13  Fauzan Lodhi

Author

4th Year
Statistics
Men’s Basketball (MBB)

This was my second year working with MBB, and the growth of the data solutions group has been incredible to see. Last year, I felt really distant from the team, I thought I could have done more to be involved, or I could have worked on more projects, and had more of an impact on the team. This year, along with Caleb and Pierre, our MBB data team was much more involved, having weekly meetings with Coach Troy to share updates, go through scouting reports, and discuss more project ideas. Although I’m graduating, I intend to stay on with the team in some capacity, and I look forward to continuing to elevate Waterloo’s Basketball program and get the Warriors back to the playoffs and beyond.

Projects

USPORTS Live Stats

One thing I worked on this year was getting live stats during games. Although we only managed to do this for a handful of games, we were able to use this to get lineup and +/- stats to coaches at halftime and after Q3 in games, to assist in lineup decisions.

Lineup Stats, Player +/-, Player On-Off

By scraping live play-by-play data, we were also able to track substitutions and subsequently compute several box score stats by lineup. From lineup data, we could extract individual player +/- and on-off data, giving more context to the general box score data that we already have (e.g. Waterloo Offensive Rating is 7 points better when player xyz is on the court vs off the court).

Player Shot Maps and Distance

Using Synergy data, we could extract shot locations, and compute tables of efficiency by distance. For example, player xyz took 30% of his shot attempts from within 3 feet of the rim, and converted on 57% of them. We could also split this up by game quarter, or by month in the season, and we could then derive that when player xyz’s PPG increased from 10 to 15 from November to January, it’s actually because his rim efficiency increased, or because he started taking less mid-range jumpshots.

KIN 472

For KIN 472, our group conceptualized and designed an app for athletes to track their nutrition. The app intakes the athlete’s height, weight, and age, and computes their daily targets of macronutrients and hydration. The goal is to help improve athlete education and awareness on nutrition to support their development as student-athletes

Reflections

  • Reflecting on the past two years, it’s really humbling to think of where we were in September 2024 to where we are now.

  • I still think I can do a better job of communicating findings in a way that influences game decisions a bit more.

  • I also think with Caleb and Pierre joining the team, I could have done a better job of onboarding them and providing more support to them early on. I’m really excited about what Caleb and Pierre have built and are continuing to build, and I think Coach Troy and his coaching staff are going to have a very strong arsenal of tools to help their gameplan and decision-making in the future.

  • I’m not entirely sure what capacity I’ll be returning in, but I think a major next step for us is to streamline recruiting processes. High school basketball data isn’t the most accessible, but it’s out there and it’s on us to figure out how to use it.