Pittsburg State University - Pittsburg, KS

Pittsburg State Women’s Basketball Dominates with Hudl

From 2005-2008, the Pittsburg State women’s basketball team collected a total of 32 wins, averaging just over 10 wins per season. The 2008-09 campaign brought dramatic improvement for the Gorillas, as Head Coach Lane Lord and his squad rose from last place to third place in the MIAA Conference with the program’s first 20-win campaign since 1995. Lord credits a lot of their success to the team’s use of Hudl.

Pitt State now uses Hudl for all their video and scouting needs. Prior to Hudl, the team would watch film on DVDs. Coaches would spend hours finding exactly the clips of their opponents they needed to review with the team. Sometimes it would involve having the entire team watching full games each week to scout their upcoming opponent, investing valuable time that could have been better spent elsewhere.

“We use Hudl for all our video analysis needs including practice, game film, and scouting breakdown at the individual and team level,” explained assistant coach Andy Majors. “Our scouting setup is so efficient – it had so much to do with our success this year.”

The coaching staff picks which opponents’ games they want to break down. The coaches then load those DVDs into the Hudl Video Editor where it automatically cuts those DVDs into individual clips. The staff then breaks down the opponents’ film by possession and tags the possession with data. One key piece of data is the number of the opposing player that stands out during each offensive possession. Coaches then use Hudl’s quick filtering tools to filter down to a specific set of possessions (e.g. all of #23’s plays from that game) and share those clips  directly to the player on their team who will be guarding #23. Each player can then focus on her upcoming defensive assignment rather than watching the entire game.

“We usually take the top eight or nine players of each team and show 10 clips of each player to whoever is in charge of defending her,” Majors said. “Now our girls can focus on the players they are guarding rather than the entire team. We also show certain offensive plays of that upcoming opponent and certain defensive strategies that opponent has by sharing specific plays directly to our girls in Hudl.”

Coach Majors and Coach Lord use Hudl’s analysis tools to explain specifics about their video to their players. Coaches draw Madden-style telestrations, record voice notes, and type text notes on top of their video. The girls then watch the film and see their coaches’ notes directly integrated with their video on Hudl.com.

From clinics to end-of-season highlights – the Gorillas staff also found great value with the custom playlists and highlight features Hudl offers.

“We speak at a lot of clinics and we use Hudl to create highlight reels for each concept we are speaking about,” Majors said. “We can then pull these reels up on our laptops on Hudl.com rather than having to burn DVDs. We also do highlights of each of our athletes and our team at the end of the season. We can share these highlights out via email to family, friends, and college recruiters rather than burning DVDs. It’s so easy to organize.”

The Pitt State coaching staff has implemented a rotation for breaking down film amongst the entire staff so the video editing responsibility is shared. Since each coach can download the Hudl Video Editor to any of their computers. any coaches can break down and publish film to Hudl.com. Once the film is online, coaches are in charge of breaking down a specific set of data which can be done simultaneously by multiple coaches from their own computers.

“When we were on the road last year, some offices didn’t have DVD players, but we all had our laptops,” explained Majors. “We would break off into certain position meetings and use laptops to access Hudl online and watch opponent scout video and review scouting reports. Now that we have true internet accessibility – it will always be essential for us.”

After a successful 20-9 record in the 2008-09 season, Coach Lord was named the WBCA Regional Coach of the Year. Pitt State narrowly missed qualifying for the NCAA Division II national tournament despite the 20-win effort. Coach Lord is confident that with the help of Hudl, their program will have another successful winning season.

“We went from the bottom of the NCAA Division II powerhouse MIAA Conference to the top three in one year,” Lord said. “We owe a lot to Hudl! It is so easy for the coaches and players to use. Wow – what a difference a year makes. Thanks to Hudl, our kids are more prepared than ever before.”