Ever wish you could watch film of every 3-pointer Drew Neitzel has ever made off the dribble out of a timeout in a road game?
Kevin Pauga can make it happen.
Pauga, the video coordinator for the MSU men's basketball team, manages a film scouting system that puts Blockbuster to shame. Using a stable of six TiVo units and other high-tech gear, Pauga and the team's 12 student managers record nearly every game that's on TV — more than 1,300 already this season — then catalog them with mind-boggling meticulousness. When a game is logged in the computer, every play is broken down with labels like who ends up shooting, which side they drove from, what kind of play-call it was and where it originated.
Want a clip of missed layups by Slippery Rock's point guard that came off a baseline inbound play? It's just a few clicks away.
"It's different stuff you wouldn't necessarily pick up unless you watched every one of their games," Pauga, a former student manager and 2004 MSU alumnus, said Monday. "That's a tremendous advantage to us."
For the coaching staff, it's a way to analyze opponents' systems to see what works best against them.
"It's not a time-consuming thing," MSU head coach Tom Izzo said. "Twenty minutes here, a half hour there — you can pick up a ton in a week, just because we can get so specific in how we break it down now."
For players, it's a chance to pick up the tendencies of who they'll be guarding — which hand a guard favors on his drives or which shoulder a post player tends to shoot over.
"It's really given me an edge as far as mental preparation," said junior center Drew Naymick, who credited film review for his solid defensive performance against Ohio State's Greg Oden.
Sophomore guard Travis Walton always has been a video buff — he used to watch VHS tapes of himself when he was in high school. But now, with so many options at his fingertips, Walton has become a regular film critic, staking out the Breslin Center film room every day and taking game DVDs home with him most nights.
Izzo said Walton watches more than most of the assistant coaches.
"When the coaches say you're doing something wrong, you can say, 'Yeah, I did do that wrong,' instead of sometimes questioning it," Walton said.
Other programs are buying into the importance of video scouting, but MSU's 5-year-old system remains on the cutting edge.
On the eve of the NCAA Tournament, that edge became even more critical. When the brackets were released at around 6 p.m. Sunday, Pauga and his crew knew what to do. They pulled all the game tapes they had for MSU's possible first- and second-round opponents (20 for Marquette, 30 for North Carolina and, just in case hell freezes over, six for Eastern Kentucky), then started logging them in the computers.
By the time the team's practice was over a few hours later, there was a Marquette reel waiting for players to digest.
"Most teams didn't even have tape yet," Pauga said.
Pauga didn't leave Breslin Center until about 4:30 a.m. that night, which might seem debilitating until you realize how massive the payoffs are. Since Izzo took over, MSU is 11-1 in games on the second day of a tournament weekend — situations where prep time is at a premium.
"I'd like to think we're a small part of that," Pauga said.
Pauga could take a light breather after the post-selection show flurry, but he'll be back at whirlwind pace again this weekend, making sure all the first- and second-round games are recorded for use next season — or, he hopes, next weekend.
"We're constantly trying to make sure we're not at a disadvantage," Pauga said. "It's safe to say we never have been."
