Using of Network Motifs on Basketball Tactical Analysis

Abstract

In the specific case of team sports there are a particular interest to recognize the cooperation tendencies between team-members. There are several ways to extend the investigation of pass motifs to reveal finergrained details of teams and players. The aim of this study was to solve the game strategies of basketball teams by using network science through motifs. The study sample consists of 6 matches of Turkish National Basketball Team in the EuroBasket2015 tournament. 6 matches were analyzed with e-analysis basketball program, the pass actions obtained from the analysis were transferred into Excel files. The Excel pass files were processed with the open-source program Gephi to obtain the network of the matches and the measurements of networks’ motifs. And then using R and R package igraph 3-nodes and 4-nodes pass motifs were found. As a result, for 3-nodes Type 9 has been seen as mode 2 times. With the help of network science approach and by using motifs the most influential players can be found, the most compatible squad for future games can be selected and the opponent's key players can be analyzed. If coaches want to disrupt the opponent's game format, they must first be aware of the pass motifs that the team often uses. Determining how to break these motifs will make an important contribution to the success of a team.