Relationships between smart ring-measured sleep variables and next-day basketball game performance: A case series

Abstract

Sleep is critical to athlete health and sport performance.

Purpose

To evaluate the relationship between objective sleep data and next-day basketball game performance.

Methods

Collegiate men basketball athletes (n = 4) wore smart ring sleep trackers the night before games (n = 22). Sleep variables included hours of total sleep (TS), rapid eye movement sleep duration (RM), deep sleep duration (DS), and heart rate variability (HRV). Game performance was evaluated using field goal percentage (FG%) and player efficiency (EFF).

Results

TS, RM, DS, and HRV demonstrated very weak relationships with FG% (p > 0.05) and EFF (p > 0.05). Individual player analysis revealed one athlete exhibited strong to moderate correlations for TS-EFF (r = 0.67), RS-EFF (r = 0.41), TS-FG% (r = 0.51), and RM-FG% (r = 0.67) (p < 0.05). Sleep metrics had no effect on FG% (R²= 0.025) and EFF (R²= 0.053) (p > 0.05).

Conclusions

Results suggest a lack of group-level associations between smart ring-measured sleep variables and next-day game performance. This highlights the need for individualized sleep monitoring rather than relying solely on objective metrics.