I Need Help With the Numbers in a US Open Report

AtLarge

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The "Appleton Wins US Open" report currently on the AzBilliards home page contains the following sentence:
"Deuel ended up sinking 133 of the 218 balls he shot at, giving him a higher shot percentage (60%) than Appleton, who’d sunk 91 of the 154 balls he’d shot at and ended up with 59%."​

I was keeping score, including game details, while watching on Accu-Stats. The quoted sentence indicates that 224 balls were made between the two players. That's wrong, because only two games ended short of nine balls -- game #5 ended with a 4-9 combo and game #22 ended with a billiard from the 4 to the 9. The break was dry in game #5; the 7-ball was made on the break in game #22. So the total number of balls made was: 28 games times 9 balls per game less the nine balls not made in games #5 and #22, for a total of 243. Also, Appleton was the one making the greater number of balls, not Deuel. My numbers had Appleton with 136 and Deuel with 107. My numbers are apt to be slightly off, but not to the extent reported.

But those reporting mistakes are not my main point in making this thread. What I don't understand is the statement that Deuel shot at 218 balls and Appleton shot at 154 balls and that their shot percentages were about 60%. That would mean they shot at a total of 372 balls.

My observation was that they pocketed 243 balls, missed 17 shots, played safe 21 times, pushed 3 times, fouled 6 times (3 scratches, 2 no-hits, one jump off the table), and broke dry 8 times (including one scratch). That means that a cue stick struck the cue ball just under 300 times.

So how did the reporter calculate that they "shot at" 372 balls and that they had shooting percentages of only about 60%? I think the latter statistic vastly devalues the shooting proficiency of these top professionals.

Did the reporter count 9 balls "shot at" for each break shot? That would be silly. Am I overlooking something significant? Can anyone help?
 
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AtLarge

AzB Gold Member
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Nobody wants to hazard a guess? Nobody cares about the permanent news record for one of our top events declaring our champions to be 60% shooters?
 
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