Graphic by Hayden Carkner/The Griff

Coach Chris Wandler talks playoffs, new technology, and how the Griffins bounced back

With a win over UFV, the women’s volleyball team broke the curse. The Griffins’ first team to enter Canada West finally won their first playoff game. They squeaked into the playoffs as the 10 seed, with two crucial wins against Brandon University, essentially securing them the spot. Wins in Canada West don’t come easy. Coach Chris Wandler can attest to that.

Wandler said the travel and workload can take a toll on players’ bodies. Constant jumps, stops and starts during practices, and games are compounded by travel schedules. Griffins are also busy students, so rehab is one of the most important aspects of student athletics.

However, Wandler says the team takes a modern approach to rehabilitation. Technology in sports is constantly evolving. From advanced analytics in hockey to neck guards that protect your brain in football, every athletic operation is always looking for a leg up.

Volleyball with the Griffins is no different. Wandler uses technology to manage starters’ health and wellness. “There is just the whole AI piece of stats and numbers and that goes into scouting, into performance driven data that we use to guide who our starting lineup’s going to be,” Wandler explained. “We have some technical devices to help out with how many times in practice they jump, and the total amount for the week.” Wandler takes this data and makes sure his athletes aren’t putting too much pressure on their bodies. The Griffins have roughly six trackers, which they assign to starting players to manage the amount of stops, starts, and jumps they execute. Once starters hit a total amount of jumps in practice, Wandler stops them for the rest of the day.

Along with health tracking, Wandler uses recordings of their games to study every rally. With the system Balltime, the Griffins can record and study their every move. Balltime is a service that takes game film and uses AI to analyze each rally the team has. It can point out exact moments where kills, blocks, and other key events happen. It tracks both teams in an effort to pinpoint exactly what went right or wrong on the play. AI shows the trajectory of the ball after it’s hit, and makes a chart for each rotation (lineup) that played in the game. Along with ball tracking, it includes every statistic for each rotation and player in said rotation. Wandler uses it to make sure he is spending less time scouting and more time coaching. 

“From just paper and pencil on the bench and trying to keep track of every rally and every play, and trying to keep data that way, it’s onerous. Now the technology part takes a lot of that out of our hands, which is great, and now we can just actually coach instead of just focusing on, you know what just happened,” he says.

Watching the film of matches is nothing new to sports. Balltime is partnered with a program called Hudl, a longtime name in the football film industry. While normal film study is pretty common, the investment in modern systems give the Griffins a new angle to attack scouting from. Being able to assess where your biggest weaknesses come from at a numerical level allows for improvement beyond a simple film session. Combine reviewing film with the team’s increased focus on tracking wear and tear during practices, and you get a Griffins team that is keeping up with the modern game. Yet, Wandler insists that what ultimately brings a program to the next level is culture.

“First and foremost, it’s maintaining the culture of the group year to year, so how we treat each other, how we are as teammates, as humans, right? And then getting into the, you know, how we’re going to keep the standard at a high level. So we’ll start that today.”