The shift to analytics in basketball has fueled a movement toward three pointers. There is no doubt that the University of Virginia men’s basketball team have used shots from beyond the arc to its advantage.
As the Cavaliers walk onto the court for the NCAA Final on Monday night, they come armed with an analytics weapon that has helped them sink more three-pointers than the vast majority of teams in Division I basketball. As of Apr. 4, the team had the seventh highest three-pointer percentage in the NCAA. UVA coach Tony Bennett still holds the NCAA individual record for three-point field goal percentage (49.7) from his own career at Green Bay from 1989 to 1992.
The team’s three-point edge has led it to four first-place conference finishes over the past six seasons. Bennett was named ACC Coach of the Year for the second-straight season in March. After infamously slipping up in the First Round last year, Virginia is the only top seed to reach the Final Four in 2019. If there were still any confusion about the importance of shooting averages and three-pointers, look at No. 1 overall seed Duke. The Blue Devils, which suffered a disappointing defeat to Michigan State in the Elite Eight, had one of the worst three-point shooting records in all the NCAA this past season. Duke’s 30.8 ranked it No. 328. Virginia’s 39.4 placed it seventh.
Virginia’s not-so-secret weapon? The team has been working with a company called Noah Basketball for a decade. Noah uses sensors placed above the court, as well as cameras, artificial intelligence, and facial recognition to provide shot analysis.
Roughly half of the teams in the NBA (including such names as the Golden State Warriors, Toronto Raptors, Los Angeles Clippers, and Orlando Magic) also use Noah for both player development and recruitment. A number of NCAA teams, including Virginia and No. 4 Auburn, which Virginia defeated in the Final Four, are also customers.
Noah provides real-time feedback on a number of shot mechanics that help players and coaches determine whether they might be aiming too far to the left or right, whether their arc is too high or flat, or whether their shot is too long or too short. The system gives instant audio feedback, allowing players to tweak their throws as they practice, and ensure they are building the correct muscle memory. Facial recognition allows the system to differentiate between athletes without a coach needing to manually input that information.
Noah has collected more than 185 million data points about shots at every level of play that it tracks. The company uses that data to provide granular metrics. In the future, Noah could be able tell whether a shooter is more accurate when receiving a pass from their right as opposed to their left, after a rebound or dribble, or how they perform when under pressure.
According to Noah CEO John Carter, the best shooting teams are those with the greatest consistency among all the players. Virginia is one of those teams.
“If you watch Virginia play, and if you watch Ty Jerome v. De’Andre Hunter v. Kyle Guy, their trajectories all look very, very similar,” Carter said. “Whereas you watch other teams, you might see some players shoot a high arc, some shoot flat, and some shoot in between. But you don’t see that with the best shooting teams—they’re optimal.”
Bennett has been a long-time user of the Noah system. He used an initial version of the platform while coaching at Washington State. When he took over the program at Virginia in 2009, he brought Noah with him. The system previously focused exclusively on free throws. Now it tracks every shot on the court, as well as shots from multiple athletes in short succession.
Game Recognize Game! The ole’ ball coach still has it! #What
#GoHoos pic.twitter.com/KRzCcZYrO5
— Virginia Men’s Basketball (@UVAMensHoops) April 10, 2018
“Our history with him goes back quite a ways,” Carter said. “I’m not sure he’s ever endorsed anything but Noah—he believes in what we do and he saw results from it.”
Johnny Carpenter, Virginia’s director of player personnel, said the Cavaliers basketball program is focused on skill development, with shooting at its core.
“We try to take those guys, maximize them over four years, and help them reach their college and NBA dreams,” said Carpenter in a recent video with George Kiel III at Coiski Media. “We preach development here and we have a lot of different technologies that are at the forefront of college basketball skills development to help those guys grow in, specifically, shooting.”
One of Noah’s biggest competitive advantages is that it provides feedback on what a shooter needs to do to hit a perfect shot. When a player takes 100 shots, the system isn’t just informing the player that they missed half of those, it is them specifically what they need to work on.
“We can tell you that 63 percent were short, that the trajectory was too high from the right corner,” Carter said. “We can tell you exactly what the tendencies are for the player. We give them the information the naked eye can’t see.”
By comparison, No. 3 seed Texas Tech, which will face Virginia on Monday, has a weaker three-point track record. The Red Raiders were ranked No. 70 on three-point percentage this season, with 36.5. But both teams are among the nation’s top handful in terms of defense. Texas Tech allowed an average of 58.8 points per game, the third-lowest in the country. Virginia had the No. 1 defense, allowing just 55.5. Both were also in the top 10 in terms of three-point defense. The Cavaliers ranked No. 4 (28.7) and the Red Raiders ranked No. 10 (29.3).
The Cavaliers will look to pit their Noah-fueled three-point consistency against the Red Raiders tonight at 9:20 p.m. ET in Minneapolis. The statistic that will matter most at the final buzzer will be a first national title for either team.