In order to not lose the actual news of the day it should be said from the outset that Penn State men’s basketball beat Quinnipiac 77-68 on Thursday afternoon to improve to 9-3 on the year. It was generally like so many games the Nittany Lions have been part of this season. There was cold shooting [33% in the first half] good shooting [50% in the second half], reliable defense and Jalen Pickett doing a little bit of everything [21 points, 12 rebounds and nine assists]. The game wasn’t as close as the final score, but certainly closer than some of Penn State’s blowout victories this season.
As a statistical aside, Pickett ended the outing an assist shy of his second triple-double which would have been the third in program history. Penn State will play Delaware State a week from today to close out the non-conference slate before heading into the heart of Big Ten play at 1-1 against conference foes.
With all of that out of the way….
The world of computer learning and artificial intelligence is an ever growing field. Sometimes that advancement comes in the form of things we can see, other times it is more subtle. In any case, enter the language model ChatGPT a website chat engine which is described as the following:
“We’ve trained a model called ChatGPT which interacts in a conversational way. The dialogue format makes it possible for ChatGPT to answer followup questions, admit its mistakes, challenge incorrect premises, and reject inappropriate requests. ChatGPT is a sibling model to InstructGPT, which is trained to follow an instruction in a prompt and provide a detailed response.”
So I, interested in losing my job to an automated process, loaded in the game’s box score and scoring play-by-play, and asked the chat to write me a story.
This is what it came up with, the best version through three attempts. Will I lose my job? Not yet, but also don’t forward this to my boss.
“It was a thrilling matchup between Penn State and Quinnipiac at the Bryce Jordan Center on Thursday afternoon. The Nittany Lions, playing without forward Seth Lundy, ultimately came out on top with a 77-68 victory.” [earlier versions of the story had the game occurring at night.]
“The game was close in the opening minutes, with both teams trading baskets and free throws. Quinnipiac’s Ike Nweke and Tymu Chenery provided an early spark for the Bobcats, while Penn State’s Jalen Pickett and Camren Wynter kept the Nittany Lions in the game.” [Pickett and Wynter score 17 points in the first half but Penn State never trailed by more than three in the first few minutes of regulation.]
“As the first half progressed, Penn State began to take control, thanks in part to strong shooting from Pickett and Wynter. The Nittany Lions took a six-point lead into halftime, and they continued to build on that advantage in the second half.” [All pretty accurate]
“Andrew Funk and Myles Dread both hit key three-pointers to help Penn State pull away, and the Nittany Lions were able to maintain their lead down the stretch. Pickett finished the game with 21 points and nine rebounds, while Wynter added 12 points and nine rebounds. Funk chipped in 16 points and Dread had three points.” [Dread went 1-for-4 from beyond the arc, but his make was in the first half not the second. Funk had a handful of second-half buckets, how important they were is subjective.]
“Quinnipiac was led by Nweke, who had 12 points and three assists, and Chenery, who had 12 points and four assists. Matt Balanc and Dezi Jones added eight points each for the Bobcats.” [Accurate]
“With the win, Penn State improved to 9-3 on the year, while Quinnipiac fell to 6-6. The Nittany Lions will look to continue their winning ways when they face off against their next opponent.” [Quinnipiac is now 9-4 on the year, not 6-6.]
