COLLEGE PARK, MD. – Before March Madness began last weekend, the expectation was that it would be the most open tournament in recent memory. Top teams had rotated with great frequency and most of the top seeds weren’t even secured until Selection Sunday. Now that the tournament has been reduced down from the original 68 teams to the “Sweet 16”, which begins tonight, the tournament has certainly lived up to its expectations.
Upsets occurred in the first round at an alarming rate when ten double digit seeds won first round games. Only the Gonzaga Bulldogs won two games against single digit seeds.
One team that avoided the early round drama was the Maryland Terrapins, which won two hard-fought games last weekend against North Dakota State and Hawaii. The Terrapins earned the opportunity to take on the top-seeded Kansas Jayhawks tonight for the right to advance to the Elite 8, one step away from the program’s first Final Four since 2002.
Sweet, sweet GAMEDAY…
: #5 Terps vs. #1 Kansas
: 9:40pm EST
: CBS pic.twitter.com/Zuc1VdRzC9
— Maryland Terrapins (@umterps) March 24, 2016
As evidenced last weekend, the difference between winning and losing is extremely small and the Tournament’s single elimination format makes that margin for error even tighter. If you slip up, there are no second chances.
In this constant quest for an edge, Maryland Basketball, and the Athletics Department as a whole, has been utilizing technology to assist in better understanding their players so they can develop their optimum shape to not only succeed on the court, but to play to the maximum of their abilities in the best possible health.
Last month I was able to observe the Maryland Basketball training and sports science team in person, before their game against fellow Sweet 16 participant Wisconsin Badgers. During this experience I saw a program that has become fully devoted to integrating their day-to-day efforts with technology.
A major impetus for this immersion into technology was Maryland’s hire of David Klossner in September of 2013, after he spent 10 years as the Director of the NCAA Sport Science Institute. His hire came two years after the Terrapins hired Mark Turgeon away from Texas A&M to be their head coach. The two have combined to bring Maryland to the cutting edge of technological benefits in player performance.
Maryland players are synced up in the morning to an OmegaWave system that measures cognitive functioning; their mental readiness and central nervous system fatigue, giving the coaches an overall feel for the player’s mental state at the start of the day.
“The number one thing is we want to get information on our guys,” said Maryland Director of Basketball Performance Kyle Tarp to CSN Mid-Atlantic. “We want to know what their stress levels are, what they are feeling and to help guide them throughout the season and make optimal decisions to maximize their performance.”
Before the players even start their physical training or practice for the day, the OmegaWave system allows coaches and support staff to better understand how the players feel and if they need to ask questions to obtain additional information, rather than finding out the hard way with a potential injury.
Once the team begins practice, the OmegaWave system is combined with a system called Zephyr, which monitors player heart rate and G-force, giving coaches actionable data they can act on to ensure the player is in peak physical condition. An example chart from a Zephyr reading is shown below. This data is monitored in real time by coaches and relayed regularly to Turgeon, who can then adjust his practice plans for individual players based on the readings.
After practice is over a final reading is taken for each player and the coaching staff can evaluate how hard the practice was and the impact it had on the player. This assessment is often very different from Turgeon’s perceptions.
“Sometimes I think we had a really easy practice, but the data shows otherwise and it was a difficult one,” said Turgeon. “On the flip side, sometimes I think we had a very difficult practice and the data could show our guys weren’t pushed as hard as anticipated.”
Here is an example report from Maryland Basketball actually used from this season:
The data collected has proven to be extremely valuable, especially during the grind of an extended conference and NCAA Tournament season when players could log 40 minutes of action in a critical game. This data helps avoid non-contact injury, such as cramping, or potentially very serious injuries like ligament damage.
While the collection and use of the data is still in the early stages, after only three seasons of data gathering, it has already helped Maryland’s sports performance staff become aware of patterns and almost anticipate when a player could be trending downward health-wise. As more data is recorded over time, these trends will become more noticeable and serious non-contact injuries will become preventable.
The system also allows the coaching staff to adjust their methods prior to a problem developing instead of having to react to a situation that is already dire or, in the case of a serious injury, where the player could be sidelined the rest of the season.
While technology by itself won’t allow Maryland to beat a very potent Kansas Jayhawk Basketball team tonight, the data monitoring throughout the season has enhanced Maryland’s strong health and improved the chance that their top players will be at their peak performance tonight and perhaps pull off an upset.
For a school that is looking to hang a second championship banner next to the 2002 one hanging in the Comcast Center, every little percentage point helps.