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Team coordinator Eilert revolutionizes WVU hoops scouting
(The Dominion Post in Morgantown (WV) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Mar. 15--It's a Monday morning, two days after the WVU men's basketball team lost at Marquette and two days before they'd play Marshall, in Charleston.
Billy Hahn, one of Bob Huggins' three assistant coaches, walks into Josh Eilert's office, which is glowing from the six mini-TVs attached to DirecTV DVR machines, one bigger TV, eight DVD recorders, one DVD/VCR combo, two desktop computers and one laptop, all capable of recording, cutting or editing opponents' games.
Hahn asks for the latest Marshall edit, which he and Eilert have worked on and will show to the Mountaineers' players that afternoon during practice.
Eilert, 28, hands him a DVD that contains clips of each Thundering Herd player, as well as a breakdown of Marshall's top offensive and defensive schemes, plays, actions and sets.
It's the final product put together through the joint effort of Eilert, WVU's first video coordinator; graduate assistant Kevin Schappell; student assistants Joel Pinto and Casey Weitzel and managers Kurt Couvion and Jeff Grubbs; and the coaches.
Between all of them, there's nothing a WVU opponent has done in a game that one of them hasn't seen and identified.
After dissecting those tapes, they compile a final report that contains the opponents' most-used and most-effective plays.
"It's like Cliffs Notes," Hahn said. "Compared to reading the whole book, it's all reduced for you. Here's the answers for the test, but you don't have to read the whole book."
Hahn can only laugh when he realizes how far the world of video editing has come in college basketball since he started coaching as an assistant at Morris Harvey (now the University of Charleston), in 1975.
At that time, if Morris Harvey wanted an inside scoop on an opponent, Hahn, the only assistant, went to a game, scribbled notes and drew up plays on a legal pad while sitting in the stands. If they were fortunate, they'd get film canisters from the opponent's opponent. That allowed the whole team to sit together to watch the entire game. If an opponent played two nights before your game, forget about seeing any part of it.
Huggins says it's been a recent phenomenon. Before 10 or even five years ago, few schools had video coordinators. Now almost all major colleges do.
"In 1992, [Cincinnati] went to the Final Four and we used a dualdeck VCR that I ordered off my BP credit card," Huggins said. "We only had single-deck [VCRs], so I got this stuff from BP, who had a dual-deck."
Compare that to WVU's current operation. Eilert can record up to 12 TV college basketball games at one time in his office. This season, he's recorded nearly every Big East game on TV and uses more than 5,000 DVDs to burn material for players and coaches per season. Eilert estimates he's recorded close to 1,200 games this season.
Everything is digital now, but WVU keeps a VCR for those small schools that still use VHS tapes -- some of them still scout opponents by watching games on VHS tapes with their players.
WVU uses only cameras to record its own practices and own games, and Eilert never uses one from his job. Everything else comes off the TV; for smaller schools not broadcast as much, WVU asks opponents for film.
Say Alex Ruoff draws the assignment to guard Davidson's Stephen Curry -- the nation's leading scorer at the time WVU played his team -- and he doesn't still feel totally comfortable with Curry's game after watching the scouting report that shows Curry's top tendencies.
Still, no problem.
Eilert has uploaded all his work from dissecting six or seven Davidson games onto one computer in the WVU basketball office. Ruoff could go in there, or get a DVD from Eilert, that contains every shot Curry attempted, made or missed from those games. Same goes for just 3-point shots, field goals inside the arc, shots off a certain play, drives to the basket off a screen, or even his steals and assists.
"What this guy does is amazing," Hahn said. "I go back there, and it's like a whole different world to me in his office with all the stuff he has."
The process
Generally speaking, the Big East tournament wasn't as challenging to scout as the NCAA tournament will be. By the time WVU departed for New York with three laptops and dozens of DVDs, the Mountaineers had edits of every team in the tournament, with complete scouting reports ready for Rutgers, Notre Dame (the possible Wednesday matchups) and Pitt (Thursday's opponent). After the first couple of rounds, it gets a little bit trickier. Eilert had to figure out on whom to focus more, which requires a bit of guess work.
But being away from home doesn't mess him up.
"I can do everything on the road I can do at home," Eilert said, pointing to the many MacBook laptops he and the grad assistants use.
The coaches also take 15-inch portable DVD players on the road.
"We try not to give the coaches laptops," Eilert said with a smile.
Today, the WVU team is meeting at the Waterfront Place Hotel to watch the tournament selections. As soon as WVU's opponent is announced, Eilert will rush back to his office at the Coliseum and begin compiling scouting reports. He and Schappell also will break down both of WVU's potential secondround matchups.
"By the time the coaches get back to the office from the Waterfront, we'll have everything burned from the team's last six or seven games," Eilert said.
By now, gathering information isn't all that difficult to Eilert, just time-consuming. One of the more difficult aspects of Eilert's job is keeping it all straight. And forget about days off this time of year. Tournament time creates work around the clock. For example, before WVU left for New York on Tuesday, Eilert had to make sure the DVRs were set to record all other conference tournament games throughout the week.
"At any time, I have three games running through my head," Eilert said.
Sometimes more. He's trying to get the last game out of his head, finish his scouting report for the next and working on the opponent to come after that. Then, if WVU happens to play three games within a week, it's not uncommon for the assistant coach who drew that scouting mission to want some early film on that last opponent.
In total, Eilert will spend at least 16 hours scouting each opponent. During the season, Eilert rarely knows a day off.
"I am the guy who is looking ahead," Eilert said. "After my wife and kid go to bed, I'll watch another game on my laptop."
A look inside
Eilert, now in his second season under Huggins, is WVU's first basketball video coordinator. Upon his arrival, the school spent an estimated $60,000 on equipment and SportsTech's elite version of its software, SportsCode, which Eilert uses to cut up the film.
To begin, one grad assistant will set the DVRs to record every college basketball game aired on TV that WVU might need. That's not just Big East games. Then, the G.A. will upload the game on a laptop and cut out all commercials and dead air, essentially slicing a game from 2 hours, 20 minutes to 1:15 of pure action. The G.A. also adds basic game data -- when every player enters and leaves, and every shot attempted and missed.
For example, within minutes of a game ending, Huggins could sit down and watch every minute Cam Thoroughman played.
Next, Eilert takes the film and edits for more complicated data, such as plays and sets the opposition is running on offense and defense. At the end, he'll have a running tally of how many times each play was run to which player, and that helps him figure out what aspects to include in the final scouting report.
"As I think back, I think the better teams are easier to scout," Eilert said. "The UConns ... because they are consistent. They do the same things they've always done, and they say, 'Here's our offense, stop it,' rather than trying to trick you with all the different actions and plays. The better teams are usually the simpler teams. Look at a UConn game, try to figure out their offense and it doesn't take long. They don't do anything really tricky."
The job requires a little guesswork for the more undisciplined teams. Eilert will sometimes get the sense a team is trying to run the same play, but one player may not come up to set a screen like the last time.
"You're trying to read minds. Should he have come up to set the screen, or are they running something different?" Eilert said. "The better teams are just more crisp and everyone knows exactly what they're doing."
The hard part, obviously, is stopping the better teams.
The title video coordinator stirs up images of technical gurus with an assortment of video cameras, which obviously doesn't fit the billing for Eilert, a former walkon player at Kansas State. Truth be told, this isn't what Eilert wants to do the rest of his life.
"A lot of people ask, 'What do you do for the basketball team?' I say, 'I am the video coordinator,' and they say, 'So, you record the games?' They think I am up there with a camera. I am on the bench [during games] right there and calling out actions or seeing play calls. That's one thing I can recognize on the bench and write down for our players. If I can see the [point guard] give a 'fist,' and see them run an action I've seen them run on film 10 times, then I can say, 'When you see this, here's what is coming.'"
In practice
By the time Eilert has his edits, coaches can watch games and figure out what to do in just about any way possible.
Huggins typically likes DVDs to be separated between offense and defense, meaning he'll watch just an opponent on offense again and again and again. Then he will move to defense. That's how he picks up on finer details.
"Our strategy, Huggs will tell you, is we're going to know what they do and we'll be able to recognize what they do," Eilert said. "That is the job of scouting and that's why we spend so much time learning what they do and how they do it. We're going to take them out of what they do. That's the philosophy."
It's also what's led to WVU's perfect timing for running a number of junk defenses.
In Huggins' first year, the Mountaineers suddenly brought out a triangle-and-two defense and caught Marquette by surprise.
"Two guys were handling the ball and scoring [with] the ball. Take those two guys out of the equation, and you think to yourself, 'Can these other three guys beat us?' That was the question," Eilert said.
Huggins got the idea from USC coach Tim Floyd, and the two spoke about coaching and running the defense.
Huggins came to Eilert with that plan, and Eilert had recorded a handful of USC games up to that point in the season, so he burned clips of the Trojans running their triangle-and-two on DVDs for coaches and players.
"Huggs will see some play on ESPN the night before, and he will come to me and say, 'Do we have that game?' I say, 'We recorded that game,' and can get him the DVD. It comes into play a lot," Eilert said.
So it doesn't take a genius to figure out why certain plays in WVU's playbooks are called by opposing teams' names.
"We call it 'Pitt' because we took it from Pitt," Eilert said. "All coaches do it."
The effects
Eilert was the final member of Huggins' staff at WVU, because his position was a new one.
Before video coordinators began popping up, assistant coaches were responsible for all the scouting and editing of tape. Hahn said he used to have to record tape from games onto one final scouting tape. Now the assistants and Huggins still watch anywhere from five to eight tapes before playing an opponent, but Eilert is responsible for many of the finer details. Hahn readily admits the amount of detail in scouting reports has greatly increased.
"What I think it does best, it gives the coaches a little relief," Eilert said. "They can spend a lot more time recruiting. If I can take 10 hours of work out of their hands so they can spend more time on the road recruiting, I think it's well worth it."
It also goes back to Huggins' coaching approach. He knows certain players learn better by seeing it on film, reading it diagramed on paper, or by doing it on the court. That's why WVU does all three with its players. And Eilert says that attention to detail is one big reason why Huggins' teams consistently rank in the top 15 nationally in most defensive categories.
Of those three parts, film study is the biggest obstacle because it takes freshmen time to learn to watch and absorb the right material. It also means nothing if coaches know everything an opposing team is doing but they players don't understand. Time is a precious jewel in college basketball, where coaches can only work with players for three hours a day. That's why everything must be condensed to show the most important factors while cutting out the waste.
It's part of Eilert's job to cull the important information from the massive amounts of game film.
"It helps with players knowing who they are guarding and how they are getting their shots," Eilert said. "We don't have that much time, so I will go through and show their strengths. I will never show a missed bucket. We don't have time for their weaknesses; we want to stop their strengths."
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Copyright (c) 2009, The Dominion Post, Morgantown, W.Va.
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