madness

Updating Game Scores

History

We used to use a gem called espn-scraper which is a fork of aj0strow/espn-scraper but it is defunkt and no longer calls the right API.

Reverse engineering the API

If you navigate to the ESPN Scoreboard with Chrome dev tools on, in the Network Tab you can search for text. Search for a team name to get various API calls that had it in the response.

Here is one:

https://site.web.api.espn.com/apis/site/v2/sports/basketball/mens-college-basketball/scoreboard?region=us&lang=en&contentorigin=espn&limit=300&calendartype=blacklist&includeModules=videos%2Ccards&dates=20220317&tz=America%2FNew_York&buyWindow=1m&showAirings=buy%2Clive&showZipLookup=true

The Preview tab of the response is useful. You can right-click and “expand all” to see interesting data.

The path events is an array of games. for each game there seems to be a shape:

• event.status.type.name is an enum of game states (STATUS_FINAL is the finalized game)

• event.competitions[0].competitors is a 2-element array of teams

  • .id is the int ID of the team
  • .curatedRank.current is the seed
  • .homeAway is “home” or “away”
  • .score is a string with the current score
  • .team.abbreviation is an abbreviated name
  • .team.displayName is a long team name
  • .team.shortDisplayName is a standard name
  • .team.name is a mascot name
  • .team.logo is a link to a logo png file

Other interesting fields not needed for this project:

• event.odds is an array with the spread and o/u

We can shorten the url a bit:

curl 'https://site.web.api.espn.com/apis/site/v2/sports/basketball/mens-college-basketball/scoreboard?dates=20220317&tz=America%2FNew_York'

Now, a bit of ruby to get the data we want:

require 'net/http'

class EspnScores
  def self.scores_for(date)
    api_url = URI("https://site.web.api.espn.com/apis/site/v2/sports/basketball/mens-college-basketball/scoreboard?dates=#{date}&tz=America%2FNew_York")

    resp = Net::HTTP.get(api_url)
    events = JSON.parse(resp).to_h.with_indifferent_access[:events]

    events.map do |event|
      status = event.dig('status', 'type', 'name')

      teams = event['competitions'].first['competitors'].map do |competitor|
        {
          id: competitor['id'],
          seed: competitor.dig('curatedRank', 'current'),
          home_away: competitor['homeAway'],
          score: competitor['score'].to_i,
          abbrev: competitor.dig('team', 'abbreviation')
        }
      end

      { status:, teams: }
    end
  end
end

Associating Teams with ESPN teams

For ESPN on each game we know the seed, abbreviation, and who they’re playing. As a first pass, we can just take the seed number, compare the first char of the abbreviation to the 4 teams with the same seed and assign if it matches.

If needed, we can do it in pairs. For each pair of teams, find the 2 abbreviation first letters that match the pair/slots.

This should allow a fairly accurate script.

Grab the scores for thursday and friday:

first_round = EspnScores.scores_for(Date.today) + EspnScores.scores_for(Date.tomorrow)
first_round.size # should == 32

teams = Team.all.to_a


first_round.each do |score|
  score_team_one, score_team_two = score[:teams].map {|t| [t[:seed], t[:abbrev]]}


  possible_team_one = teams.find {|t| t.seed == score_team_one.first && t.name.starts_with?(score_team_one[1].chars.first)}
  possible_team_two = teams.find {|t| t.seed == score_team_two.first && t.name.starts_with?(score_team_two[1].chars.first)}

  if possible_team_one && !possible_team_two
    possible_team_two = teams.find {|t| t.starting_slot == possible_team_one.starting_slot + 1}
  elsif possible_team_two && !possible_team_one
    possible_team_one = teams.find {|t| t.starting_slot == possible_team_two.starting_slot - 1}
  end

  possible_team_one&.update(score_team_id: score_team_one[1])
  possible_team_two&.update(score_team_id: score_team_two[1])
end

#Left over abbrev
out = ["Unused Abbreviations: "]
first_round.each do |score|
  score[:teams].each do |team|
    if Team.find_by(score_team_id: team[:abbrev]).nil?
      out << "#{team[:seed]}, #{team[:abbrev]}"
    end
  end
end

out.each {|line| puts line}