Nick Whitfield
February 8, 2021
Fully-Logged Games Now Delivered in as Little as 30 Minutes.
As soon as the buzzer sounds, coaches are already thinking about the next game. With this in mind, Synergy Sports has worked to reduce turnaround times for Men’s and Women’s NCAA Division 1 games to less than 2 hours. This allows coaching staffs to begin breaking down the game they just played as well as scouting their next opponent right after the final buzzer sounds. In the locker room, on the bus or on the plane, no time gets wasted.
Due to the ongoing global pandemic, teams have been forced into being flexible when it comes to the timings and the amount of time to prepare for games. Synergy’s live logging has already demonstrated real value to teams trying to condense their game preparation. Casey Alexander, Head Coach at Belmont for the Men’s Basketball program said “The implementation of live logging by Synergy this season has been very beneficial for our program. Knowing both video and analytics will be quickly available following each game allows our staff to more efficiently plan and better manage our time than in years past. The live logging process especially helps our team to feel more confident and prepared during quick game turnarounds and tournament situations.”
Live logging accelerates team’s ability to analyze their own and opponents’ games. In order for games to be analyzed in Synergy’s coaching, scouting and analytics tools, games go through a process where the events of the game are “tagged” for them to then become searchable, filterable and quantifiable. Traditionally, this process has been done over a 24-hour period for these games. This season however, Synergy Sports has launched live logging for:
1. All Men’s and Women’s Division 1 games captured via Synergy Sports Automated Capture Systems
2. Every Division 1 Men’s game available on a TV broadcast or accessible stream
For these live-logged games, Synergy Sports delivers tagged games available for analysis within two hours of the game finishing. This is an incredible improvement from the 24 hours previously guaranteed and can make a significant difference for Synergy users and partners.
Discussing the benefit that this quicker turnaround has provided, Matt Garvey, Video Coordinator for Providence Men’s Basketball said “The synergy live logging this year has been instrumental in our video breakdowns. With games being cancelled and added because of the pandemic this season we haven’t missed a beat. All thanks to this incredible service.” Furthering the sense of how important this service has been due to the reduced operational capacity of scouting departments due to the pandemic, AJ Van Handel, Video Coordinator for Wisconsin Men’s Basketball said “Being able to download opponents’ games within hours after they’re completed has absolutely saved our scouting process this year as Covid-19 protocols have diminished our student managers abilities to capture the games for us. Thanks to Synergy we’ve been able to keep our scouting process as close to normal as possible, which in a year where nothing is normal, makes a huge difference.”
Even at the Conference level, Synergy partners are seeing the value in having games available within hours of games finishing. Aaron Woliczko, Senior Associate Commissioner at the West Coast Conference said “The West Coast Conference is excited to continue our partnership with Synergy Sports at the University Credit Union West Coast Conference Men’s and Women’s Basketball Tournament. There have been many adjustments in protocols due to the COVID-19 pandemic to our tournament as well as the NCAA Tournament. One of those protocols is not allowing our coaches to live scout at our event, which increases the need for quality video breakdown in a timely fashion. At our tournament, Synergy Sports will offer the WCC ‘live logging’ so that our coaches will have access to raw video and broken-down clips immediately following the games, this will be a major benefit for our coaches as they breakdown video for scouting purposes.”
Synergy Sports has worked closely with its college sports partners to help maintain performance levels and opportunities to succeed despite the difficulties that COVID-19 has posed. Synergy Sports’ Max Editor offer and the roll out of live logging have been specifically geared to ease the challenges Synergy Sports has heard directly from NCAA coaching staffs. Discussing the focus on helping college sports, Synergy Sports CEO Mark Silver said “Synergy Sports is committed to demonstrating and realizing the values we believe in as a business. Doing what is within our power to aid our partners in the world of collegiate athletics to overcome the challenges they face right now and to try and benefit everyone across coaches, student-athletes, conferences and fans is one way we can try and tangibly live these values.”