As the second day of the Elite 8 is upon us many traditional powers like Duke, Louisville, Michigan State and UCLA prepare to get one step closer to yet another Final Four appearance next weekend in Indianapolis. As all sports fans know, the difference between winning and losing a tournament game is razor thin and any edge you can achieve over your opponent is invaluable in the quest to stay alive in the single-elimination NCAA Tournament.
Traditionally, many basketball programs employ video staffs that can assemble clips for the coaching staff to study their next opponent and key players, but Synergy Sports has taken this standard process and made it more efficient for the coaching and support staffs.
Synergy boasts an enormous college and professional basketball video library and arms coaches with advanced data combined with film analysis to get any edge on their opponent. While the Arizona Wildcats were able to hold off the Xavier Musketeers last night to earn a berth to the Sweet 16, they probably knew going in that double-teaming Xavier center Matt Stainbrook was a very risky idea:
Xavier’s Matt Stainbrook has created 170 points via passes out of the post this season, the top mark in the NCAA by a considerable margin.
— Synergy Sports Tech (@SynergySST) March 27, 2015
While Stainbrook still had a very good game against the Wildcats, scoring 17 points, it seemed like double teams in the post come very infrequently for a talented post player in college basketball. It would be interesting to see the Synergy Data!
Here is an example from the University of Arizona communications office, which recently did a profile on Synergy’s capabilities for the Wildcat basketball team:
Here’s how specific it can get: If the UA coaching staff wants to examine all of the team’s possessions with less than 4 seconds on the shot clock, or any of T.J. McConnell’s steals, or all of the times the team scored off of an inbound pass, it’s no problem. For most people, that would mean hours of tedious video editing, but Synergy clients can have matching video clips in a matter of seconds.
Synergy Co-Founder Scott Mossman also told Arizona how they get their footage and increase the efficiency for coaching staffs.
“Synergy probably has the biggest database of college basketball video anywhere,” Mossman said. “The way it works is: We grab the video via satellite or we have the teams upload it if the game isn’t televised, and then we take that video and we cut it, edit it, record the stats and then — most importantly — catalog and index it in an organized and efficient way.
Mossman went on to describe a specific example of how thorough this data is and how much time it can save.
“Let’s do a basic example. Take your point guard, T.J. McConnell. He’s had 71 turnovers over the course of the season. So in our system, you can go in and go to his cumulative stats page. If you click on his turnovers, it will compile a list of every one of those turnovers linked immediately with the live video clips.”
In a format like the NCAA Tournament, this kind of efficiency is invaluable. For teams that are fortunate enough to make it to the Second Round and Elite 8, there is often less than 48 hours to prepare a game plan. With Synergy’s services, teams can now have full statistical and video breakdowns within minutes of learning their next opponent.