A home team is the team designated as playing at its own venue. Game data commonly records this role as Home, paired with an opposing Away or Road team. Treating location as a variable lets analysts compare outcomes, fouls, and free-throw opportunities between the two sides. section 9.3 section 7.4.1
Use home-team status to:
- Count wins by location: across regular-season games from 2012-13 through 2017-18, home teams won 4,224 games, or 58.7%. section 9.3
- Compare officiating and scoring opportunities: during the 2018-19 regular season, home teams attempted about 0.65 more free throws per game, while both locations made 77% of attempts. section 7.4.1
- Test whether observed differences are meaningful rather than merely descriptive by comparing home and road means with Welch two-sample t-tests. section 7.4.1
A practical R comparison
Filter the game data to the desired regular season, retain home and road measures, and reshape them into a location column for plotting. Paired boxplots can then show personal fouls or free-throw attempts per game, with white points marking means and a t-test annotation indicating statistical significance.
