Minimum Difference Between Highest and Lowest of K Scores

You are given a 0-indexed integer array nums, where nums[i] represents the score of the ith student. You are also given an integer k.

Pick the scores of any k students from the array so that the difference between the highest and the lowest of the k scores is minimized.

Return the minimum possible difference.

Example 1:

Input: nums = [90], k = 1
Output: 0
Explanation: There is one way to pick score(s) of one student:

• [90]. The difference between the highest and lowest score is 90 - 90 = 0. The minimum possible difference is 0.

Example 2:

Input: nums = [9,4,1,7], k = 2
Output: 2
Explanation: There are six ways to pick score(s) of two students:

• [9,4,1,7]. The difference between the highest and lowest score is 9 - 4 = 5.
• [9,4,1,7]. The difference between the highest and lowest score is 9 - 1 = 8.
• [9,4,1,7]. The difference between the highest and lowest score is 9 - 7 = 2.
• [9,4,1,7]. The difference between the highest and lowest score is 4 - 1 = 3.
• [9,4,1,7]. The difference between the highest and lowest score is 7 - 4 = 3.
• [9,4,1,7]. The difference between the highest and lowest score is 7 - 1 = 6. The minimum possible difference is 2.

Constraints:

• 1 <= k <= nums.length <= 1000
• 0 <= nums[i] <= 105

SOLUTION:

class Solution:
    def minimumDifference(self, nums: List[int], k: int) -> int:
        nums.sort()
        n = len(nums)
        minDiff = float('inf')
        for i in range(n - k + 1):
            minDiff = min(minDiff, nums[i + k - 1] - nums[i])
        return minDiff