Running Tryouts with Basketball Evaluation Software

The time of year is around the corner: basketball tryouts. For some coaches, this might be a seamless process, while for others, it poses more headaches & stress than anything.

Tryouts = collecting evaluation papers, inputting scores, and formatting reports: all time-consuming tasks that can lead to flawed drafting decisions and inadequate athlete feedback. After all, does sifting through dozens of evaluation papers really provide you with the insights needed to provide meaningful feedback to athletes?

Shoot your shot with basketball evaluation software. An intuitive, all-in-one app to score your players, create & share customized evaluation templates, make accurate drafting decisions, and provide insightful athlete feedback.

Reason #1: Easily Score Players

Toss away those archaic printed evaluation sheets and use your mobile device or tablet to conduct evaluations.

Like most basketball tryouts, you will have numerous drill stations that each measure a skill(s). For instance, one evaluator might be positioned at a station where he/she is only scoring players on dribbling. Here is how simple SkillShark is for the evaluator:

• Select the players they want to evaluate
• Select the skill(s). In this case, it will be dribbling.
• Start scoring! *They can either use our slider button or enter a score (both easy and fast options).

Evaluators can easily score a player on all of the dribbling metrics. Once done scoring a player, they will quickly navigate to the next player up for evaluation.

Reason #2: Use A Centralized Evaluation Template

Gone are the days of printing off dozens of evaluation sheets to hand to each of your evaluators–only to have to hand collect them once tryouts are over (which can lead to sheets getting lost and inaccurate results).

With SkillShark’s basketball evaluation software, you can customize an evaluation template to share with all of your evaluators at the click of a button.

SkillShark’s customizable evaluation template

As evaluators are often dispersed at different drill stations throughout tryouts, a single evaluation template allows for consistency and efficiency. The process looks like this:

1. Each evaluator will open the template on their mobile device.
2. The evaluator will score players on select skills using their mobile device.
3. Scores will automatically be stored in the backend, so you can view player data right after an evaluation

Reason #3: Make Accurate & Quick Decisions

You might be asking yourself, “How will an evaluation app help me make more accurate or quick team placement decisions?” Let’s tackle this question from both perspectives:

Accurate decision making:

The elimination of pen-and-paper forms means that the data transfer process is automatically done for you. Once scores are entered in the app, they are stored on the backend. At any point after an evaluation, you can simply just choose which report you want to run to view player data.

For instance, let’s suppose after two days of basketball tryouts, you want to get an overview of player performance. In this case, SkillShark’s all-scores report is the answer, providing you with an in-depth look at how each of your players scored across all skills evaluated. Hone in to see how your players rank across dribbling or rebounding specifically, or zoom out for a broader view to see how your players rank overall.

All Scores Report

Quick decision making:

Enter scores. View results. Make decisions. It really is just as simple & quick as that. No more transferring scores one by one from each PAPER evaluation sheet into a master Excel spreadsheet. No more headaches over formatting that Excel data into reports (that may or may not give you the insights you want).

Reason #4: Provide Player Feedback

With traditional evaluations, the tasks of manually entering scores and formatting reports with that player data are already time-consuming enough. Now imagine trying to provide quick & accurate player feedback to athletes & their parents.

SkillShark has you covered when it comes to athlete report cards:

1. Conduct athlete evaluations on your mobile device with SkillShark.
2. After an evaluation, navigate to the ‘Reports’ section and click on ‘Individual Reports.’
3. Click on the athlete you would like to view.
4. View a customized report card for that athlete. Their score for each skill they were evaluated on will be displayed, as well as a score of how they compare to the team average.
5. Email a copy of the player report card to athletes & their parents—directly from SkillShark.

Player report cards

Reason #5: Track Player Development

Has [insert athlete] improved on [insert skill] throughout the season? What [insert skill] can a player focus on to improve next year?

These two questions might sound simple to answer, yet finding the data to accurately answer these questions is difficult with traditional evaluation methods.

As you use SkillShark to conduct multiple evaluations throughout the year, such as mid-season evaluations or year-end evaluations, all the data is stored on the backend. When it comes time to look back and reflect on player performance, simply:

1. Select the player you want to track.
2. Select the evaluation events i.e., Tryouts, clinics, or mid-season evaluations.
3. Select the metrics (up to 5).

With those three simple steps, you will have a player development report read to view (and share) in seconds. Players can easily visualize what they have improved on or what they need to work on for the rest of the season or the next year ahead.

Player development report in SkillShark

Wrapping Up

Toss away the pen-and-paper for a cost-effective, intuitive and, most importantly, accurate evaluation software. SkillShark’s all-in-one basketball evaluation software that streamlines tryouts and provides spot-on player insights is ready for you to use.

Spend less time & energy on the evaluation process and more time on what truly matters: coaching your team to success.