Data Analytics for College Sports

Sports Analytics Have Changed the Game for Good: Image Link

This article, titled “Data Analytics Helps College Coaches and Athletes Optimize Training and Performance”, was posted on the EdTech Magazine website on August 6th, 2019.

Author Background

Chris Hayhurst’s LinkedIn Photo, screenshotted. LinkedIn profile linked below.

Based out of Northampton, MA, Chris Hayhurst is a freelance writer with an expansive portfolio of articles ranging from health to education technology. With a B.S. in Environmental Sciences and English from Boston College and an M.S. in Biomedical Sciences from Colorado State University, Hayhurst has a gamut of interests and subject matter knowledge. He is known as a large contributor to the CDW Corporation’s family of technology magazines. He has written for topics on EdTech Magazine such as Data Analytics, Hardware, Classroom, Networking, Security, and Software.

SocialMedia	URL
EdTech Page	https://edtechmagazine.com/higher/author/chris-hayhurst
Personal Website	https://www.chrishayhurst.com/
LinkedIn URL	https://www.linkedin.com/in/chris-hayhurst-10764419/

What is Sports Analytics?

Ever heard of Moneyball? The 2011 film, based off of the 2003 book, Moneyball, written by Michael Lewis, is a sports drama film about the true story about the Oakland Athletics baseball team in 2002. Billy Beane, the manager at the time, worked to create an extremely talented team comprised of undervalued talent by collecting and analyzing data for baseball players. Using this data-driven approach, he was able to determine the best players to recruit.

Many say this occurrence in 2002 turned out the start of rapid growth in the practice of sports analytics. Sports analytics consists of the application of data in combination with mathematical and statistical analysis to sports. This can help with a range of things, such as scouting and player performance improvement. Many professional teams in the U.S. service professional statisticians to help their team in this way. Coaches can optimize exercise and nutrition programs, as well as better analyze game stats such as hit or fumble rate, speed on the field, and number of field goals.

See below for average yearly salary numbers of a Sports Statistical Analyst as of Sept 2020 according to ZipRecruiter.

Location	Salary
Nationwide	$77,617
Charlottesville, VA	$73,187

Summary of Article

Data and its role in collegiate athletics is finally coming to fruition. This article details the work of multiple different college sports programs and how they are beginning to more efficiently use the data they have available to them to improve their athletics both on a player and team level. Many teams across the country have had access to data for years. The manner in which they use it, however, has only recently been optimized. Microsoft’s Power BI and SharePoint are just two of the many technologies that are being adopted across campuses to provide data visualizations that are much easier to interpret for the common man, as well as collect and filter through much larger sets of data. Performance can be compared against other players, and against the player themselves throughout different times in the game. While it is unclear just how many collegiate sports programs have adopted data analytic practices, it clear that the number is quickly growing, as evident by conferences being held solely for the purpose of emphasizing the need for scientific analysis and visualization in collegiate sports. Data is being acquired from all angles - video and stats from the book, as well as more physical data such as heart rate and GPS monitoring. With more data available than ever before, the world of college sports is finally joining the accelerating bandwagon of interpreting this information for the betterment of the program.

Number of Universities Mentioned	Number of Sports Mentioned
8	9

OSU, UVA, and W&M are just some of the colleges engaging in Data Analytics Practices.

Photo links for OSU, UVA, W&M.

Universities and Their Progress

Detailed below is a summary table with the Universities that were mentioned in detail in this article, as well as the sports and some of the technologies these schools’ sports programs have been adopting as the forefront of sports analytics in a college sport setting.

University	Sports Mentioned	Tech Used
Oregon State University	Baseball, Swimming, Gymnastics	Power BI, SharePoint, Video Data
University of Louisville	Basketball	wearables, self-reports, IBM Analytics
University of Virginia	Football	student developed decision-making analytics tools
University of Rochester	Basketball, Soccer	commercially available products
William & Mary	Cross-Country, Tennis, Lacrosse	heart rate monitors, GPS software, tools for physiology and movement tracking, Google Sheets

Related Articles & My Two Cents

Similar articles on EdTech

1. How Data Analytics is Helping Universities Restart Sports

2. How Data Analytics Will Help Campuses Reopen Safely

3.How Higher Ed Can Use Data Analytics to Boost Admissions

Other Articles by Hayhurst

1. Looking Back, Moving Forward: Preparing for the Unknown

2.How Intel Helps Universities Improve Online Learning

3.Connecting College Campuses Through Cloud Computing

My Two Cents

For me, this article was a very nice lens into the sports analytics world. Volunteering as a basketball coach for young girls while in high school, I was always trying to figure out the best means in which I can help my team improve their skills. Simply running through drills wasn’t cutting it. Some people would already be well-off without having to run through such simple skills such as dribbling with a non-dominant hand or making a layup, and others would need a lot of practice. Still, some who performed well in drills during practice would play poorly during a game. While this level of game play is far less intense and competitive than the collegiate level, I imagine frustrations can be paralleled in some regard. Now that a efficient way to utilize data has been found, practice and performance can be improved in the most optimal way. It’s so interesting to see that data is not limited to just a science field. I also, of course, appreciated the mention of UVA and the student created decision-making analytics that we provide the football team, as I believe this was a capstone project from the Systems Engineering department, which I am majoring in. I hope to be able to contribute to a capstone like this and know that I am making a difference in the way that systems are improved through the use of data analysis.

Random Table and Plot

USArrests data table

Urban Population vs Number of Assaults