Professor hopes CREZ will score points with basketball coaches

A Canadian University professor named James Naismith invented the game of basketball in a gymnasium in 1851. One-hundred-and-fifty years later, University of Waterloo professor David Clausi is hoping to revolutionize the way the game is coached.

An associate professor in the Department of Systems Design Engineering, Clausi is finalizing Canadian and American patents for his portable coaching program called CREZ.

CREZ, the complete coaching system enables basketball coaches of all levels of play to control scouting information, video and statistics all in real time.
Clausi came up with the idea for the CREZ coaching model four years ago after competing and refereeing basketball at various levels throughout his life.

Pregame information at their fingertips

The CREZ model is the size of an average clipboard that uses a tablet PC system that uses touch screen input, which allows coaches to quickly call up diagramed plays, video and statistical information using the Minimal Glance System (MGS).

With MGS, coaches are able to have all of their pre-game information at their fingertips,” Clausi said . “The video aspect allows coaches to have real-time video during the game, with CREZ they get that.”

Although pro scouts and other analysts at elite levels use similar software to CREZ to capture player information, Clausi’s system is unique in the way that it can hold up to 2GB of video.

“When coaches pick-up CREZ they get excited,” Clausi said. “Being able to draw up a play with a digital pen and store it in the tablet PC is something they really like but the video aspect doesn’t exist anywhere else and with the integrated aspect of both video and stats on the same program CREZ makes their job much easier.”

University of Waterloo Golden Hawks men’s basketball Head Coach Tom Kieswetter has worked closely with the CREZ program, after working out a few kinks and getting used to the software, Kieswetter swears by the program and thinks that it is a valuable resource to any coach at any level.

“Over the last couple of years David got me into CREZ during BETA testing, and since the start of this season I have been using CREZ as my main source for video and statistical analysis,” Kieswetter said. “It’s such a simple, wonderful program that has been very beneficial in game prep and scouting other team’s tactics through video.”

Captivated by ease of video function

The Golden Hawks women’s basketball Head Coach Mano Watsa also began using CREZ this season and was immediately captivated by the ease of the video aspect.

“I was able to pick up each component of CREZ within a few minutes of learning it, Watsa said. “Our players immediately and continue to benefit from seeing collections of offensive and defensive clips that demonstrate trends in their play strengths and weaknesses.”

Watsa thinks CREZ could be used by coaches at the highest levels, including the NBA. “I believe CREZ can be of benefit to every team and to all players at all levels of play.” Watsa said. Clausi agrees and hopes that once CREZ receives more funding so he can increase promotion of the system throughout North America.

“I am in the process of looking for investors to take CREZ to the next level.” Says Clausi. “We received some interest from American coaches at the National Basketball Coaches’ Conference earlier this year, but hope to make a bigger impact on the market in the months to come.”

At this time Clausi plans to promote CREZ to University and high school level coaches in Canada due to its affordable pricing for all levels of play. A single CREZ software license is $2500. Similar software that can only perform video analysis typically costs more than $4000.

Filed from The Centre for Creative Communications

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Posted: Dec 12 2006 12:00 pm
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