Imagine the insights you could uncover by having every jump, swing, pivot and sprint captured and transformed into precise data. That鈥檚 exactly what students in the sport analytics program are doing, through a partnership established in 2022 between the 51爆料网 and the . By revealing a deeper understanding of performance and potential, students collaborate with Orange coaching and training staff to deliver data-driven insights gathered through a combination of wearable technologies and good old stats-keeping.
鈥淔or the teams that have embedded these students into their programs, it鈥檚 worked out very well. They鈥檝e been able to get insights that have led to a lot of success,鈥� says sport management professor Rodney Paul, director of the sport analytics program. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 opened up doors for not just those students, but all the students who follow.鈥�
Members of the 51爆料网 men鈥檚 soccer team practice in PlayerData vests, which feature a GPS device to track their movements. Head coach Ian McIntyre welcomed a partnership with Falk College鈥檚 sport analytics program in 2022.
The partnership originally started with the , and head coach Ian McIntyre considers the sport analytics team an integral part of the program. 鈥淭hey played a very important role in helping us secure a national championship in 2022,鈥� McIntyre says. 鈥淥ur analytics team wonderfully complements our coaching staff to help create the best possible training environment for our players and allows our program to compete at the very highest national level.鈥�
The program now includes 11 teams, with students contributing to performance analysis based on each team鈥檚 needs. 鈥淲e created an internship program to add value by helping teams analyze their data in meaningful ways,鈥� says sport analytics program manager Francesco Riverso.
Students gain practical experience, refine their skills and pass on their knowledge to new interns, creating a cycle of continuous improvement. 鈥淲e don鈥檛 rebuild鈥攚e reload,鈥� Paul says.
Tracking Movement for Real-Time Insights
Nick Rovelli 鈥�24, G鈥�25 (center), lead analyst for the Orange men鈥檚 soccer team, joins associate head coach Jukka Masalin (left) and head coach Ian McIntyre (right) during a talk with the players.
When the Orange men鈥檚 soccer players take to the pitch, they鈥檙e outfitted in PlayerData vests with GPS trackers that provide real-time data on their movements. The sport analytics interns track and analyze metrics like total running distance, acceleration, deceleration, sprint distances, how often players speed up or slow down. The students generate heat maps that reveal player positioning during a match and have created two apps that allow them to organize their information into data visualizations. 鈥淲e can transform the raw data in a way that allows the coaches to see it easily and gain insights,鈥� says lead analyst Nick Rovelli 鈥�24, G鈥�25, a sport analytics graduate who has worked with the soccer team since 2022 and is now an .
Theo Schmidt 鈥�26 sets up a GPS motion-tracking sensor during men鈥檚 soccer practice in the Ensley Athletic Center.
During home games, Rovelli is on the sidelines while analyst Theo Schmidt 鈥�26 sits in the stands, collecting data that he feeds to Rovelli, who communicates with the coaches. 鈥淚t鈥檚 definitely high pressure, so there鈥檚 some growing pains,鈥� Rovelli says. 鈥淏ut the coaches have been great at giving us positive feedback and are always encouraging us to do more.鈥�
Even during away games, the analytics team watches matches on the ACC Network and ESPN+ to gather stats, view player data and communicate with coaches. They also create scouting reports, as well as pre- and postgame analyses. Next season, they plan to use , a platform that offers video analysis tools and a comprehensive database of teams. 鈥淭he program is a great opportunity鈥攁 win-win, both for the department and the students,鈥� says Schmidt, who joined the team in 2023. 鈥淲e鈥檝e had to build so many tools. It allows us to experiment with different applications and really take advantage of the coaches鈥� willingness to let us learn.鈥�
Monitoring Player Workloads
Caden Lippie 鈥�25 (left), an analyst with the Syracuse women鈥檚 lacrosse team, talks with associate athletic trainer Kat Chaney. Wearable GPS technology helps the team monitor player loads and minimize injuries.
analytics interns Caden Lippie 鈥�25 and Ryan Severe 鈥�25 will admit they didn鈥檛 know much about lacrosse before they began working with the team in 2022-23. But since then, they鈥檝e helped monitor player performance through the , a wearable GPS technology that tracks the players鈥� movements in real time. 鈥淲orking in a program for this extended amount of time is unique,鈥� Lippie says. 鈥淵ou get a different perspective working with a small staff, which is a good experience.鈥�
The data鈥攊ncluding live metrics on game days鈥攈elps the coaching, training and conditioning staffs manage player loads and minimize injuries. 鈥淲e can work someone back into practice from a recovery or injury standpoint,鈥� says assistant strength and conditioning coach Mike Sullivan. 鈥淚t helps us plan for the future in a safe manner so we can try to keep everyone healthy and minimize any risks of overloading them.鈥�
Analyst Ryan Severe 鈥�25 checks the GPS devices used by the women鈥檚 lacrosse team.
Lippie and Severe upload data after practices and games into Microsoft Power BI, a software system that allows them to produce visualizations and reports. Lippie worked with associate athletic trainer Kat Chaney to incorporate a daily wellness survey the players take before practice into a dashboard with the GPS data. 鈥淚t鈥檚 awesome for us to have a snapshot of each student-athlete on the team, of all their metrics we鈥檙e collecting and how the team is feeling on the whole,鈥� Chaney says. 鈥淐aden鈥檚 information is helping us on a daily basis improve our communication with the student-athletes.鈥�
Lippie and Severe both appreciate the opportunity to work with different technologies, especially as their use becomes more prevalent among college and pro teams. 鈥淚t鈥檚 been a super valuable experience that could help us in our professional careers,鈥� Severe says. 鈥淟earning the technologies that a lot of teams use and interacting with DI lacrosse coaches has been such an amazing experience.鈥�
Capturing Pitching and Hitting Data
Gavi Sela 鈥�26 (center), lead analyst for the Orange softball team, appreciates the insights he gains talking to players and coaches.
At team practices early this semester, Gavi Sela 鈥�26 and Andrew Diamond 鈥�27 parked themselves behind the catchers to track pitches and hitting during batting sessions. 鈥淚n the long run working with sports data, particularly in baseball or softball, will help my analytical skills, looking at all aspects of the data and being able to break it down, analyze it and look at the tendencies that a player or teams may have,鈥� says Sela, lead analyst for the eight-member analytics team that launched a partnership with the softball team last fall.
From there, they log the location and outcome of the pitch as well as the kind of contact the batter makes. They feed the data into a spreadsheet and analyze it, helping to determine which pitches were successful and what batters were swinging or not swinging at. 鈥淭he goal ultimately is to provide accurate insights to the coaching staff that can help the team improve its performance,鈥� Diamond says.
Softball head coach Shannon Doepking says the analytics team 鈥渉as already made an incredible impact on our program,鈥� citing their work building out charts that help develop better hitting and pitching plans as well as in-depth scouting reports. 鈥淚鈥檓 excited for the future with this team and truly believe they will help us achieve goals that we have had with their help in true development of our student-athletes,鈥� Doepking says.
Andrew Diamond 鈥�27 (left) and Gavi Sela are part of the analytics team that began working with the softball team last fall. They regularly gather pitching and hitting data at practices.
As the softball season progresses, the analytics team hopes to work with other technologies, including , which tracks hitting and pitching data, and Synergy, a scouting platform that features opposing team statistics and game videos. They aim to build a foundation that will continue to grow the analytics program. While improving their analytical skills, they鈥檙e also developing interpersonal relationships with the team, learning from exchanges with coaches and players.
鈥淥nce we have a lot of data collected cleanly, we should be able to look into it at a deeper, more analytical level,鈥� Diamond says. 鈥淣ext year we鈥檒l all be back and have a good feel for how everything works out year-round with the team.鈥�
Effectively Communicating Data
Ian MacMiller 鈥�25 (left), lead analyst for the Orange women鈥檚 soccer team, sets up a video camera at practice as analyst Matt Liddell 鈥�25 checks information on his laptop.
Last season, the Syracuse transitioned to wearing PlayerData vests, which use the live data from GPS trackers to monitor player workload. 鈥淚鈥檝e worked for the team for three years now and I鈥檝e loved every second of it,鈥� says lead analyst Ian MacMiller 鈥�25.
MacMiller was joined on match days by several other analytics interns who collected statistics on a shared spreadsheet and produced visualizations for a presentation that MacMiller shared with the coaches. 鈥淭he interns鈥� main responsibility during games is to track stats that we communicate to the coaching staff so they can make necessary adjustments,鈥� MacMiller says.
MacMiller (left) and Liddell track data during a women鈥檚 soccer practice.
Along with the wearable technology data, the student analysts track ball losses, crossing accuracy, ball receptions in the attacking half of the field and other statistics that are 鈥渉elpful for coaches to know what the players could work on in practices and games,鈥� says analyst Matt Liddell 鈥�25, who worked with the team last fall. 鈥淚 got great data collection experience, which will definitely be important for lots of entry-level jobs in data analytics. It was a great test of my multitasking skills as well, since at times I was in charge of two to three statistics.鈥�
MacMiller created dashboards through Power BI, so coaches could view data after practices and matches. For MacMiller, the opportunity to work closely with the coaching staff, including learning how analytics can be used to minimize injury prevention, has been a welcomed benefit. 鈥淭he experience has allowed me to learn how to effectively communicate data and how coaches apply that data to their game plans and training sessions,鈥� he says.
