The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
New tools of the trade
UConn uses analytics company in recruiting, player analysis
When Tristen Newton announced he was leaving East Carolina and entering the NCAA transfer portal a little over a month ago, the UConn men’s basketball coaching staff immediately shot him up to the top of their wish list.
A 6-foot-5, scoring point guard who dropped 25 points on the Huskies as a freshman, Newton seemed to be exactly what UConn was looking for. Head coach Dan Hurley and assistants Kimani Young and Luke Murray made calls to former ECU coach Joe Dooley and others to do their due diligence on Newton.
They also sought information from HD Intelligence.
From whom, you ask? HD Intelligence (HDI) is an analytics company founded in 2019 by Harvard graduates Matt Dover and Colton Houston. Taking its cue from NBA analytics departments, HDI looks to help college programs in two primary ways: performance analysis of players and scheduling opponents.
“We’re a full-service analytics company,” Houston said. “Anywhere in your program where we can help you get even a little bit better, we’re going to do that.”
The UConn men were one of 40 Division I programs — 32 men’s, eight women’s — that utilized HDI’s services this past season (the UConn women haven’t come aboard yet). The company has also recently begun working with the WNBA.
The Huskies received valuable help from HDI this past season in statistical analysis of its own players, as well as scouting opponents. And now that NCAA transfer season is in full swing — with some 1,500 players currently in the portal — UConn continues to use HDI as it zeroes in on potential transfers.
HDI has preloaded analytical data on all 5,000 or so Division 1 men’s basketball players from this past season, with players graded on a 0-99 scale, a la video game rankings. If UConn is interested in a particular player, HDI will populate a report with all of that player’s pertinent data and provide it to the staff.
“We’ll run a much deeper scouting report on a player: shooting percentage on different spots on the floor, late in shot clock vs. in transition, tendencies, how a team performs on defense when a player goes to the bench,” Dover noted.
Coaches can narrow down their player search to a certain position, height, even what part of the country the player is from.
“It’s a tool,” said Murray, who just finished his first season as a UConn assistant. “It’s something else that we use. It’s not necessarily something that we rely entirely on, but it’s another piece of information that we’re able to pull from to help make an evaluation on a player.”
Added Dover: “We’re saying, ‘Here’s what stands out to us, here’s what looks concerning.’ We’re not saying we’re in any way, shape or form the determining factor. But it is a piece of their decisions on what players they prioritize.”
Indeed, Hurley and his staff take a lot of pride in their own ability to assess recruits and how well they may fit with their program. They still very much value the eye test, watching film on dozens of potential transfers. They’ve recruited some of these players in the past, and have seen some, like Newton, more recently in person.
“With transferring becoming so prevalent, you trust your eyes,” Hurley said. “There may be some hesitancy from an analytics standpoint, relative to a specific player. That’s where your eyes have to determine whether you can help that player make an improvement.”
Newton spent three years in the American Athletic Conference, which any UConn fan will be quick to point out is not as strong as the Big East. So how might Newton’s game translate stepping up a level in competition? HDI’s system features algorithms that account for such conjecture, looking at its historical preseason player ratings juxtaposed against how those players ultimately performed after transferring to more competitive situations.
“Although there’s going to be a wide variety anytime you look at a large sample of players who are changing schools and situations,” Houston noted, “on the whole, our numbers have been really accurate.”
Shortly after Newton committed to the Huskies a few weeks ago, the UConn staff targeted Nahiem Alleyne, a shooting guard out of Virginia Tech.
After respective visits to Storrs, both players have committed to UConn — a tribute to a UConn hit percentage of getting commits on visits that’s better than any analytical stats.
It’s also a tribute to the staff ’s own assessments — and, certainly, to HDI.
“Obviously, a big part of the evaluation process is our own eye test and what we’ve seen on film, and our own positional roster needs, etc.,” Murray said. “But both of those guys (Newton and Alleyne) did grade out well (with HDI).”
EAGER TO BRING MORE ANALYTICS INTO PROGRAM
Prior to games throughout the season, an HDI employee (often Dover) would check in with the UConn staff via Zoom and discuss certain items: what’s been working and what hasn’t with lineups and combinations of players, things like that. They’d also set statistical goals for an upcoming game — cutting down turnovers, etc. — usually based on opponents’ defensive tendencies.
Minutes after each game, HDI e-mails the staff a box score with numerous advanced stats. These aren’t your father’s box scores.
“It’s much more based on per-minutes, and the efficiency of certain shots on the floor,” Murray said. “(Players’) percentage of shots at the rim, from different spots in 2-point range, 3-point range, off the dribble, catch-and-shoot. All sorts of detailed analysis of their games in totality — offense, defense, the whole deal.”
That would be followed within the hour by a onepage, bullet-point memo with takeaways from the game.
“We could have just provided some numbers after the game,” Houston explained, “but we really feel like what’s extremely valuable to a lot of these coaches is helping them interpret the data in plain, written English that doesn’t have a lot of technical terms in it.”
The feedback often provided revealing data. For instance, UConn’s offensive efficiency might be elevated due to its strong offensive rebounding numbers, when in fact its first-shot offense was not nearly what it should be.
Dover recalled visiting the UConn locker room following a 74-64 win over St. Bonaventure on Dec. 11 at the Prudential Center in Newark, and how eager Hurley was to find out if the Huskies had reached some of their pregame, statistical goals.
“Coach Hurley, in particular, really valued our perspectives, what we would say were the takeaways,” Dover said. “Not just our data, but our input.
“He was really eager to bring analytics more into his program.”
Hurley was turned on to HDI by Alabama head coach Nate Oats, who served as Bobby Hurley’s assistant at Buffalo for two years and is a close family friend. Oats has emerged as the face of college basketball analytics and immediately became one of HDI’s first and most prominent clients three years ago.
Dan Hurley was intrigued.
“I’ve gotten more into analytics over the past two seasons, though I’m not as driven as Nate is,” Hurley said in a Hearst Connecticut Media podcast shortly before this past season began.
How analytics-driven is he?
“I like it enough,” he said, “to use every resource possible to win.”
WHAT’S NEXT FOR UCONN?
Using analytics, HDI helps some of its clients with scheduling. UConn’s schedule was pretty much already set when it got on board with HDI last year, but it’s possible the program could get assistance with that in the future.
As for now, the Huskies will continue to utilize HDI for portal help. UConn still has four open scholarships for next season but likely won’t fill all of them. The staff will continue to mine the portal for backcourt players. With Newton and Alleyne in tow along with returnees Jordan Hawkins and Andre Jackson, the most ideal fit might be a ballhandler with multiple years of eligibility who might come off the bench next season but compete for a starting job in the future. The staff appears close to getting such a player or two on campus for a visit.
UConn is also considering Class of 2022 high school recruits and/or international players. Junior college players aren’t a focus right now, but not entirely out of the question.
Once the Huskies make an addition or two to the backcourt, they could be a little more flexible in terms of positional needs and take a big, a wing, even another guard, or whoever could bring some upside as a more developmental player.
It’s possible, even likely, UConn could keep a scholarship or two open in case a Class of 2023 player decides to reclassify — or simply to ensure that there aren’t players on the bench pining for minutes. Stephon Castle, a four-star 2023 guard who committed to the Huskies last fall, recently told Hearst Connecticut Media he wasn’t planning on re-classifying, but a lot can happen over the next four months.
The staff has spent this past week on the recruiting trail, seeing 2023 and 2024 recruits, as well as potential transfers, in person. Their 2023 targets include Isaiah Coleman, a 6-5 wing from Maryland; Taison Chatman, a 6-4 shooting guard from Minnesota; Solomon Ball, a 6-3 combo guard from Maryland; Andrej Sojakavic, a 6-6 small forward from California; Darius Carr, a 6-2 combo guard from California; Elmarko Jackson, a 6-3 point guard from New Jersey; JP Estrella, a 6-9 center from Maine; Kaden Cooper, a 6-5 small forward from Georgia; and Ugonna Kingsley, a 6-11 center from Putnam Science Academy.
Their 2024 targets include Ian Jackson, a 6-4 shooting guard from the Bronx, Kur Teng, a 6-4 shooting guard from Massachusetts, and Tahaad Pettiford, a 5-11 point guard from New Jersey.
Beginning next week, programs are restricted to on-campus visits for several weeks. UConn is currently working to line up visits with both high school recruits and transfers.
Two evaluation periods in April have been a great benefit to a staff that still likes to recruit the oldfashioned way, while mixing in some new-school analytics via HDI.
“I’ve always looked at the numbers, and I’ll always have respect for statistical analysis,” Hurley said. “But you’ve got to trust your gut and your eyes, in the end. You get opinions from your staff. (Analytics is) kind of like another opinion in your ear.”