and second half scores –> points scored until 2 minutes remaining in the half) might help control for fouling-time point inflation.