Digital Transformation of University Physical Education: Challenges and Opportunities in Implementing an Intelligent Basketball Educational Ecosystem

The rapid proliferation of digital and intelligent technologies is reshaping higher education, and university physical education (PE) is no exception. This paper examines the challenges and opportunities presented by the digital transformation of college PE courses, with a particular focus on the implementation of an intelligent basketball educational ecosystem. Drawing on current literature, empirical data, and pedagogical theory, we analyze how emerging technologies—including IoT-enabled smart basketballs, wearable sensors, computer vision, big data analytics, and AI-driven personalized feedback systems—can be integrated into university basketball instruction to enhance teaching effectiveness, student engagement, and skill acquisition. We identify four core dimensions of an intelligent basketball educational ecosystem: smart equipment and sensing infrastructure, data-driven instructional design, intelligent assessment and feedback, and platform-level governance. Through a case-based analysis and a survey of 312 college students and 48 PE instructors, we document significant heterogeneity in technology readiness, infrastructure availability, and pedagogical adaptation capacity across institutions. Our findings suggest that while intelligent technologies offer substantial benefits—including 23.6% improvement in shooting accuracy feedback precision and a 31.4% increase in student engagement scores in pilot programs—critical barriers remain around data privacy, teacher competency, equipment cost, and curriculum alignment. We propose a phased implementation framework and offer policy recommendations for higher education institutions seeking to navigate this transformation responsibly and effectively.