Using data from Carnegie Mellon University Champion male(Opens in new window)Mr. and woman(Opens in new window)team, 3 undergraduate students statistics and data science(Opens in new window) The students analyzed 11,924 golf shots with the goal of improving player performance.
faculty advisor Ron Yurko(Opens in new window)guided students Jackson Meehan, Emily Fenn, and Rohan Patel on a project investigating the status of golf teams. trackman golf simulator data(Opens in new window).
Yurko is a central figure in research efforts such as the golf project and sports analytics efforts at CMU; Carnegie Mellon Sports Analysis Center(Opens in new window) (CMSAC) annual conference November 1st and 2nd.
“By coming to Carnegie Mellon, students know they are on the threshold of starting a career in sports analytics. We provide the right education, the right skill set,” said Yurko, an assistant professor at the university. Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences(Opens in new window) He will serve as director of CMSAC. “We are taking sports analytics education to the next level, and this center is truly the epicenter of our research efforts, educational efforts, and industry engagement.”
Changing the game: The post-Moneyball era
As the home of long-standing efforts in university sports analysis – including participation in NFL Big Data Bowl — CMSAC provides an innovative experience for students pursuing careers as data scientists in professional sports.
CMSAC benefits from the experience of CMU faculty rebecca nugent(Opens in new window)Feinberg Professor and Department Chair of Statistics and Data Science. peter freeman(Opens in new window),Associate Professor. and Sam Ventura(Opens in new window)an affiliated faculty member and CMU alumnus, is the Vice President of Hockey Strategy and Research for the NHL’s Buffalo Sabres.
“Carnegie Mellon University has a long tradition of supporting cutting-edge research in sports analytics with a focus on ‘changing the game.’ Just kidding. We are focused on leveraging the latest advances in technology to tackle modern problems using fine-grained and complex datasets, such as tracking data, which are more commonly collected today,” said Nugent. said.
The roots of CMU’s sports analytics efforts go back to early research conducted by faculty and Ph.D. students. Over time, these efforts active laboratory(Opens in new window) Various educational programs such as Carnegie Mellon Sports Analytics Camp(Opens in new window) (Applications will open in January 2025).
“When CMSAC first started, it was like a small group of people working on a series of high-impact research and education projects, all of whom promoted open-source, reproducible research, and who sought internships and jobs. “As a graduate school, we were working with a vision of building a broad student pipeline of opportunity,” Nugent said. “CMSAC has built from several research projects and small workshops, to our current sold-out conference, NSF-supported research, summer undergraduate research programs, and a rapidly growing alumni network. It was done.”
In fact, three of the four teams in last year’s NFL Conference Championship had Carnegie Mellon graduates on their staffs.
CMSAC plans to leverage partnerships with professional teams, leagues, and companies to drive innovation in sports analytics and create a path for CMU graduates to careers in sports analytics.
data for victory
Years ago — when CMSAC was just an idea — Dan Rogers(Opens in new window) They had the data, but no one was willing to decipher it.
Rogers, head coach of Carnegie Mellon University’s men’s and women’s golf teams, knew that the information collected by the team’s golf simulator contained valuable insights. To find a partner to help the golf team succeed, Rogers connected with Nugent, where various student teams have been examining Trackman data for six years.
“We value interdisciplinary efforts and solving real-world challenges,” Nugent said. “Our network of alumni and partners brings us great projects and works together to train our students to become top-notch statisticians and data scientists.”
project I came in 2nd place(Opens in new window) At CMU’s 2023 Statistics Contest meeting of hearts(Opens in new window)the annual Undergraduate Research Symposium will answer questions such as: Why is one club substantially better than another for certain players?
Using this analysis, Mr. Rogers was able to target individual weaknesses more effectively. In May 2023, the men’s team won Carnegie Mellon University’s first NCAA Division III championship. The following year, the women’s team followed suit and won their first championship.
“The information and analysis that the students provided was invaluable to what we have been trying to accomplish over the past few years,” Rogers said. “We are looking for ways to use this insight to better coach individual student-athletes.”
