The sport analytics program in the Falk College of Sport and Human Dynamics and the Kumamoto Volters professional basketball team in Japan have announced a historic partnership for the 2024-25 season that will allow Syracuse sport analytics students to utilize data analysis to impact the team’s performance.
It’s the first partnership of this kind between an American college or university and a Japanese professional sports team. As part of this agreement, sport analytics students and faculty will work in different capacities with students and faculty from Kumamoto University, which is located on the Japanese island of Kyushu.
Kumamoto Basketball Co., Ltd., President and Chief Executive Officer Satoshi Yunoue says partnering with Syracuse’s prestigious sport analytics program will improve the team’s performance as it seeks to move from the Japanese B.League’s B2 league to the B1 league. The Volters open their season on Oct. 7.
“In recent years, the importance of data has been gaining attention, and we are confident that together with Kumamoto University, (Syracuse) will support us in the analytics portion and contribute to improving our winning percentage as we accumulate know-how in data analysis,” Yunoue said in a statement on the team’s website that was translated into English.
“We are excited to be able to work with Syracuse University, which is leading the way in data analysis in the field of basketball in the United States,” Yunoue added.
The Falk College’s partnership with Kumamoto is the next phase for sport analytics students, who already provide data analysis for 11 of Syracuse’s athletic teams. In this photo, sport analytics major Dan Griffiths reviews performance data with track and field student-athlete Elizabeth Bigelow.
In serving as the Volters’ de facto analytics department, seven undergraduate and graduate students in sport management will remotely collect and analyze a variety of data, including player performance statistics, live game video, information from wearables that track performance data, and business and operations data.
“We are honored and excited about the partnership between Kumamoto University and Syracuse University Sport Analytics,” says Sport Analytics Undergraduate Director and Professor Rodney Paul. “We look forward to providing statistical insights, building visualizations and models, and doing everything we can to help with the success of the Volters as we build what we hope to be a lasting collaboration with our wonderful partners at both Kumamoto University and the Volters.”
Under Paul’s leadership, sport analytics students have captured back-to-back National Sport Analytics Championships, and they have won numerous player and team analytics competitions in basketball, football and baseball. About 70 students are providing data collection and analysis for 11 of Syracuse University’s athletic teams, and other partnerships such as the one with Kumamoto are in the works both nationally and globally.
Previously, the Volters utilized staff members to analyze data on a limited basis. In addition to analyzing the Volters’ data, the Syracuse students will help analyze data from opposing teams, and the collaboration with Syracuse and Kumamoto University will help the Volters build their own data analysis team.
“We would like to use the Volters as a hub to connect university students in Kumamoto and America,” Yunoue says. “We are grateful for this connection, and we will become a team and work together as colleagues working toward this goal.”
Paul says this partnership speaks to the uniqueness of the sport analytics program because Syracuse students will apply the skills they’re learning in the classroom to a variety of areas for the Volters that will benefit from data analysis.
“This is the next step in the evolution of our program where our students are working in a practical laboratory with a professional team in another country and all that goes with it,” Paul says. “These are the ways they can show off their skills, and with the different time zones they can wake up in the morning and see the score of the game and the results of what they did.”
