Mizzou Basketball Offers Peek At Analytics Process

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COLUMBIA, Mo. — Tucked in a media room within the bowels of Mizzou Arena, Missouri men's basketball coach Dennis Gates and his staff did something unprecedented Thursday afternoon.

For 75 minutes, Gates, assistant coach Ryan Sharbaugh and two consultants from HD Intelligence — the advanced and proprietary statistics service that MU contracts with for proprietary data — opened the books for reporters to explore the numbers used by the team and ask questions.

"This is unique," said Andy Schmitt, an HD Intelligence vice president who was part of the educational session. "This is special."

Gates has been clear and consistent in wanting to help outlets that cover his team, including the Post-Dispatch, have access to the statistics that drive the Tigers' internal analysis and decision-making processes. He said as much during a sit-down interview almost exactly a year ago.

"I wish HD Intelligence would be able to be accessible to all media writers because it would help you see the game a completely different way," Gates told the Post-Dispatch last December . "And I think that would allow more intriguing articles to be written because you'll see it in a totally different lens. It's like watching a black-and-white movie versus watching in 3D."

HD Intelligence provides four-page box scores chock-full of rich, detailed stats compared to the one-pager traditionally printed out after games. Want to know how many points Missouri scored on possessions that took between seven and 12 seconds off the shot clock against California? Or how often forward Mark Mitchell attempted two-point shots away from the rim against Kansas? Or how many fewer 3-pointers the Tigers tried against Cal versus their benchmark heading into the game?

All of that is delivered almost instantly to the MU coaching staff and was part of example analytical box scores that Gates and HD Intelligence shared with reporters. One of the conditions of Thursday's meeting was that the full box scores, which are proprietary and kept under wraps, could not be shared.