Atop the Mountain: Sportscode Helped Mount St. Mary’s Return to the Big Dance
May 31, 2017
2 Min Read
In their first season with Sportscode, the Mountaineers immediately saw the benefits — its insights helped them win their conference and make the Big Dance.
Most first-year assistants don’t have the courage to suggest major changes right after they're hired. But Graham Bousley, fresh off his start at Mount St. Mary’s, knew it was important to make his case.
Bousley had seen Sportscode’s major benefits during his two years as the director of basketball operations at Rice and was surprised to see his new team had yet to incorporate it. He and the other assistants convinced coach Jamion Christian of the program’s capabilities.
The results? Mount St. Mary’s jumped from 14 to 20 wins, won the Northeast Conference Tournament and made the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2014, beating New Orleans before falling to Villanova.
“As a program when we were starting out this year, we really realized its value,” Bousley said of Sportscode. “It was important for us to use this season to work more efficiently and maximize our chances for success. It definitely was an important piece for us this year. It’s cutting-edge technology and we want to give the players the best possible chance and maximize our resources.”
Mount St. Mary’s doesn’t have a video coordinator, so assistants Bousley, Will Holland and Julian Boatner are assigned offensive, defensive and special teams coordinator roles. As the special teams coordinator, Bousley is responsible for breaking down any video involving plays following timeouts, late-game situations and the Mountaineers’ performance against the press.
Mount St. Mary's uses a Sportscode output window to track their success with a full-court press.
The team doesn’t have many team video sessions. Instead, they focus more on one-on-one meetings where the players connect with one of the assistants to break down their video.
“They basically just soak up whatever we can give them,” Bousley said. “Sportscode allows us to work more efficiently and give them more information. We do a lot of short edits and I’ll just convert them into a small movie and I’ll text it to them. It’s so easy.”
Bousley is also responsible for creating an offensive execution playbook after the season’s conclusion for the incoming freshmen to study.
While Sportscode doesn’t deserve all the credit for the Mountaineers’ jump, it certainly played a key role in helping them get back to the Big Dance. The nation’s youngest coaching staff embraced the change, the players eagerly jumped on board and Mount St. Mary’s reaped the benefits.
“I really sold that it was going to be really important to our program and the other assistants had used it as well. We were kind of like, ‘Coach, we have to do this,’” Bousley said. “I think it just streamlines the process. I just like how easy it is to use and it makes me work more efficiently.”
