Jack Van Deventer on the Current State of Basketball Analytics (EP348)

The Basketball Podcast

In this week's basketball coaching conversation, Jack Van Deventer joins The Basketball Podcast to discuss the current state of basketball analytics.

Jack Van Deventer is the founder and CEO of Basketball Science, a consulting firm based in North Carolina. With a distinguished 45-year career as a statistician, professor, and data scientist, Jack retired as the Lead Data Scientist of a Fortune 40 company to embark on his basketball analytics venture.

Jack's academic journey includes his role as a professor of Business Statistics at Boise State University and later as a professor of Management Information Systems at Washington State University, where he earned teaching awards at both institutions. His expertise lies in simplifying complex information into actionable insights, a skill he seamlessly translated into the realm of basketball analytics.

Fifteen years ago, Jack began advancing basketball analytics when his daughter, Amy, started playing junior high basketball. Collaborating with fellow data scientists, Jack realized that commonly-used basketball statistics were lagging by about 25 years. He then focused on developing improved metrics and shared his findings with Amy's high school coach, leading her team to a State Championship. Later, Amy's D-II college coach utilized Jack's stats to win the conference championship and advance to D-II March Madness, defeating more talented teams in the process.

As Jack's analytics reached higher-level basketball programs, their success continued to grow. Today, Basketball Science is dedicated to providing better insights to teams that strive to win, consistently pushing the boundaries of basketball analytics.