The Essential Preseason Checklist for Basketball Coaches

Add the 2022–23 season.

• Add and set 2022–23 as the the cur­rent sea­son on the Schedule page so it’ll load first when you’re on Hudl​.com or the Hudl app. 
• Enter your events and choose oppo­nents from Hudl’s drop-down menu. With your sched­ule entered, you can upload video quick­ly and stay orga­nized dur­ing your season. If you have a Hudl Focus camera, it’ll automatically record games based on your schedule. So make sure it’s entered ahead of game time.

Set up your roster.

• Add new addi­tions to the ros­ter and dis­able grad­u­at­ed ath­letes. Don’t wor­ry—they’ll still have access to all their high­lights after you remove them. 
• Edit play­er details like posi­tion changes and jer­sey num­bers. And don’t for­get to enter each athlete’s grad­u­a­tion year to make sure they have access to this season’s video.

Organize your library.

• Take time to review games and playlists from last sea­son. Create a new playlist of the impor­tant moments to use as exam­ples for this year’s team. 
• Attach uploads and playlists to a sched­ule entry. Cleaning up your library makes it sim­ple to find any video you need when­ev­er you need it.
• Delete old videos and irrel­e­vant playlists to keep things clean. Remember—you can always down­load the video before you delete it so you still have a copy. 

Make sure the bills are paid.

Not sure if you’re set for anoth­er sea­son? Want to get on your billing secretary’s good side? Pay your bill so you have access to Hudl when you need it most. 

• Visit the Billing & Invoices page in your account to down­load your invoice or pay your bill. 
• Pay with a cred­it card or mail checks to Hudl, 29775 Network Place, Chicago, IL 60673–1775.
• Need to run with a PO until a check can be cut? Send over a copy to support@​hudl.​com and we’ll take care of the rest.

Get some help from Hudl Assist.

Save some time this sea­son by let­ting us track your stats. Submit your game or scout video and with­in 24 hours you’ll receive game and play­er stats for both sides of the ball.

A few pointers:

• Remember to select your oppo­nents from the provided drop-down list when you add your sched­ule. This helps us match your oppo­nent cor­rect­ly for faster turn­around times and more accu­rate stats. 

• Plan the best loca­tions for record­ing. Find where your cam­era cap­tures the major­i­ty of the court to allow our Assist ana­lysts to see ref­er­ee sig­nals and jer­sey num­bers. To make sure you’re record­ing the best video pos­si­ble, check out our record­ing tips for bas­ket­ball.

Have every team member download the Hudl app.

• Encourage your team to review video from anywhere with the Hudl app. Development isn’t lim­it­ed to the hardwood.

Ensure your Focus camera is ready to rock.

• Just because the camera is on the wall doesn’t mean it’s ready for game day. It’s important to meet the technical requirements.
• Add your schedule so your camera can automatically record home games. 
• Download the Focus app on your iOS or Android device so you can check on your upcoming scheduled recordings, control livestreams, and start and stop filming during practice.
• Set up a livestream for parents and fans to watch your games. Stream direct­ly to YouTube for a free, sim­ple livestream­ing solu­tion. Or send your video to any broad­cast soft­ware* that accepts video through an IP feed, so you can choose where you send the livestream and if you want to mon­e­tize it.  
• Do a test recording to make sure you’re familiar with the process before your first game.

Update team and athlete profiles to showcase your team.

• Do your fans a favor by updat­ing the pro­file pic­ture, cov­er pho­to, team bio and colors.
• Build some hype by cre­at­ing a killer team high­light from the pre­vi­ous season. 
• Remind your ath­letes to cre­ate high­lights and update their vitals. Their Hudl pro­file is a great recruit­ing tool if it’s up-to-date and shared.

Get on the same page with Hudl messaging.

Communicating with your entire team or indi­vid­ual play­ers has nev­er been eas­i­er. You can eas­i­ly update work­out sched­ules and send tips to your play­ers and coach­es with­out fear of them miss­ing the message.

• Set up your messaging groups for spe­cif­ic positions. 
• Chat with your coach­es to make sure the mes­sages you send are con­sis­tent and relevant.
• Lay the ground rules with your ath­letes for what types of mes­sages to send.

Reach your goals.

• Use the goals report to track your team’s achieve­ments this sea­son. Any stats you add will auto­mat­i­cal­ly flood in and let you know whether or not the goals were met for each game.

Be Ready for Game Day

Check that the devices you use to record are ready to roll.

• Charge every­thing to ensure you don’t have bat­tery issues.
• To avoid storage problems, be sure to wipe SD cards or clear space on the device.
• Double check you have the most updat­ed app ver­sion if you plan to record with the Hudl app. Do this before your sea­son starts and before every game.

Assign a reliable tagger to live tag.

If you plan on tag­ging stats live at the game, find a ded­i­cat­ed tag­ger. Think out­side the box for poten­tial tag­gers, like stu­dent man­agers, assis­tant coach­es, injured play­ers, par­ents or even alum­ni players. 

Get the tag­ger to a prac­tice so they’re com­fort­able with Hudl’s tag­ging work­flow. Assign two peo­ple to the task to ensure there’s a spot­ter and backup.

Plan your process for uploading.

• Record from a cam­era: After con­nect­ing your cam­era to your com­put­er, you’ll sim­ply click Upload on Hudl.com. Practice this process before your first game.

• Record from the Hudl app: Decide where you’ll upload your games, whether it’s at the school or at home, and be sure there are no fire­walls to block you. After you connect to a Wi-Fi net­work, select the upload option in the menu. Give it a test run to get com­fort­able with the process

Complete this check­list and you’ll be more than ready for the sea­son to begin. 

And the learn­ing doesn’t stop here—don’t for­get to check out Hudl Academy for basketball. Our self-paced cours­es will give you the best prac­tices for using Hudl, whether you’re a sea­soned vet or just get­ting started.