The Numbers Game

You know what is fun?  Statistics, numbers, spreadsheets, and charts.  That's what is exciting!  So last year when I discovered an app to quickly track and create a database of numbers and charts of my son's basketball games I excited to give it a try.  

I've been using Basketball Stat Tracker by Hachisoft.  They make this app for Android and iOS.  Here a link to their site.  

Before the game I set up the team along with player names and numbers.  During the game I highlight the player with the ball and when he takes a shot I touch that spot on the map of the court.  If he makes the shot, I touch and drag my finger toward the goal to indicate he made it.  I can also track rebounds, fouls, steals, turnovers, play time, and pretty much any other stat you would want to know in basketball.  You can track as much or as little as you would like to make it easier on yourself. 

During the game I can quickly see what % of our shots we've been making for free throws, 2 point, and 3 point shots.   If we get to half time in a game and we are losing because we've been making too many 3 point attempts, it's easy to show the coach or players on the screen where they are missing it.   

I can also track the same information for the opponents.  Now, this gets busy in a fast paced game so I don't usually track individual players for our opponents but I do track where that team is making or missing shots from.  At a quick glance we can see where they are scoring from and where we need to guard. 

At the end of the game I can email out a spreadsheet of the entire game.  I copied and pasted that info into a spreadsheet and customized it a bit by adding the graph and eliminating categories I didn't use but here is a sample of the information you can get:

I also wanted to point out that the guys at Hachisoft are super friendly.  Since I started using this app I have emailed suggestions, comments, and questions and they always reply quickly.  They genuinely are working to improve every aspect of this already great software.

Trust me, these basketball games are plenty exciting on their own merit.  But when I was able to add in the ability to create a spreadsheet during the game . . . you can't measure that kind of excitement.