Capstone Projects

Using Machine Learning to Predict the NBA’s Most Improved Player Award

Program: Data Science Master's Degree
Location: Not Specified (remote)
Student: Tyler Hoyle

This project explored the viability of machine learning techniques to predict the winner of the NBA’s most improved player award. This project had a heavy focus on preparing data for the modeling stage, however, this preparation was critical. Six models were trained and tested on data on the  1987-2023 seasons. The best models predicted correctly for 78% of the seasons, including the final 9. Viability for use as part of a sports betting strategy was also explored.