Maximizing Performance During March Madness: Key Strategies & Load Metrics for Coaches

Author: Philipp Lienemann

With conference tournaments and March Madness approaching, teams strive to perform at their best. The rapid succession of games requires an adjusted periodization and even higher focus on recovery strategies, rotation management, and opponent-specific tactical preparation. 

A key challenge for practitioners is determining the necessary workload to facilitate optimal performance while preventing excessive fatigue. Practitioners should consider how much preparation is necessary for athletes to peak at the right time. During March Madness, ensuring that key players are available and ready to perform in critical moments is essential. Walk-throughs, individual workouts, shootarounds, and warm-ups add up. In some cases, sports analysis software reveals that athletes accumulate a game-equivalent workload prior to tipoff, effectively playing a game before the actual competition begins. This exposes players to significant fatigue, potentially compromising their performance when it matters most. Quantifying and analyzing these workloads is essential for implementing targeted interventions. 

As key competitive events approach, coaches and athletes often try to maximize preparedness — adding extra film sessions, practices, shootarounds, and walkthroughs. However, doing too much can be counterproductive. Attempting to ​“catch up” on conditioning in the final weeks of the season is more likely to impair performance than enhance it. 

Coaches face a resource dilemma, making effective time allocation crucial. They should prioritize interventions that maximize performance and improve their team’s chances of winning. This principle extends beyond physiological conditioning and preparedness to the psychological readiness of each athlete. Abrupt modifications to established on– & off-court training and routines can disrupt rhythm and negatively impact both individual and team performance. 

Similar to a marathon runner, attempting to make up for missed training in the final weeks is unlikely to improve performance and may instead increase the risk of injury and burnout. The groundwork for success has already been laid — performance in the race or in this case March Madness will be determined by the training and conditioning completed in the preceding months. 

In the final stages of the season, coaches should stick to strategies that have proven effective. While implementing new tactics can sometimes provide an advantage, maintaining consistency ensures stability and rhythm. 

Basketball is a team sport, and overall success depends on more than just keeping the star player or starting five healthy. Effectively managing a team’s second rotation is equally important. While player availability and individual skill levels ultimately determine playing time, history suggests that teams with a more balanced roster often outperform those heavily reliant on one- or two-star players. Some teams with a singular focus on a couple of standout athletes have even failed to qualify for the tournament. 

This is partly due to differences in competition rules and playing styles. Comparing European and collegiate basketball to the NBA highlights a greater emphasis on team play rather than individual star power. While having the ​“right” player take the final shot is advantageous, teams with deeper benches and multiple contributors can distribute the load — figuratively and literally — allowing them to perform better over the course of a grueling tournament. 

Box-score contributions vary more at the collegiate level and in high-pressure, single-elimination games than in the regular season or professional leagues. Consistently posting high stats game after game requires an elite level of play. A team that distributes the workload among several players not only mitigates fatigue but can also provide more consistent statistical output and a safety net for off-nights from top performers. 

Typically, a team’s first and second rotation differ significantly in playing time. Starters may log 25 – 40 minutes per game, while second-rotation players may see 15 minutes or fewer, effectively dividing the team into high- and low-minute groups. Hence, evaluating overall workload based on team-wide averages can be misleading. Instead, grouping players by similar game exposure or, ideally, individualizing analysis provides more accurate insights. Individualized performance training programs can optimize recovery for high-minute players while incorporating additional simulated game exposure for low-minute players to maintain their fitness and readiness. 

By isolating specific periods of practice (e.g., drills) from the overall session, coaches can analyze and compare their demands to actual game conditions. The more context practitioners provide to the collected data, the more actionable their insights will be. Categorizing practice sessions (e.g., full games, shootarounds, individual vs. team practices) and drills (e.g., warm-ups, 3v3, 5v5 half-court, 5v5 full-court, shell drills) allows for a better understanding of specific workload demands. 

Game-specific conditioning should emulate real game demands, ensuring players experience similar transition numbers, continuous play durations, and intensity levels. However, coaching styles and philosophies often create discrepancies in practice structure. 

While many coaches have a good subjective sense of workout volume and intensity, managing athletes’ workloads remains challenging. Using a session or weekly load planner can help align expected and actual training outcomes for consistency. 

In the final weeks leading up to March Madness, coaches should prioritize game-specific conditioning by reducing overall training volume while maintaining game-like intensity. This approach helps preserve fitness while minimizing accumulated fatigue, enhancing readiness for key competition. 

To optimize for peak performance during March Madness, coaches should consider implementing the following three strategies:

• Reducing overall training volume and workload – most easily manipulated by practice duration/​time. 
• Maintaining or slightly increasing training intensity with a focus on short, high-intensity efforts to simulate game conditions and mimic the most demanding key moments of the game. 
• Individualize training for high- and low-minute players: 
  • High-minute players: Prioritize recovery between games. 
  • Low-minute players: Incorporate game-like exposure to maintain engagement and readiness. 

To optimize performance and manage workload effectively, coaches should track three key performance indicators: 

1. Volume: Measures total workload during training sessions or games. 

Key metrics: 

• Accumulated Acceleration Load (AAL): Tracks the total physical stress from running, jumping, and contact. 
• Total Distance: Measures the total distance covered by a player. 

Why it matters: Helps prevent overtraining & minimize injury risk while maintaining optimal workload. 

2. Intensity: Assesses the rate of work during training or games. 

Key metrics: 

• AAL per Minute: Evaluates workload accumulation per minute. 
• Distance per Minute: Measures distance covered per minute of activity, providing a proxy of speed. 

Why it matters: Ensures overall training intensity mirrors real-game conditions. 

3. Density/​Frequency: Examines the frequency of high-intensity efforts. 

Key metrics: 

• Exertions: Tracks instances of high-intensity efforts based on the instantaneous Acceleration Load. 
• Distance (Anaerobic Activity): Measures distance covered while producing high instantaneous Acceleration Load. 

Why it matters: Helps structure training to mimic in-game demands by effectively simulating high-intensity efforts that are specific to competition.

Not all training loads are equal. Data from traditional player tracking systems must be contextualized with on-court actions. For example, Accumulated Acceleration Load (AAL) — also referred to as Player Load by some manufacturers — measures the overall macro and micro movements but does not differentiate between the impacts of running and jumping. A player who logs 800 AAL during a 30-minute game covering 2.5 miles experiences significantly different strain than a player who accumulates the same load during an individual shooting session with 500 jump shots. 

Tracking sport-specific actions, such as jump counts, provides additional insight into physiological and psychological strain, informing appropriate recovery strategies. 

Advanced tracking technology, such as KINEXON’s Perform IMU and LPS systems, enables coaches to gather real-time data on these key metrics. This data-driven approach allows for informed decisions regarding training loads, recovery protocols, and player rotation strategies. 

As teams enter the high-pressure environment of March Madness, effective load management is critical. By monitoring volume, intensity, and density, coaches can optimize performance while minimizing injury risks, giving their teams the best chance to advance deep into the tournament.