The decisions and system sciences (DSS) department has teamed up with the St. Joe’s men’s basketball program to host a basketball analytics competition for students.
The winner will get the opportunity to work closely with Head Coach Billy Lange and his staff to provide analytical insight for the team.
“I want the student body to know that we want to be connected to them and that they provide us great value,” Lange said. “They help us compete at a high level of Division I basketball both with their support in Hagan Arena but also with their brains and their talents, and this is an opportunity for them to do that.”
Sixty students have signed up in a total of 16 different teams for the first round of the competition on Oct. 8.
Kathleen Campbell Garwood, Ph.D., assistant professor of DSS, said the content of the presentations is up to students.
“For the first round it can be as basic as a table chart to do a comparison of the box scores from the season when you compare people that are in our conference versus not in our conference, when we’re home versus when we are away, the first half versus the second half, to start to break down where the strengths and weaknesses of the basketball team are,” Campbell Garwood said. “If we know what their strengths are, we can prepare for games better.”
In the spirit of college basketball, the competition will feature a “final four.” On Oct. 21, four groups will advance to the final round of presentations, to be held in the Mandeville Hall Teletorium. Open to members of the St. Joe’s community, the presentations will be judged by Lange, his staff and members of the DSS department.
For Lange the competition has two benefits: it is a way to apply analytics to help the basketball program succeed, and it is a way to start building an analytics program on campus that is geared toward basketball and those who are passionate about it.
“One of the things [that the NBA taught me] was that there’s a lot of gifted people that can contribute to the success of a basketball team that are beyond just players and coaches,” Lange said. “There’s a lot of different fans of the game, smart people, so I’m hoping to gain some of that talent.
Looking to fill that need at St. Joe’s, Lange sought the advice of Campbell Garwood, in search of a way to get more students involved.
“I went to meet with the coach, and he talked about how much fun he had with all the different people at the Sixers that brought data and different ideas to the table,” Campbell Garwood said. “He was hoping to work with the BI [business intelligence and analytics] department to start generating that kind of relationship between the team and the school. I told him the best way to do that would be to have a competition.”
There is a cash prize of $500 and $200 set for first and second place winners. Although, for Campbell Garwood and Lange, the real prize of the event is getting the opportunity to meet and work with students who are passionate about both basketball and analytics at St. Joe’s.
“Men’s basketball at Saint Joseph’s is an important fabric to the threads of the institution,” Lange said. “It always has been, and so this is a chance for the students to be involved in areas where they are strong. It’s where their talents are. Their giftedness is there, and they get to use it to help this great program, so it’s a win-win.”
Campell Garwood also sees the competition as a win for the basketball team.
“The bigger goal is not even for the winners,” Campbell Garwood said. “But for the coaching staff and the coaches to meet the people at St. Joes who are passionate about basketball, to find people who want to go hang out after a game and break down game tape and help collect data and start putting together a series of systems that would help to use both analytics and good basketball to make decisions for the team.”
That’s exactly why Aidan Sullivan ’23 wanted to join this competition. For Sullivan, the opportunity to further his knowledge in the field of analytics combined with his love of sports was one he could not pass up.
“I knew coming into St. Joe’s that I wanted to learn more about analytics because that’s a part of my major,” Sullivan said. “And then I’m a really big sports fan, so to have this opportunity to combine the two was really exciting, and to learn more about how analytics is used in specifically basketball.”
While sign-ups are closed, Campbell Garwood said those who feel they have missed out on a great opportunity will have another chance next year.
“I want them to come and watch and start being a part of it now, so next year when we do this it’s twice as big,” Campbell Garwood said. “That’s my dream.”
