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Euroleague Final Four

In this issue...

Main Feature ................ 1

Events ........................... 2

News .............................. 3

Support ......................... 4

Customer Spotlight .... 5

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ISSUE 02: JULY 2012

The 2012 Euroleague Final Four was held in Istanbul featuring two teams from

Greece, one from Barcelona, and the heavily-favored Russian team, CSKA. Combined these four clubs have won 16 championships and are historically considered to be the top four basketball clubs in Europe. The heavily anticipated weekend consist-ed of first-round games on Friday, a red carpet awards ceremony on Sat-urday and the championship game on Sunday.

Friday night, the first game was played between CSKA and the Pana-thenaikos. It was a surprise to many that the Panathenaikos even made it to the Final Four, but the coaches, relying heavily on scouting using XOS Thunder Basketball, believed they had a game plan to make it more than merely competitive. They

were right: playing the game to the last possession, the Panathenaikos team fell by a mere two points.

The second game was between the favored Barceclona team and the Olympiakos. The game mirrored the first in that it was a blowout early but became a competitive game on the basis of big runs. Bar-celona took an early lead, only to see Olympiacos match its runs and gut out a four-point victory.

It is the tradition of the Eurole-ague to hold the award ceremony on the Saturday night between the semi-final and final games. Guests were greeted on the red carpet with wine and champagne, and then experienced musical performances and an evening of great food, drinks and camaraderie among basketball enthusiasts from across the world.

01

XOS EventsBasketball Users Conference: July 22-24

The XOS Basketball Users Con-ference dates are now set for the 2012 Conference. All XOS partner teams are welcome to join us at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas this month.

For those unfamiliar with XOS user conferences, these events serve as a great forum for peer-to-peer learning, to become familiar with the software, to provide the XOS team with useful feedback and to network.

The conference agenda is currently pending finalization. However, the

On Sunday in the finals, CSKA domi-nated and led by as many as 16. The fourth quarter started off with an 11-0 run by Olympiacos. The game went back and forth for the last three minutes, and with the crowd stunned in disbelief, with less than one minute to play, it had become a one-point game. Two missed free throws later, the Greeks were down by one and had possession of the ball.

In a surreal moment, the final six-teen seconds lasted a lifetime as the entire arena came to its feet in a state of utter shock and incredu-lity. With four seconds remaining,

02 XOS Digital

the shot that will be remembered as “The Shot” that completed the greatest comeback in Euro-league history went through the net, and mass hysteria erupted from the Olympiacos fans. The players, seemingly dazed by the turn of events, milled about as if they could not believe it. Finally, the reality set in, and the Greek players rushed across the court and headed toward the stands to share the unbelievable mo-ment with their fans. However, it took three-person-deep walls of armed forces lining the sideline and the court to keep fans from

the players, as well as to keep the players from going into the stands.

The Greek team overcame insurmount-able odds to become the Euroleague Champions – potentially the biggest upset in all of sports this decade. XOS Digital is glad to partner with this out-standing team and appreciated feedback from the team’s assistant coach who said, “We are always prepared for any situation because of the scouting we do using XOS Digital Thunder Basketball.”

- Written by Blaine Patterson, Basketball Marketing Specialist

positive feedback we received last year in regard to training means that there will be a lot more hands-on learning with XOS Thunder at this year’s conference.

Rising Coaches Conference:July 25-26

Immediately following the XOS Basketball Users Conference, XOS Digital is also excited to partner with Rising Coaches Elite to offer a full week of basketball network-ing at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas.

The Rising Coaches Conference is a key summer event for support staff and coaches who wish to

network and learn from some of the top head coaches and assistant coaches across the country. The event provides excellent insight into these top coaches’ career paths, professional advice and ex-pectations for the next generation of college coaches.

If you have not received informa-tion about either of the above events or you need to reserve a hotel room, please contact Chris Taylor at ctaylor@xosdigital.com or 978-944-3029.

03

Facilities

July 2012

Industry Insider

Summer is in full swing, and so are preparations for the upcoming season. Many teams are evaluat-

ing methods for capturing practice video as well as standard-definition (SD) versus high-definition (HD) so-lutions. In general, XOS Digital has noticed a significant trend in HD transitions within basketball dur-ing the past year. We’d like to know how you capture practice video, and would appreciate your assistance with this quick two-minute survey.

Nationwide, conferences and teams are gearing up for the sea-son. Officiating technology in col-legiate basketball is catching on as more and more conferences focus on providing the latest digi-tal technology to help officials streamline the review process and increase the odds of making more accurate calls. The Western Athletic Conference, Southland Conference, Patriot League and University of North Dakota have

General News

XOS Digital recently an-nounced the acquisition of StratBridge LLC, a pri-

vately-held Boston-based software company that develops web offer-ings for complex, data-intensive products. The acquisition enables XOS to implement more robust

all added XOS HD Replay for Bas-ketball to use in the 2012-2013 season.

Finally, as you evaluate your work-flow and equipment in prepara-tion for the season let us know your needs. We’re happy to pro-vide solutions for any current or future video needs. Also, check out the support section in this newsletter for the XOS season readiness plan!

XOS Thunder

Product News

XOS Digital welcomes the University of Mary Hardin Baylor, Samford University

and the University of South Florida as new XOS Thunder Basketball partners.

XOS would also like to recognize its partner teams’ successes this sea-son.

Five XOS NCAA teams made it to the Sweet Sixteen, including national champion Kentucky. Likewise, XOS NBA partners have achieved simi-

lar levels of success. In the Eastern Conference, the Indiana Pacers and Orlando Magic battled it out in the first round of the playoffs. The Pac-ers won and moved on to give the Miami Heat a scare before falling to them.

In the Western Conference, the Los Angeles Clippers moved on to the Conference Semifinals before falling to fellow XOS partner the San An-tonio Spurs. The Spurs moved along to the Western Conference Finals to face Oklahoma City Thunder, who

also uses XOS Thunder Basketball. In the end, the Thunder moved on to the NBA Finals.

Congrats to all for an outstanding season!

statistical and analytical data into its video-centric coaching technol-ogies, specific to player evaluation.

Through the acquisition, XOS un-veils the latest addition to its XOS Thunder coaching platform. The new XOS ThunderCloud Analytics

enables sports organizations to in-corporate video into a player analy-sis database, which formerly only supported numerical data. XOS ThunderCloud Analytics is available for a wide variety of sports includ-ing basketball. For more informa-tion, visit the XOS Newsroom.

Support

XOS Digital04

The XOS “Season Readiness” initiative is designed to en-sure that all of our partner

teams are fully prepared for the up-coming season, and that any system failures or concerns are resolved in a timely manner.

When the season starts, video staff and coaches can feel confident that workflow interruptions will be dra-matically reduced. How great would it be if you could go an entire season without a single major workflow is-sue? It’d be wonderful! The XOS

Normally, this section is dedicated to technical support updates. However, XOS feels that it is also important to help its partners become better acquainted with XOS support team members. With that in mind, this is-sue’s Thunder Basketball Support section will spotlight a key support member: Chris Preston.

Chris Preston is the lead phone support representative for XOS Thunder Basketball and its remain-ing legacy products. Basketball prod-ucts are his specialty, and he has a keen ability to troubleshoot work-flow issues through his knowledge of networking and servers. More importantly, Preston has built solid relationships during the more than six years he’s worked in Support at XOS.

According to Tom Powers, Techni-cal Support Manager, partner teams specifically request Preston because they trust him to efficiently resolve issues. While Preston usually trou-bleshoots problems from the XOS office in Wilmington, Mass., he has had several instances where on-site emergencies required his attention. Powers, Preston’s supervisor, re-ceives raving reviews from all part-ner teams who receive an on-site visit from him. So much so, that his service is now referred to as the

“CPE – Chris Preston Experience.”

“Chris Preston’s attention to detail and reliability is a true asset to XOS Digital,” said Raman Sposato, video coordinator, Los Angeles Clippers. “We have built a great working rela-tionship, and the fact that he knows our workflow, setup and situation creates seamless support that we see as invaluable.”

- Written by Chris Taylor, Marketing Coordinator

XOS Thunder

FacilitiesSeason Readiness plan may not pro-vide you with an issue-free season, but it will definitely reduce the num-ber of problems you’ll encounter.

XOS has pioneered emerging tech-nologies for nearly 15 years, and our experience has helped us identify trends that have allowed us to pre-emptively strike against upcoming is-sues (such as hardware failures). You can use the XOS Season Readiness plan as a checklist to determine if your equipment makes the grade or if it needs to be adjusted and re-

paired. Each Season Readiness plan includes detailed tests – all easy to perform on your equipment – and a system to capture and track re-sults.

It’s worth the time invested in re-viewing the checklists as it could prevent serious headaches during the season if left unchecked, oth-erwise.

Preview the XOS Season Readi-ness plan here: Season Readiness Plan

How do you capturepractice video?

05Industry Insider

July 2012

Customer SpotlightIndiana Pacers Basketball

In a shortened lockout season, having as many as six games in eight days leaves no room for er-

ror. For Vance Catlin, Indiana Pacers video coordinator, the ability to ef-ficiently cut and edit game film in a limited amount of time was vital to properly prepare for the next game.

With help from operational re-sources provided by XOS Digital, the Pacers were able to have their most successful year since ‘03-04 – finishing 18 games over .500 and placing third in the Eastern Confer-ence. Catlin attributes a large por-tion of their preparation success to XOS Digital’s services and support.

For Catlin, XOS is all he’s ever known in terms of video editing software. Since 2001, the Pacers have partnered with XOS to en-hance their video editing technol-ogy. As of this year, the team up-graded from XOS Director to XOS Thunder.

“In this condensed NBA season, the

transition couldn’t have been any smoother, and XOS helped make it a seamless process,” he said.

With XOS Thunder, the Pacers can download, and then import and log, other NBA games/content to ana-lyze opponent tendencies quicker than before. With these game films, Catlin can provide coaches and players with edits that match the statistical analysis on opposing play-ers and teams.

“This allows us to show our play-ers who the shooters are so we can run them off the 3, identify who the non-shooters are so we can space them appropriately and play them to drive, and recognize who shot fakes early and late so we can stay down,” Catlin said. “Having the ability to quickly capture and break down tendencies is really huge for us.”

The Pacers are also the only NBA team using XOS Lightning, a pre-miere wide area-content distri-bution platform that extends the power of XOS Thunder outside the walls of their complex. With as many as six games in an eight-day span, this resource proved essential in enabling coaches to access game film on their iPads while flying to their next game.

“I really see our organization as a spokesperson for XOS Digital –

making everyone aware that the XOS product is premier and that our partnership is among the lon-gest of any other NBA teams,” Cat-lin said.

XOS appreciates the opportunity to work with Catlin and the Pacers. Overall, the XOS team is excited about the Pacers’ bright future, and looks forward to a continued rela-tionship for many years to come.

- Written by J.T. Danley,Affiliate Network Coordinator