Jan. 31--Carmel boys basketball coach Zack Ryan knew what the numbers said. Monday at practice, he made sure his players knew too.
"Forty-six, 40 points the last two games. We're not going fast enough," he said as his players scampered through a fast-break drill. "If you're not running, you're doing something wrong!"
Since Ryan took the reins at Carmel last season, the Corsairs have run an up-tempo offense reliant on fast-break layups and pull-up 3-pointers. In a perfect world, Carmel might never have to run a set play.
It sounds like chaos, but it's calculated. Quite literally.
"Last season, their shooting percentage was 10 points higher in the fast break than in the halfcourt," said Eric Eager, Ryan's brother-in-law and a math professor at Wisconsin-La Crosse. "Zack, he wants nothing more than his team to do well. He's going to do his best to find every advantage for his players to be successful. Analytics is just one of many things that can contribute to that."
Using analytics to evaluate individual and team stats has been on the rise in the last decade, most notably in pro sports with the "Moneyball" Oakland Athletics and other teams that have followed suit. Professional and college teams have more resources to analyze their teams than high schools, but the advent of video-sharing sites such as hudl.com have allowed coaches to track their players' development more closely than ever before.
Ryan can send Carmel's game tapes to Eager soon after the buzzer. Eager, who played basketball with Ryan at Tartan High School in Oakdale, Minn., evaluates the tape to give each player a plus-minus rating and to log the outcome of each up-tempo and half-court possession.
"It's become easier and easier to find people and find resources to become a more analytically sound fan of the game," said Eager, who is also a contributor for the football analytics site Pro Football Focus.
Ryan, himself a math teacher at Carmel, looked at his roster last fall and knew he had a problem to solve: He had one player taller than 6-foot-3 and had to play in the physical East Suburban Catholic Conference.
The solution? Push the pace and take more 3s. The numbers backed it up, and the players loved the freedom.
"We're trying to use it to the best of our ability," senior guard and Western Illinois recruit C.J. Duff said. "You want to be in the best shape you can be."
The year before Ryan arrived was a special season for Carmel. The Corsairs went 25-9 and won a regional under coach Tim Bowen, who went to Guerin after his contract was not renewed. Starting over with new players, a new coach and a dramatically new system, Carmel finished 12-19 last season (1-8 in the ESCC). This season, the Corsairs are a competitive 10-11 overall but are 0-5 in conference play.
Last winter, Ryan read a New York Times article on Iona basketball coach Tim Cluess, whose frenetic Gaels have spurned the halfcourt offense and have been among the NCAA scoring leaders since he arrived in 2010. During an East Coast trip last summer, Ryan met with Cluess to discuss ways to free up the game.
Former Eisenhower coach Mike Curta also looked to the collegiate ranks for inspiration. He adopted the approach of Grinnell College coach David Arseneault, whose teams have set Division III scoring records by applying a full-court press at all times and willingly surrendering layups when defensive possessions don't end in a turnover. Once Grinnell gets the ball back, it's open season for 3-pointers and layups on the fast break.
Curta, whose sons Nick and Vinny now play for Grinnell, helped Eisenhower rewrite the IHSA record books for 3-pointers, assists and rebounds. Curta said the Cardinals won about 80 percent of their games when they met their five goals: Take 80 shots a game; take 3-pointers for 40 percent of those shots; get an offensive rebound on 35 percent of missed shots; force 26 turnovers; take 20 more shots than the opponent.
To keep up the frenzied pace, Curta took a hockey approach with shift changes every 30-40 seconds. One assistant coach's job was keeping track of point differentials to see which shifts were the best on offense and defense.
"You're going to be questioned by the kids, the parents. It's not tempo, it's just craziness," said Curta, who also implemented some principles from the storied Loyola Marymount teams of the early 1990s. "You have to go all out. There is no pacing yourself."
Curta coached a more conventional game at his earlier stops at Mount Carmel, Rich Central and Bremen. He resigned from Eisenhower after seven seasons last spring in large part to follow his sons' college careers. His last season was special, with a conference championship and a regional title that included a 118-116 victory over Crete-Monee in the first round.
Back at Carmel, practices always feature the fast break. Some sets are simple -- three passes, one dribble and a layup -- while others call for three fast-break 3-pointers and four fast-break layups in less than a minute.
"As a math person, it's cool to figure out the percentages and what works and what lineups are better," Ryan said. "We're just trying to take advantage of the skills of the individual players we have."
mstainbrook@tribpub.com
