The use of video analytics technologies has grown exponentially in basketball for the past 20 years. Catapult’s video solutions have been used to support key training and recruiting decisions, driving some of the most important player-centric analysis among the NBA, NCAA, and international basketball teams.
We recently met with the video coordinators of the Syracuse University and University of Kentucky basketball teams to discuss the new developments coming up at Catapult. video analysis and the innovations they’ve seen during their two decades with Catapult.
“Video analytics has come a long way since I started Catapult in 1997,” said Todd Blumen, Syracuse University Basketball video coordinator. “Then we would set up two VCR tapes and pause and record to rewind important clips, which is a long way from where we are today.”
1996 NCAA Champion Tony Delk | Basketball video analysis
University of Kentucky training video coordinator Tim Asher has also used Catapult since the 1990s. “The first system we had was revolutionary, but relative to today it is far behind. At the time, I never thought of capturing an entire game, you just had to capture the clip you wanted and then delete others when you ran out of space, “explained Asher.
“Now you can capture everything and forget about having to delete clips. Coaches can now request any in-game clip and with a couple of clicks, it’s okay with them, ”he continued.
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Storage limits: take advantage of the cloud
Catapult has worked hard for the past 20 years to continually deliver the best solutions for the best teams in the world. One of the most The notable innovations has been the increase in storage space.
Blumen explained: “The original machine contained six 9GB hard drives with a total of 56GB of space, and that was equivalent to about three and a half hours of basketball movie.”
Asher shared: “Now your phone is 128GB and the storage is more affordable. The fact that it can store so much more has improved our video analytics technology, it has gotten faster, but removing our storage limits was key for us. “
Catapult recently made full-time recording possible and removed previous storage limits with the help of cloud-based technology.
“I record everything now and have been doing it since Catapult made it possible,” Blumen said. “I have all regular season games recorded since 2013 and all my ACC opponents’ games since 2016.”
“Having all these games and clips is great. Before a season starts, we can configure our shortcuts for in-game clipsShow players some clips from previous seasons so they can work on areas of their game and let our coaches explore players and team patterns early. I have 54 TB of free games and clips accessible.”
According to both NCAA basketball video coordinators, removing video analytics storage limits was particularly beneficial last season.
“Due to the pandemic, we eliminated about 800 games from high school, but in a normal year, you would probably have 50 games by comparison. So now we are very rich in ‘videos’, ”Asher said.
“We can record all the NBA, FIBA and AAU games. We break down the players and the offenses, we have personnel who constantly seek to capture different plays, in players who arereally playing well in the NBA and other leagues, which allows our players to emulate some of his moves. “
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The future: contextualized data
“In my video room, there is no low season. Either you have things that you’re working on, for your current players or you’re working on future players because coaches are leaning more towards the video side every year, ”Asher explained.
“One innovation that has really driven the decision making of our coaches and our team has been the ability to catch live at halftime. We are showing the knowledge of our teams at halftime and we can impact the game before it ends. Also, Catapult has made it easier with different viewable angles on an iPad, allowing us to do a better job for our coaches. “
Catapult’s video contextualized data offering is bolstered by the recent $ 45m capital increase to acquire industry-leading SBG Sports Software.
“Based on what I have seen, I think the toolkit is very good, I really liked the tools. It appears to be a fairly flexible set of tools to use in the future, ”Asher explained.
Syracuse’s Blumen continued: “I like the logging tools, the multiple captures, the cross-platform component is huge; now I can stay on my PC instead of switching to Mac.”
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Customer success: competitive advantage
Despite a functional and flexible video analytics solution for basketball, what keeps Asher and Blumen as longtime customers is Catapult’s best-in-class customer success.
“There are many companies that want to come in and sell you software and then you never see them again. Catapult is not a group that does that, they will keep in touch, “explained Asher.
“The Catapult team will accept our feedback and then implement it in the product. They are very responsive and we trust Catapult to provide us with the tools we need to do our job, helping the team do what it needs to do. For that reason alone I have been with these guys since 1994. “
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About SBG Sports Software
SBG, a Catapult company, is dedicated to developing the most advanced real-time visualization and analysis systems for elite sports professionals. From strategy software in Formula 1 to performance analysis and live decision support in elite football, SBG creates sophisticated software that seamlessly processes and syncs multiple video, audio and data sources for live view, accuracy prediction, and post-event review. SBG products help teams make informed and insightful decisions and deliver winning strategies: RaceWatch is motorsport’s premier application for race strategy, predictive modeling and race review; MatchTracker offers performance analysis for ball sports before the game, live events and post-game; Focus provides multi-channel sideline recording, instant playback and tagging for all sports; SBG Hub offers collaborative sharing and workflow automation.
