NCAA Defending Champions Virginia Takes Player Development to Next Level with HomeCourt
The team has already tracked nearly 50,000 shots and 50,000 dribbles on HomeCourt so far this summer.
The University of Virginia (UVA) boasts one of the nation’s most proactive basketball programs, led by head coach Tony Bennett. Bennett has been using and tinkering with numerous basketball-related gadgets over the years. When Virginia’s staff learned of HomeCourt’s existence — developed by fellow Wahoo, Alex Wu — the analytical approach of their team meshed perfectly with the forward-thinking nature of HomeCourt. Virginia assistant coach, Johnny Carpenter, said, “We had [David] and his team come out before a Morgan State game and demo [the product] for us. From there, I was completely blown away.”
The Cavaliers are the reigning NCAA champions. With COVID-19 forcing the cancellation of the 2020 NCAA Tournament, Bennett’s team is still the most recent to cut down the nets and have their One Shining Moment. Winning once is hard enough, but getting back again is even harder. Just look at the number of outstanding coaches who have never won multiple titles. They needed to find a way for Virginia to continue their top-flight player development despite the country being in lockdown for several months.
“When we saw Steve Nash [speaking at Apple’s 2018 event, and using HomeCourt] off his phone and all of the biomechanical elements that just was mind-blowing for us.”
-Johnny Carpenter (Director of Player Personnel)
Coach Carpenter, Director of Player Personnel, has been on the cutting edge of sports technology for the Virginia basketball program and responsible for identifying the right technology to help the team reach its potential. Carpenter started as a manager for the basketball team during his time at the university as an undergrad. After a one-year stint working with the Dallas Mavericks as an assistant video coordinator, Carpenter returned to Charlottesville and is now entering his sixth season on staff and his third in his role as director of player personnel.
COVID-19 brought an abrupt end to the 2019–20 college basketball season, and with it, created a problem: how could UVA continue to meet their player development standards with the players scattered across the nation? Carpenter and Virginia needed something that could provide their group with efficiency in player development. “Coach Bennett wants [the program] to be proactive and not reactive,” Carpenter said, “He wants us to be at the forefront.”
“Props to HomeCourt for what they did to bring joy and inspiration to the world during [quarantine]…it was really neat to see. [HomeCourt was] so uniting during a time of utter chaos and confusion for us all.”
For that, they turned to HomeCourt. HomeCourt’s easy-to-use interface gives players and coaches the ability to take drills and workouts to the next level. Coach Carpenter believes that HomeCourt is a unique experience for teams and players “[HomeCourt] broke the mold when they were thinking of what is a good player development product from a film standpoint. The second a workout is done all the clips are cuts by makes, misses, shot types, off the dribble, off the catch, region on the floor, heat maps…literally the second a workout is done. There’s no product out there that does it as efficiently as HomeCourt.”
“Players can now take ownership of their craft.”
Users receive quick, real-time feedback on what they are doing. Features like the “Shot Arc” line and a library of videos allow players to become visual learners. “[HomeCourt] is very empowering for the players, which is the most important part,” Coach Carpenter said. They can spot any weaknesses almost immediately and take into account if any patterns are developing in their day-to-day workouts.
Coach Carpenter said, “Now, With HomeCourt, [players] can now go see immediately after a workout all of the different nuances of ‘Hey did I make the right decision?’ before the shot and now [they] can go and study the shot itself and [their] footwork.”
But it doesn’t stop there. The school has seen alumni also use HomeCourt as supplemental work. Before the NBA restart in Orlando, FL, Virginia alums were training at the school and used HomeCourt to sharpen their skills as well. Coach Carpenter said, “We had Ty Jerome doing the ballhandling drill to see how many dribbles he could get and competing against current players, former players, just for fun.”
Brooklyn Nets sharpshooter Joe Harris — an investor in HomeCourt — was one of the first players to use the app and spoke of its benefits to Bennett and others on the staff. Coach Carpenter mentioned Harris’s continued use of the app when he goes back to campus, “Guys like Joe Harris can say, ‘Hey look at me on this drill,’ when he comes back to work out in the summers, and we use HomeCourt.” Isaiah Wilkins used HomeCourt in an attempt to re-work his shooting mechanics as he pursues professional opportunities overseas.
HomeCourt has been a positive experience for the entire program, from the staff to the players (current and former). Overall, HomeCourt can enhance a typical workout while simultaneously engaging players in creative ways. “There’s so much research that people are ignoring when it comes to skill acquisition and replicating game shots,” Coach Carpenter said.
Players and coaches can see firsthand, who is doing what and who is using the platform most. Coach Carpenter added, “Workouts are player-led [on HomeCourt], and that’s what separates the great teams from the good teams. Teams that can be player-led from a collective and individual basis.”
In the Cavaliers’ case, Coach Carpenter said, “[the players] really enjoy the app a ton” and that sophomore Justin McKoy, junior Trey Murphy III, and redshirt-senior Sam Hauser have routinely been the names that appear most often on their HomeCourt leaderboards. “They’ve been logging, probably the most time in on [HomeCourt].”
“From a workout perspective and the quickness of feedback, nothing quite compares to HomeCourt. HomeCourt provides the best of both worlds in terms of the video, the data and that is crucial.”
While knowing who’s getting the additional repetitions is excellent, using HomeCourt for the data the app collects has been the most invaluable. Analytics have taken over college basketball, and UVA strives to be at the forefront of this change. Virginia can dissect and digest this information and use it in their everyday life.
The coaching staff uses it with regards to practice planning, creating individual workouts for players, and produce brief scouting reports, to name a few. Coach Carpenter said, “[HomeCourt provides] holistic and accurate feedback where our players can develop and grow.”
The team even uses the information within HomeCourt to track improvement throughout the season. Carpenter said, “With all of this extra data we have, we can now build up and actually see how our players are developing.” Last year, they were able to track the team’s shooting improvement throughout the season. After struggling early in the year, the players’ work led to a noticeable uptick in team percentage, and these results were consistent with the numbers that HomeCourt showed.
Coach Carpenter complimented HomeCourt’s ability to be efficient, “We can use it in a variety of ways, from working on specific spots on the floor.” He said, “there are certain guys that might be much more effective on one side of the floor, and it’s that way in practice, and it’s that way also in games…to be able to see it with such quick feedback and so efficiently…maximize our players’ time, we want each rep to be the most valuable rep they can, and through HomeCourt, we’re able to do that.”
“We saw some significant forward thinking [in HomeCourt], honestly there wasn’t anything quite like it, with all of the different features it could do.”
Coach Carpenter highlighted senior guard, Tomas Woldetensae, as someone who saw the most significant swing for the team. After struggling to begin the season, Woldentensae saw a big swing in his three-point percentage in Atlantic Coast Conference games. “When he started watching on HomeCourt he could kind of see [his issues] and kind of coming back from an injury, and he noticed something in his finish on his follow-through, and he ended up going on an absolute tear in ACC play,” Coach Carpenter said, “Our whole team now loves that element, they saw how much of a difference it made for [Tomas], and they were all-in as well.
In all, the reason that HomeCourt has been such a help to the Cavaliers is that there is 100 percent buy-in from all parties involved, “our guys have been working with it and they willingly, after their workouts or lifts in the mornings will bring their phones, put them on a tripod, and they get going,” Coach Carpenter said. The staff is all-in, and heaps praise about the benefits of a one-of-a-kind product like HomeCourt.
While quarantined in Spring, members of the team who had access to baskets at their house kept themselves in shape through HomeCourt. It reached a point where those players began to compete amongst each other to get top dog status on the leaderboards. Coach Carpenter said the players tracked, “who has the highest three-point made streak? Who’s put in the most work?”
Carpenter also believes that HomeCourt will continue to grow in the ways it can assist college teams. There are potential recruiting implications given the amount of content HomeCourt can capture. Coach Carpenter mentioned how HomeCourt is already closing the distance between athletes, “[Players] are able to study, they can watch, they can send clips to the coaches, they can send clips to each other.”
As HomeCourt becomes a staple in player development for all ages, that means that there will be a hub built where players can share their workouts and the data that goes along with it. Instead of digging through game tape or watching a prospect in person, coaches could turn to HomeCourt and receive more accurate information about a player’s skill level and strengths and weaknesses.
It also provides a glimpse into someone’s work ethic, how they learn, and what their development has looked like throughout years of playing. HomeCourt could allow the under-the-radar kid to be seen by the nation’s top programs instantly.
College basketball has experienced an analytical awakening in recent years. For the Cavaliers, each repetition is the most valuable repetition. Thanks to the analytics that HomeCourt can rapidly provide, Virginia basketball is at the forefront of player development in the NCAA.
Rather than make practice a mundane performance, they are using live-tracking feedback and biomechanical information to enhance the skills of their players. HomeCourt has also allowed for the program to be more connected outside of the gym too. Coaches and teammates can easily connect and interact with each other regardless of where they are putting in the time.
For the Cavaliers, HomeCourt has been a diamond in the rough, or as Coach Carpenter put it, “There is no product that does it like HomeCourt.”
