Scott Baker, Software Engineer
Tom Masterman, VP of Sales
Corey Wacknov, Game Success Lead

The excitement level at ShotTracker HQ is rising each day as we watch our large data monitors track and tally the increasing number of active ball and player sensors on practice courts, and the rapidly building number of total shots taken. With the NCAA basketball season now underway, we’re thrilled to welcome a growing number of NCAA men’s and women’s programs to our program, and new metrics to our team app. Applying Machine Learning from our partners at Verizon is unlocking additional analytical categories, and we look forward to learning more about what drives game success. Two of the trends we are particularly interested in tracking this season include the role that screens have in driving play outcomes, and the impact of the new women’s three point line distance. Innovation in basketball is crucial for these analyses.

ShotTracker Innovation in Basketball: Tracking How Screens Drive Play Outcomes

Understanding the data that ladders up to winning games and learning more about adaptive technology in sport is a major focus of ours. Last season, we leveraged our sensor technology to provide coaches real-time insights into the conditions under which a shot was made or missed – including scenarios such as guarded versus unguarded, and catch-and-shoot versus off-the-dribble. This season, through our partnership with Verizon and their Device Technology Analytics Team, we’ve applied advanced analytics to our raw X-Y-Z data set to identify play types. In particular, we can now identify screen types, and attach the play outcome to each type. From an analysis of about 10,000 ball screen events over the last two seasons, here are some insights that we found regarding innovation in basketball and what we’ll be providing to our teams on the bench this season:

First, we identified nine ball screen types (roll, short roll, pop, slip, drag, reject, re-screen, step-up, and dribble handoff) and 6 ball screen defense types (switch, stay, drop, hedge, ice, and blitz). The most frequent ball screen types we detected were: pick and roll (34%), handoff (24%) and pick & pop (15%). All other screen types occurred between 3 and 5 percent of the time. The most frequent ball screen defenses were: stay (26%), drop (25%), switch (25%), hedge (21%), blitz (2%) and ice (1%).

When it comes to defending a pick and roll, the most common defensive actions were hedge (38%), drop (34%) and switch (21%). When guarding against a pick and pop, defenses switched 36% of the time, dropped 30% of the time, and 17% of the time the screener defender hedged the screen instead of staying back in the paint. For handoffs, as you could imagine, defenses generally stayed with their man (66%) or switched (30%). Innovation in basketball has provided valuable insights into these patterns.

This season, we’ll be able to not only show teams how frequently these instances occur, but which players are involved, where on the court the actions are happening, and most importantly – how efficient their team is when these types of screens occur.

ShotTracker Innovation in Basketball: Impact of Deeper Women’s Three Point Line

We are also leading the way in helping coaches analyze and optimize their lineups and play-calling. We’ve worked closely with teams, conferences and the NCAA to drive innovation to elevate the game – including a rule allowing for “tech on the bench” during games. This past year, we were pleased to provide detailed historical shooting data that informed the NCAA in their decision to move the Women’s three point line from 20’ 9” to the International distance of 22’ 1.75”. Here’s our expanded analysis:

We pulled all shot data for all ShotTracker-enabled women’s teams over the past two seasons, and sought answers to the following questions:

• How far is the average three point field goal over the past two seasons?
• How is shooting accuracy impacted by deeper shot distance?
• How might the new women’s three-point distance impact shooting?

What the data shows is that both made and missed three-pointer distance increased about 1.5 inches in just a single year. And, in both seasons, shots both made and missed were, on average, about 2.5 feet beyond the 20’ 9” line. But was accuracy impacted?

Shooting accuracy increased despite the deeper average shooting distance. This is not a surprise, given the continued focus on the three-point shot. This led us to speculate on how the new 22’ 1.75” line might impact the distance and accuracy of women’s three point shooting this season. Looking at the past two seasons, it’s clear that a high and increasing percentage of shots have been taken and made from outside the new arc distance.

What these data show is that players are already comfortable shooting at the new distance. Innovation in basketball continues to push the limits of player capabilities. What we’ll be looking at this season is:

Will players continue to shoot 2.5 feet beyond the new arc to maintain the benefit of more separation from potential defenders, or will they toe up near the line?
If closer to the line, will defenders be more able to closely contest threes and impact shooting accuracy? Or, if players continue to shoot from well behind the three point line, will their shooting accuracy drop?
Given the increasing reliance on three point shooting, we’re excited to analyze the impact of the deeper line, and we’ll be sure to share these and other findings we derive from ShotTracker data.

We’re thrilled to continue to rapidly expand our partner school roster and the analytics that support them, and are excited to watch three point distances, screen outcomes and other trends unfold. As always, we welcome feedback, so please visit our product demo pages and let us know what you think and how we can continue to adapt and grow together!