An Inside Look at 'Bamalytics' and Alabama's Data-Driven Formula with Adam Bauman

This is the Transforming Basketball Podcast. This is the podcast helping coaches and practitioners change the way we think about basketball performance. Our goal is to provide the ultimate resource for making sense of applying contemporary skill acquisition ideas within basketball. Within this podcast, we unpack how an ecological dynamics framework Impacts our perspective of the game.

If you're ready to join us in our quest to transform the basketball world, this is the podcast for you.

Welcome to the Transforming Basketball Podcast. Today's guest is Adam Bauman, the Director of Scouting and Analytics for Alabama men's basketball team. Adam has been a key part of Nate Oates' staff for nearly a decade, first at Buffalo and now in Tuscaloosa, where he's helped guide the Crimson Tide

to SEC titles, multiple Elite 8 runs, and their first ever Final Four. He leads the program's advanced scouting and BamaLytics system, using analytics to shape game plans and player development while keeping things simple and clear for the players. Adam, welcome to the show.

Thanks, George. Appreciate you having me.

Awesome. So we're going to talk about a lot of analytics. The whole conversation is going to be around analytics, but before we do, I do wanna talk about the human element. Looking back, I know there was a, a podcast that you did. You said you didn't always value relationships with players enough early in your career.

So my question is, what tangible practices do you focus on now to make sure connection and trust are front and center of how you operate?

Yeah, no, that's a good question. And, and yeah, as a young guy in the business support staff role, whether it was ops or video coordinator, you're assigned so many tasks and you're so task-oriented. That's kind of where the way I'm wired is to kind of like, just kind of, I got a list and I gotta get this done, get this done.

get this done. And I, you know, I just, I just didn't spend enough time with the relationship stuff. So definitely have made an emphasis to that. And it's much easier in roles where you're on the court with the guys and you're just around them more in the gym and stuff like that.

But a couple of things like just, I mean, non-basketball conversations, honestly, like, like I completely missed out on that a lot early in my career. Definitely have like circled back with guys that I was around early in my career, you know, now that they have kids and You know, I was closer to their age, so we're going through a lot of the same stuff personally now.

So that's really cool to kind of like reconnect with them now, but just wish you would've, you know, did that more often, I guess, when you're younger. But shoot, you mature with age and kind of figure out where you need to grow.

Do you feel like that also helps you get the most out of the players and the team?

Yeah, I think that's with anything, not, not just basketball, but I think the tighter relationships you have, and if you're in a leadership role, You know, you can get them to go just to, you know, a little bit harder or they feel a little bit more obligated, right, to work hard for you if you have that deeper relationship.

Yeah, I agree with you. You know, I'm huge into transformational leadership, transformational coaching, and just making sure that we're not only helping the players be the best players and the best team, but also the human beings. And I say this a lot on the podcast.

So moving on, Alabama, I said to you earlier, you know, Alabama is always known as a football university. Now it's awesome. You guys are having tremendous success. Your offense is one of the most explosive offenses in the country the past few years. What role has analytics played in shaping the way you and the staff view the game?

It drives everything we do, you know, from the pace to our shot spectrum, to what we emphasize offensively, what type of shots we want to take, how we decide to guard certain opponents, certain players, in the game situations. I mean, it has its fingerprints all over our program.

And really has for the better part of the last like 9, 9, 10 years that I've been with Coach.

And I don't know if you can share this, but do you like when you're playing a game and they're scouting, you look at, all right, this team, you know, on the pick and roll on the left side of the court, they're super inefficient if we're icing it, you know, sending them down.

So that's, you know, what we're going to be practicing that week in preparation for that game. Is that how you're using analytics there as well?

I think it's more individual, like player-based. You know, if a guy is necessarily like team, I think we look a lot at You know, if a player is dominant in one hand, I know that's kind of been a trend here the last couple of years is like kind of forcing, forcing their guards all one way or the other way, whichever it may be.

We haven't done a lot of that. We've done it on an individual basis with certain guys, you know, in particular in the middle of the floor. We haven't, I guess, completely sold out to the fact of like, you know, if they're coming off screens, you want to maybe whip it if they're going one way versus lock and trail if they're going the other, stuff like that.

We haven't done that completely. I've heard of some people doing that and in theory, I like it. It's just like, can you get the players to remember that? And do they start to kind of think too much on the court to the point where they're not flying around anymore?

And I think that's right. The healthy balance as a coach is like finding the balance between giving them, you know, even in analytics, you give them too much numbers, then they start thinking too much. So I think that the filter, you have to be very wise in how you use your filter and information you give them.

Yeah, that's a great point. Like, you know, we have all the stats that can help the team be successful, but at the end of the day, the players are on the court. So how can we package this in a way that's easy for them to remember and apply in the real game context versus, all right, player X is going to be doing this.

So I want you to do that for them and player Y is doing that. So we're going to do a different cover here. So that makes it a lot harder for them to remember.

We've changed over the years. You know, we used to have Multiple bullet points on guys and that stuff that you give players. Now we use emojis and pictures, you know, like to kind of describe guys, 'cause that's what they're gonna remember. So, you know, you have 2 different scouting reports.

You got the coach's scout and player scout. And really the player scout is what they can remember when they're gonna be on the floor.

Right. Super simple things. Yeah. I remember even, um, we had a, a tournament. It was like under-15 tournament in Valencia in Spain. And it was one of our bigger games there. And the only thing we had on the scout was hot, cold, or normal for the closeouts for which player they were guarding.

And I thought, you know, having, keeping it simple to your point, they were 15, right? They were under 15. So I thought keeping it simple really helped them do that. And then in the next game, we were like, all right, let's build and give them 3 things.

And then that became a bit much. So that was a good learning experience. Also, how advanced is analytics in terms of, so I spoke about like If a player's coming off the pick and roll, is that information available? Is it readily available? Do you have to do digging for it?

It is how accurate it is. Like, I think at times you would question, you know, you can get, get a bunch of data from Synergy, right? We have an analytics company that also, you know, uses video to, to look at some stuff. And then also like, if we're going up against a really dynamic guy, like we may, we just may go look at every single pick and roll he was in on the season and track it ourselves.

There's definitely one-off projects for certain games, certain players that you do throughout the season to kind of, you know, try to figure them out. Right. And find an edge somewhere.

And biggest misconceptions coaches have about analytics and using analytics. What do you think that is?

That's great. That's a great question. I mean, the ones I've heard, right, like in particular about how we play, right, is like, oh, you don't allow mid-range. Well, not necessarily true. The mid-range shots we take directly mirror what's going on in the NBA.

You know, we're on par with percentage of mid-range taken. We're right on par with, with what the NBA does. And the average in the NCAA is about 10% above that. So for our guys and the guys we recruit, it's all about trying to get them to the next level.

And so it's like, if you, if you want to play at the next level, this is a perfect system for you because that's what's going on up there. So that's a big one, obviously. And, and I'm in recruiting mode right now. It's September.

We got official visits coming up and this weekend and next weekend and the weekend after that. And obviously that's the battle we fight, right? Like, you know, this is the way we play. And so I've also heard the one where like, you know, numbers take the feel out of the game.

Like you gotta have coaching feel and true, but not true. Like I think Coach has, Coach Oates has probably one of the best, you know, he has great feel for that. And so those two are, are it, you know, the way we play, we always hear about, you know, jacking threes, you're taking a bunch of threes and it's really like when you really watch us.

The 3s are a byproduct of our relentless pursuit of at-the-rims and fouls. And the 3s are just kind of like, that's what happens when they help. Right. And we, we spend an inordinate amount of time training our guys on making those reads so that we can get those shots off.

No. And I think more and more people are becoming aware to that. And it's not just about shooting loaded 3s, but it's about getting good quality looks at 3s to open up the rim and for those higher value shots. One thing, obviously, you know, you guys have a big staff, you have a budget.

A lot of coaches listening, they, you know, they may be working in high school or they just maybe don't have that, you know, Division 1 budget like that. What are some things that coaches can implement from analytics immediately to improve what they do?

Maybe all they have is like, you know, what's on huddle, for example.

Sure, sure. Yeah, I get that question a decent amount just from high school coaches. And I always think back to like, How we started this whole thing at Buffalo. And it was, it was a printed out spreadsheet and we were manually tracking, we were tallying and circling it if they made it, you know, and just giving them a tally if they missed it.

It was at the rims, mid-range, and threes. That's how we started, you know, Bammalytics as you see it today, I guess. And it grew from there to like, all right, the threes we started tracking. Did we get a paint touch on that possession?

So our paint touch kickout threes percentage versus non-paint touch kickout 3. So we started tracking paint touches and then it was, was the shot contested or uncontested? And then it was, was it a catch and shoot or off the dribble? And so like, that was honestly like the start of it.

Like that was all in kind of the first year and second year, I guess, at Buffalo is when we kind of just, that's all we were doing. And it was simple. And honestly, at times you still go back and look at just that and the numbers hold up, you know, and it's over, over the, you know, the amount of years we've been doing it.

So. That's where we started. We have kind of our baby, the shot type report that is very in-depth in the categories and how we break down shots and what shots we want to get and what shots each of our players, we want them to get.

And it's, it's a little bit different for each guy. And we use the data to kind of back that up in all of our practices and games.

And I don't know if you can give away some of these trade secrets, but in terms of how you're creating these shots, these open catch and shoot 3s on offense? You know, obviously you're trying to get some in transition there when you're in the half court, you know, what are some of those triggers or, or actions that you're using to get those shots?

Yeah, I think, I mean, the primary one is create help, right? So like, and to do that, we want to get the ball in the paint and that's like the easiest way to create kickout shots. All right. So, you know, and from there we've kind of activated some, some guys here in the last few years where now they can start to screen and help or flare and help.

That's been, we've got a lot of mileage out of that. You know, cutting is a huge one, slashing, cutting to create shots for others. If you cut to the rim, you may create some help somewhere that opens up somebody else. So what we started to do the year we went to the Final Four, um, was we started tracking off-ball assists and that was, you know, screen assists, obviously, you know, a lot of people do that.

We have cut assists, we have race assists, which is basically you sprint to the corner, you rim run in transition. And that creates a shot for somebody else, like you're getting credit for that. You know, you know, outside of your potential assist, your secondary assist, your hockey assist, if you will.

And then we kind of have like an all-encompassing category that's like, if you create the initial advantage on the possession that got the team into a scramble mode and it doesn't fall under one of those other buckets that I kind of just mentioned, then you get a create assist.

And then, so we track and we have a number for like per possession or per 100 possessions, how many shots you create for your team. That became like a thing that year and, and the guys bought into it and it, it kind of took on a life of its own.

Honestly, when we started tracking it, we didn't think it was, you know, like we're like, yeah, let's start tracking it. But it took on a life of its own. The guys really bought into it. It's kind of taken off since then. And we've really started to, you know, just now start to teach and layer that type of stuff into our practices here.

So that's great. Thanks for sharing that. I think it's underrated players that create advantages for their teammates in basketball because You could be a really good player and you could, maybe you could be a pass-first player and you create the advantages and your team's not capitalizing, you're losing games.

But maybe you're creating more advantages than, you know, a lot of other players that are maybe ranked higher than you or whatever the case may be. And I think, you know, having a way to give that player the credit really shows their worth in the long run as well.

And I wanna ask as well, when you're, obviously you have a team, you have your department, how do you work with each other and use the other assistant coaches, use the other analytics department? How do you guys mesh together so you don't operate in silos away from each other and use everyone's information for the betterment of the team?

It's a, that's a challenge, you know, in kind of any business probably is like, and it all comes down to kind of communication. Like if it's as simple as a group chat, honestly, like there's something going out to the, our third-party analytics party, kind of everyone It goes out in the group chat, right?

Like, hey, that's how we communicate. Then it'll come back via email or however they send it back. So I think it all comes down to communication. And to me, that comes from like the top, like in any company, like you want everyone pulling in the same direction and you don't want guys going off in their own silo, if you will.

So like, I think that starts from the top. Like there shouldn't be silos if your culture, if the standard from the top is set the right way. Right. And it all starts with communication, in my opinion.

Absolutely. And like you said, something as simple as a group chat and just communicating that way, right? It's like, I feel like a lot of people think, oh, you know, what are they doing there that's getting these results? Well, they got a group chat and that, you know, and it really helped.

It's not rocket science we're doing here.

It's, it's great. Those processes are great though. I know I'll start to implement some of those myself next season. So I'm sure it'll help out a lot of people. You also mentioned using, you spoke about this already, your shot type reports. Can you also build on that and custom development plans to guide practice, how that all pieces together?

Yeah. So it starts with our shot type report and I kind of touched on it. It essentially breaks down every player's at the rims, you know, non-at the rims and threes. And from there, it's basically a one-page report on each of those types of shots.

And it breaks it down into categories, you know, for at the rims, it's like, was it off the dribble or off the catch? You know, was it off one foot or off 2 feet? How many defenders were there? You know, if any, right?

Like, you know, then we have like scheme types. So like, that's more so like, was it off of a corner slash, a slash from the wing, a slash from the top? Like we have kind of like scheme type. I could go on for days on the categories.

There's probably, you know, upwards to 40 to 50 different categories or buckets there for each of those, but we do it for mid-range. And then obviously threes is a little bit different and how we actually You know, physically create those, but it's kind of the same concept.

It's like, you know, was it contested? Was there late contest, early contest, uncontested? You know, was there a paint touch or not? Was it the ball coming from the inside out or was it a swing on the outside? Like swing, swing. Like those are different types of shots.

Obviously it's, you know, really no secret. The types of shots that we really want to create are paint touch kickout threes. Those are the easiest shots to hit because they're all step-ins, right? Versus turning your body or sidestepping or anything like that. So that's kind of the 30,000-foot level view.

But from there, what we do is we'll— and Coach does a really good job. Like, we'll, we'll get the data together and then we'll put together like a few slides. Like, so, I mean, we're talking about this, the report itself, just for the shots is like a 4-page report.

From that, we'll go through it and pull out where there's some big discrepancies. Like, right. Like if a guy's taking way too many off-the-dribble 3s and he's, he's shooting a low percentage, but his catch and shoots, he's shooting over 40%, right? Like that is something we're going to show the actual individual player.

And we get asked a lot, like, how do you get guys to not take the mid-range? It's like, it's really just like, we educate them on what a good shot is. Like, I don't, I think in the 10 years I worked for Coach, like I've, I could probably count on one hand the amount of times in practice he said that's a bad shot.

Like he just doesn't do it, but we track every live shot. And through that, we, you know, he's a teacher at heart. So like, you know, we kind of educate them and through the summer we'll educate them and through the fall and even as the season goes on.

And that, that system has seemed to work. I think our players get better and, you know, no, no really bigger example than Brandon Miller was really good coming into us, but his at-the-rim percentage jumped like, it's like 25 or 30%. From non-conference to conference play the year he was with us.

And I think it had a lot to do with, we broke down his at-the-rims and showed them, you know, when we had the numbers, we had the clips, but we also had the numbers to kind of back it up. And like, you know, I'm sure you've always heard like numbers don't lie.

And so that's kind of how we use it. And it's a huge part of our player development plan. It's transformed into even more than that, like how guys get assists, how guys create shots for others, how guys are turning it over, right? If there's trends there.

You know, we have a one-page report on that's categorized with how you're turning it over. And I think we chart everything that is live. So like over, you got to think like we have during the season, we got 80 to 90 practices. If we go deep into the NCAA tournament, you have probably another 50 to 70 practices, you know, maybe during the summer and fall before the season.

So like we got a lot of data. To go off of and I think to make decisions and to help them along the way.

Now that's amazing. I don't even have a follow-up question for that. You covered everything in there. The one thing I do want to kind of build on that is, and I think, you know, you guys have, you know, your 40 to 50 shot type.

I think for coaches that are maybe in high school, college, professional level, it's whatever their strength of the team is, they can generate whatever that shot type is. And your point, you know, if the pass is coming from the paint, if it's coming from trail to 45 or 45 to corner, you know, coaches can track whatever fits their team based on obviously the amount of resources that they have.

So it doesn't have to be, you know, this complete comprehensive report like you guys have, but whatever that their resources allows them to do.

Yeah, you are what you emphasize. And so like, you know, whatever you want to emphasize as a program, if it's from shots or if it's something else, like You know, whatever you want to emphasize, I strongly encourage like chart it, find a way to chart what you want to emphasize.

And that'll help kind of get your message across to you, your guys or girls.

I saw on the, on the NBA.com website, they chart and, you know, anyone can see this is like touches, like in the game touches. And I thought that was it. That was interesting. I hadn't, I don't think I've ever noticed that before, you know, that kind of information readily available.

But yeah, to your point, you know, Whatever, even if it's, you know, how many high fives, how many touches, part of that as well, if that's something you want to emphasize for sure. So just coming to the end here, I want to ask, well, you already covered this a little bit, but is there anything else you want to build on between analytics and how it influences practice design?

I mean, you covered a lot on there. I don't know if you have anything else you want to add to that.

Yeah. I mean, from a practice design standpoint, X's and O's-wise, there's a lot like, you know, shoot, we practiced today and had a high turnover rate. So tomorrow we're going to come in and work on You know, we're going to take a look at how we turned it over and that's what we're working on tomorrow.

We're going to show the numbers on it. We're going to show the fellas what their individual and team turnover rate is and what the turnover rate is for the team when they're on the floor. And they're going to see where they rank right on the team.

And, you know, we use data in that way, right, to build practice. But I think the most data we use when we are building practice plans is kind of what we, you know, obviously high school coaches probably aren't going to have this, but our KINEXON data.

You know, the heart rate data that we get, you know, and that really is from like a load management standpoint, right? Like how many jumps they had, how many explosive movements they had, what their player load was for the day. You know, you don't want to have too many days in a row with high player load.

The one I love watching is like the mileage, like how many miles these guys run in a practice, I think is like, was eye-opening to me. Like it's not uncommon for a guy to run 4 or 5 miles in a practice and it's just like, Think back to my high school days when I was running cross-country and like, it's like, you know, it's crazy to think about.

And so like, I think it just puts it in perspective and helps us to the point where, you know, we've started to kind of like, hey, if we do this drill for 10 minutes, that's going to be worth 25 points in their player load.

And so like, that helps, like when we know a total overall player load that we want them to get to, we can kind of build a practice around that. And so we've, we actually recently started to kind of really dive into that. It's a monster to manage, as you can imagine, and plan out.

So we're kind of in a data collection phase here for, you know, last year and this year to get enough data to where we can accurately kind of rely on it, I guess. But that's an exciting deal, especially I know our athletic trainer and strength coach are all in on that one.

So.

It's a great one to collaborate on as well with them. Yeah. Super interesting. Uh, you said the points, the load points.

Yeah. It's a player load. It's just like a score, honestly. The math is probably above me. You know, I'm not 100% sure on how it comes, what the math is on it, but it kind of just gives you an overall exertion type of number on essentially how hard they went.

We'll use it in that way too. Like, hey man, like you're last in player load every single day. And like, you're in the same amount of reps as everybody. Like, are you, are you going hard enough? Like, and that, that'll directly correlate with some of the stuff we track in practice, like deflections and loose balls and our blue collar stats that we keep.

So like, There's like a direct correlation between player load and number of blue collar points you have in a practice or a game. Like it's a never fail type of deal. So just more and more numbers to hold them accountable.

Yeah, man, that's intense. That's great insight. All right. So I want to move on here. Transfer portal has reshaped rosters overnight. How can analytics be used to find undervalued players? And obviously with the, you know, the NIL, things are just different now. So how can you find those undervalued players?

Yeah. I mean, we, we use it quite a bit in the transfer portal, you know, without going too in-depth in it. We have an analytics company. They have models that can kind of project out essentially what guys would look like in our system based on how they've been over their career at other schools.

And that's kind of 30,000-foot level. That's kind of what it is. I think kind of a good example of that was Latrell Wrightsell, who's back this year, tore his Achilles last year, but the previous year he was one of the top 5 most efficient players in the country.

But the year before he came to us, over 40% of his shots that he took were not at the rims. And, you know, 54% of his shots, I think, or somewhere around just over 50% of his shots were 3s. We flipped that and he went to 75% of his shots were 3s, around 10% were not at the rims.

And he all of a sudden became the most efficient player in the country or one of the most efficient players in the country. And so like, I think knowing what you're looking for in the portal, right? Like, We're looking for guys who can, you know, size, athleticism, length, obviously, especially in today's game.

But what do they shoot on catch and shoot shots versus like, try not to judge too much on like, they take a bunch of bad shots or they, you know, this, a bunch of off the dribble shots. Like we're looking, what do they shoot on catch and shoot?

You know, obviously contested, uncontested, stuff like that. But those shot type reports I was telling you about, any guy we recruit, we do a full in-depth shot type report on every single shot they've taken. In their career. And so we can match their numbers to our numbers.

We know that our guards over the last 3 or 4 years, 70 to 80% of their shots are 3s, are uncontested 3s. And so like, if we look at a guy that's, you know, maybe shooting 40% on catch and shoots, but you know, his overall 3-point percentage maybe is only 30%, then like, why?

Right. And more times than not, it's the quality of shots he's getting. And we believe that we can do a really good job at creating high-value shots. And so I think that's kind of how you can use the portal and use analytics to, to really do a deep dive on guys.

That's awesome. You know, I think that there's a lot of information on there for coaches and listeners to take in. I know there's a lot of information in there for me to take in. So I'm like, whoa. So I just want to thank you for sharing.

It's been, you know, super useful just to hear you talk and hear, and, you know, I appreciate you sharing your insights. At Alabama. Last question I have for you before I let you go is our transformative tip question. What is one piece of advice you would give coaches that would instantly improve their practice environments?

Competition. I mean, everything we do is competitive. You know, we found a way to make 5-on-0 offense competitive and we score it. Everything we do is competitive. I've been at several different programs and Coach does an unbelievable job and he's the most competitive person I know.

But he does a really good job at creating the competitive environment and creating that fire in guys. And so I would say, man, I think especially in this day and age with the youth and like, you know, the AAUs, how they come up and they're playing game on top of game on top of game and like learning how to compete is a huge, huge skill that not necessarily gets coached on a day-to-day basis when they're coming up.

So compete, man, compete.

Awesome. Adam, thank you so much for your time. Really appreciate it.

Yeah, no problem. Thank you. Appreciate it.

Thanks for tuning in to this episode of the Transforming Basketball Podcast. If you'd like to learn more about the work that we do, head to transformingbball.com to access our free resources and spread these ideas throughout the basketball world. If you enjoyed today's episode, be sure to subscribe and leave a review on your favorite podcast platform.

You can also connect with us on Instagram, X, or YouTube with any questions that you have from the episode. See you next time on the Transforming Basketball Podcast.