This year’s NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament saw a noticeable increase in the coverage of the analytics teams use and in the role strength coaches play.
- Davidson Basketball’s Sixth Man: The Math Department Five Thirty Eight
- Duke Fans Are About to Unlock the Most Sophisticated Stats in College Sports Bloomberg Business
- UA, Opponents Rely on Data Analytics UANews, University of Arizona
- March Madness 2015: Duke University Leads College Basketball’s Data Revolution EdTech Magazine
- Michigan State Acquires a Size Advantage in a Spreadsheet The New York Times
- College basketball coaches look for winning numbers in the overwhelming world of advanced analytics Orange County Register
- Louisville strength and conditioning coach Ray Ganong turns into a cheerleader during games Syracuse.com
- Recovery time plays key role for NCAA’s March Madness athletes FOX News
- Badgers men’s basketball: Strength coach Erik Helland provides strong behind-the-scenes support Madison.com
- A Strength Coach for Wisconsin Uses an App That Works More Than Thumb Muscles The New York Times
In some ways the championship will be a contest between the expertise each team calls on to improve. It is the analytics at Duke versus the athlete development at Wisconsin, though it is safe to assume that neither team neglects any opportunity to improve, analytically or physically. As the college basketball game evolves, the best team in March is a team that has lots of knowledge over the season and a team that has maintained, or maybe increased, its strength and fitness over the season.
The Best Things I Read Last Week
- How an old point guard plays young ESPN The Magazine … Smart, quick article about NBA point guard Tony Parker, who has learned to use smarts as age diminishes his quickness. Part of an issue devoted to the Point Guard.
- Overtraining Athletics Weekly, UK … Coaches and athletes often have the habit to push and push, until the inevitable injury occurs, and then you recover and the cycle starts again. Good information, like this, is what’s needed to break the cycle.
- Four Ways to Build Mental Toughness Runner’s World, Ask Coach Jenny blog … Normally these how-tos feature banal advice, like remember to eat breakfast. But these 4 tips come from a Navy SEAL Commander and half of them are actually insightful.
- Running economy: measurement, norms, and determining factors Sports Medicine – Open … Every athlete is different, and one way they differ is running economy, making it a complicated subject that is also difficult to apply, but the potential gains make it worthwhile.
- Interview: Bill Moreau, USOC on Empowering World’s Best Athletes through Analytics KD Nuggets … First of a three-part series on the data science of Olympic athlete training.