New tracking technology not a hit with UNLV’s T.J. Otzelberger

If analytics-driven UNLV coach T.J. Otzelberger thinks he can gain a statistical edge, he will try to exploit it. So new technology introduced by the Mountain West before this season would have seemed to appeal to him.

The conference partnered with ShotTracker, which through sensors worn by players and chips implanted in basketballs tracks data from practices and games. It offers coaches and players information ranging from the useful, how well a player is shooting from different parts of the court, to the trivial, the number of passes in the halfcourt offense.

It’s being used only for conference games, but each coach decides whether and how much to tap into the data that is provided.

Otzelberger gave the data a try early in conference play, but has mostly stopped accessing the information.

“Sometimes the possession numbers weren’t right or some of the information wasn’t accurate,” Otzelberger said. “We decided we wanted to go off the information we knew we could count on.”

Mountain West senior associate commissioner Dan Butterly said there were some sensor problems early in the season, but the technology was repaired and upgraded.

“It’s a significant amount of data and analytics to help our teams try to improve,” Butterly said.

He said eight or nine teams in the 11-team league use ShotTracker on a regular basis, and each school employs the sensors in games. The conference received a waiver from the NCAA to use the technology in Mountain West games.

There is no penalty, Butterly said, if a team doesn’t activate the sensors in a game, but such an action could hurt the conference’s chances of maintaining the NCAA waiver.

“That’s one reason the coaches voted to utilize this system unanimously during our league meetings last year,” Butterly said. “They definitely understand the importance of it. It’s how they’re using it right now is what we’re tracking.”

Wyoming is among the schools using ShotTracker, and a spokesman said the Cowboys’ coaches love the system. The Nike-affiliated schools, which include UNLV, have had the most problems with chip-implanted basketballs, but that has more to do with a new ball introduced by the shoe and apparel company before this season.

“It’s definitely a different ball,” said UNLV guard Amauri Hardy, who said the ball was slightly slicker than the previous model. “But it’s a ball we’ve got to play with, a ball that I’ve got to shoot every day. The transition has been going smoothly for me, but I’m working with it each and every day. I’m trying to make it work best for me and my teammates.”

Not everyone else in the Mountain West is adjusting as quickly. San Diego State star Malachi Flynn told the San Diego Union-Tribune that the ball is “horrible,” and the newspaper quoted reigning conference Player of the Year Sam Merrill of Utah State saying, “It’s not our favorite ball.”

UNLV’s players were more diplomatic, but no one offered a ringing endorsement, either.

“It is what it is,” Rebels forward Nick Blair said. “We practice with them, and we try to get adjusted to them. You can’t really do much about it but keep getting reps with it. It’s fine. We’ve just got to work through it.”

Contact reporter Mark Anderson at manderson@reviewjournal.com. Follow @markanderson65 on Twitter.