Who is that guy staring at an iPad on Marquette's bench during games? Meet Shaka Smart's director of video and analytics

The bench area for the Marquette men's basketball team pulsates with activity during games.

Coaches and players are slapping the court or yelling out instructions. A walk-on might be parading with a motivational prop like a water jug or a picture of a skunk. All of those are "energy-generating behaviors" prized by head coach Shaka Smart.

But sitting in the second row, Devon Mulry is often calmly staring at an iPad like he's reading an email or figuring out his next Wordle play.

Mulry is the Golden Eagles' director of video and analytics, a crucial role on a modern basketball staff and one for which he is particularly well-suited.

When seventh-ranked MU (11-3, 2-1 Big East) takes on Seton Hall (9-5, 2-1) at 11 a.m. Saturday at the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey, Mulry will be constantly flagging video clips.

He'll then share them with MU's other coaches, like offensive sets for Nevada Smith or defensive ones for Neill Berry. Mulry will even hand the iPad to DeAndre Haynes or Cody Hatt, assistants who sit further down the bench for one-on-one instructions with players.

"I’ve got the iPad, I’m getting the live feed in there," Mulry said. "So I am often not watching the game. I kind of see people cheer or whatever, but I am watching different things either that they want me to look at or call back (to Mulry to clip) or I’m saying stuff up to them that’s happening. That they guarded this action a certain way or whatever.

"I can help in that way live with just calling up certain things or showing them during a timeout. Dre and Cody are down with our players a lot, doing a great job when they come to the bench. ‘Hey, Dre, show Stevie (Mitchell) this’ or “Cody, show whoever this’ and I’m handing them the iPad. I think we’re doing a great job of that stuff this year."

Devon Mulry learned from offensive mastermind John Beilein at Michigan

The NCAA just recently allowed basketball teams to use technology like iPads on the bench.

Mulry has been acquiring skills for this job for most of his life, starting as a statistician for the basketball team at Caledonia High School in Michigan.

“I wasn’t really a high-level player ever," Mulry said. "I was just always drawn to the game and always, interestingly enough, drawn to the coaching side of it. What are they doing, Xs and Os-wise? Why are they doing this? What could other teams be doing to stop that?”

Mulry's real education in hoops came at Michigan, where he went to the basketball offices as a freshman and asked to be involved with the team. He spent seven years with the program through the 2017-18 season, going from student manager to head manager to graduate assistant.

It was an auspicious time for the Wolverines, who appeared in two Final Fours and an Elite Eight during that stretch under respected tactician John Beilein.

"He was so open to everyone in the program," Mulry said. "If you did have questions or you wanted to learn more about the offense, he would always answer and did such a good job with his staff knowing what was going on in all the little nitty-gritty Xs and Os stuff that you could ask anybody around as a mentor to kind of walk you through that different stuff."

Mulry spent a season getting hands-on coaching experience as an assistant at Lake Superior State, this time learning all he could about defensive tactics.

"Really getting some ownership right way, which I wasn’t expecting to get, in running the scout team, having the other team’s actions down, trying to get play-calls, stuff like that was a really important experience that I got to implement things I thought," he said. "And I was also coaching the JV team, so if I wanted to try anything, I mean, what better way than something with low-stakes, if we’re being honest.”

Working with Shaka Smart and HD Intelligence

Through Luke Yaklich, a former Michigan and Texas assistant and now head coach at Illinois-Chicago, Mulry landed on Smart's radar.

Mulry spent two seasons as director of player development under Smart with the Longhorns. But when most of staff came with Smart to MU in April 2021, Mulry stayed in Texas because his wife, a pediatrician, was in the midst of a multi-year program.

Mulry worked for two years at HD Intelligence, which provides statistical analysis and video breakdowns for college teams.

“I think maybe the biggest thing I learned is there are so many different ways to win in basketball," Mulry said. "There’s so many ways. I came from a background of Coach Beilein, offense, the beautiful game and that’s how you play basketball.

"Nobody told me that, that was just my perspective. And so I learned from working with all these different coaches around the country that there are so many ways to win and the biggest thing you can do is understanding your advantages and pressing them.”

Because of his established connections with Smart and most of the MU coaches, Mulry was a HD Intelligence consultant for the Golden Eagles.

"You're sending them scouts and certain deliverables that are scheduled," Mulry said. "But then you have the back-and-forth.

"Hey, we saw this in a game, you guys might want to take a look at this. Or this team is doing this tremendously well the last five games, you might want to look at this."

When former MU video coordinator Dayshawn Wells left to become an associate head coach at Nicholls State after last season, Smart hired Mulry.

“One of the main selling points, I think for me, was Coach needed somebody who knew the culture also," Mulry said. "It’s such a big piece.

"We start film every day with culture stuff. With body language stuff from our last game, how we celebrated positive plays during the game or didn’t during the game, how we responded to adversity during the game. He was looking for all of those little things.”

What kind of video and analytics do the Golden Eagles use?

Smart is too busy to look at clips during timeouts. Instead, he just gets a quick look at a traditional box score.

"I look at the plus-minus," Smart said. "It’s just a snapshot, but just an indication of how we did when a guy was in the game. I look at assists, and then I look at certain things from the other team that we’re trying to take away."

But at halftime, there is enough time for Smart to look at video with Mulry.

"Before we hit the floor, I get with him briefly and I kind of know what he wants to see for the most part," Mulry said. "What’s hurting us? How do our presses look? How are they trying to go at them? Any threes we’ve given up.

"Just anything that I know just from my experience working with him that I know he’s going to want to watch. Or he’ll just be, like, show me that one play and I’ll have it already flagged."

HD Intelligence also has advanced box scores available at halftime and for full games. According to Mulry, MU players are adept at knowing what the numbers mean.

"Last game, (Creighton's Baylor) Scheierman was obviously killing us, you don’t need numbers to tell you that he was hurting us," Mulry said. "But just in the halfcourt we were so good defensively in the first half and transition was the issue.

"Even if we’re able to give a number, to point that out to our guys that, hey, in the halfcourt, we don’t even need to tell them the number but you can see right on the page, hey, they’re 0.86 points per possession in the halfcourt, we’re doing great there. We just need to keep doing that, keep them out of transition, make them play against our set defense. If we can do that, we’ll be in great shape in the second half."

MU has certain numbers it always highlights, like offensive and defensive rebounding percentage.

"That’s some of the stuff we see right after a game and they know what’s good and what’s not," Mulry said. "For instance, defensively it’s very important that we don’t let people get to the rim. And our guys know we want other teams at 30% or less of their shots at the rim. So that’s one of the things we’re showing after every game."

Mulry also works with video and stats in the prep work for every game. For Seton Hall, Mulry will compile an edit on all of head coach Shaheen Holloway's playcalls late in close games. He'll also do a deep dive into why the Pirates are one of the nation's best teams at grabbing its own misses with a 38.1% offensive rebounding percentage.

"We’ll do very unique things," Mulry said. "If ‘attack mode’ is the theme - Coach does a great job with themes to the game, too - that he’ll show a video of one of the best heavyweight fights of all time, just to show that it’s going to be a battle. And it appeals to certain guys’ interests, like Kam Jones is really into boxing, loves it. So he’s appealing to Kam and the rest of the team and knows he’ll get into it. "

Mulry wants to keep improving on how to use video with players during games, including more granular breakdowns.

"Right now, if Tyler Kolek wants I can have his pick-and-rolls from the first half as he walks back to the locker room so he can see them," Mulry said. "Or his turnovers or his whatever. But we can really take that to the next level, in terms of he could see all of his clips in a certain action, in a Spain action or something else, that I think would be awesome to move forward."

Better keep that iPad fully charged on the bench.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Shaka Smart hired Devon Mulry as Marquette director of video and analytics