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Inside the Nerdball revolution
With a spreadsheet as his compass, Coach Kyle Smith is rebuilding Stanford basketball through quantifiable toughness—and the players are embracing it.
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Kyle Smith is the Anne and Tony Joseph Director of Men’s Basketball Photo: ACC
When Stanford hired Kyle Smith as the Anne and Tony Joseph Director of Men’s Basketball in March 2024, the move brought in a coach whose reputation preceded him.
Smith is one of college basketball’s most original thinkers—part data wonk, part system builder. His teams win not by flash but by relentless, measurable habits. Within weeks, one word began ricocheting around Maples Pavilion: Nerdball.
To student-athletes like redshirt junior Ryan Agarwal, ’26, that label was little more than rumor at first—some quirky shorthand for the analytics-heavy style Smith was known for. He certainly didn’t imagine it would change the trajectory of his Stanford career.
“I was curious, but I didn’t know how to take it,” Agarwal says, recalling an introductory Zoom meeting with his new coach. “I didn’t know if these statistics would benefit me. But it did allow me to get an understanding of what’s valued.”
What’s valued, it turns out, is almost everything. Every action is recorded and measured through a film breakdown by the coaches. A daily spreadsheet tracks each player’s score across 55 categories covering shooting, ballhandling, rebounding, and defense.
“We really try to encourage unselfish play and try to quantify intangibles,” Smith says—not just, say, points on the board.
On the team they’re referred to as “hustle stats.” Smith likes “grit chart.” But “Nerdball,” the name he coined as a coach at Columbia, resonated.
“We just embraced being different—the idea that we were nerdy and we were using formulas to improve,” Smith says. “It became a little bit of a schtick, but it kind of stuck.”
The formula rewards “winning” plays, like a great pass, and penalizes “non-winning” plays, like a turnover. Screens, charges, loose balls: Each category is assigned a value. Each category—such as blockouts, rotations, and charges—carries a different value.
What is Nerdball?
The idea goes back to Smith’s own high school in Houston. His coach there had created a grading system that rewarded hustle to the point where all his players wore knee pads, because they were diving to the floor so often.
After stops and starts along his career, the concept caught on while Smith was an assistant coach at Saint Mary’s. “Our team wasn’t competing hard enough in practice and we felt we needed a way to hold them accountable,” Smith says.
It worked.
“It’s a tremendous technique for creating a culture,” says Eric Reveno, general manager and the James C. Gaither Associate Head Coach. “You’ve got these cultural values, like, we’re going to play hard. How do you measure playing hard? How do you measure toughness? The guys see that we’re charting that stuff, and so they play harder.”
How does this system help identify your best players?
In Smith’s first season, Stanford earned its highest number of victories (21) since 2015. Team records were broken in three-pointers (294) and fewest turnovers per game (10.5).
The system removes bias. It identifies players who are helping us win, Smith says—players whose contributions might not show up as clearly on traditional stats sheets.
One of those players was Agarwal.
With so many newcomers last season, the stretch from preseason practices to the opener became a proving ground. Daily grades shaped rotations. Center Maxime Raynaud, ’25, bought into the plan from the outset, inspiring the rest of the team to do the same.
Plenty of schools use analytics. What’s unique about Smith’s system is the commitment to the numbers. While Raynaud separated himself by “Nerdball” standards, three teammates did as well: wing Agarwal, guard Jaylen Blakes, a graduate transfer from Duke, and guard Benny Gealer, ’26, a onetime walk-on.
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Ryan Agarwal, ’26 and Benny Gealer, ’26 celebrating a home win. Photo: Bob Drebin/ISI Photos
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Maxime Raynaud, ’25 embracing Coach Smith. Photo: Bob Drebin/ISI Photos
“There were no expectations by the coaching staff of me to come in and play,” Agarwal says. “But with this whole hustle stats operation, there were aspects that would gain me points that I felt I could do, but wasn’t doing. Each play meant just a little bit more, knowing that it counted toward something.”
What caught Smith’s eye was Agarwal’s rebounding. Though he averaged eight a game as a senior in high school, Agarwal hadn’t shown that ability at Stanford.
“But he’s got a great feel, a great sense, and the numbers don’t lie,” Smith says.
By the first game, Agarwal was the first player off the bench. By game seven, he was starting. Agarwal drove for the winning layup against North Carolina State with 8.1 seconds left in a 74-73 victory. And he emerged as Stanford’s second-leading rebounder for the season (4.9), behind only Raynaud, now with the NBA’s Sacramento Kings.
“The numbers are what instilled that trust to take a chance on me,” Agarwal says. “I appreciate them for taking that chance.”
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“We just embraced being differentthe idea that we were nerdy and we were using formulas to improve. It became a little bit of a schtick, but it kind of stuck.”Kyle Smith
Photo: John Todd/ISI Photos
In the end, Nerdball isn’t about the numbers themselves—it’s about what they make visible. For Stanford, that vision looks like a promising future.
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