04-25-2024
Teams of students from eight Indiana colleges and universities recently competed to provide winning retail solutions for the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) through the annual Crossroads Classic Analytics Challenge. This year’s case challenge asked teams to leverage data provided by the NCAA to help understand customer purchasing behavior for the Division I Women’s Basketball Tournament.
Established in 2021 by Butler University, Indiana University, Purdue University and the University of Notre Dame, this year’s competition — which was sponsored by the NCAA, Tableau from Salesforce, Visualize Your Technology, and Bridge Builder Strategies — also included the University of Indianapolis, IU Southeast, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, and Ball State University. It drew 67 teams with 280 student participants.
A team of students from the Daniels School’s master's in Business Analytics and Information Management (MSBAIM) program won 2nd place in the graduate division, as well as the award for Best Data Visualization. The team was comprised of Soham Agarwal, Durgamadhab Dash, Vishnu Vardhan Ponduri, Sohan Kumar Sahoo and Nagarjuna Chidarala.
This year’s challenge required students to pass through several rounds that included building machine learning models, Tableau dashboards, presentations and video submissions. It kicked off at the NCAA Hall of Champions in Indianapolis, where participants engaged with stakeholders to learn more about the case problem and expectations. During the month-long preparation process, students received training and support from experts at Tableau, while Butler University hosted a Sports Analytics Townhall so students could learn more about analytics in sports.
“The competition tasked us with unraveling customer purchasing behaviors for different types of tickets for the Division I Women’s Basketball Tournament, melding analytics with the thrilling world of sports,” Agarwal says. “These behaviors, either gathered through machine learning models or Tableau dashboards, aimed to help the NCAA with ticket sales. With the March Madness tournament around the corner, it was imperative that they get recommendations and insights from an outsider's perspective.”
Agarwal credits the team members’ individual contributions for its success. “Never before have I worked in a team that has pushed as fast for results as we did,” he says. “Sohan Kumar Sahoo and Vishnu Vardhan Ponduri sat for hours discussing how to provide us richer data for our models, Durgamadhab Dash brought our insights to life through compelling dashboards, and Nagarjuna Chidarala distilled our findings into actionable business recommendations.
“A/B testing was our bread and butter, allowing us to experiment and find the best strategies for success. On the technical side, like any data scientists, we used Python, Excel and Tableau, along with statistical techniques, to approach the problem. Canva was especially useful in creating our award-winning presentation.”
To make their solution stand out, the team focused on what was needed to progress through each round of the competition. “We made sure to employ processes like cross-validation and look at the solutions from different approaches, ensuring we had taken most of the important factors into consideration,” Agarwal says. “Along with building a video presentation for this round, we were able to create appealing visuals that stood out in our dashboards and PowerPoint decks. This helped us convey the insights and information we intended.”
The competition has had a direct impact on the team members’ career development. “I think we’re able to articulate a story out of this for our resumes and as a test of our individual capabilities in a competitive environment,” Agarwal says. “It’s also evident that our learning transcended the boundaries of mere data analysis. We realized the importance of communication and team synergy, which was critical in our ability to derive meaningful insights.”
The competition was cofounded by Clinical Assistant Professor Matthew Lanham, the MSBAIM program’s academic director. “The CCAC has become the flagship analytics competition in Indiana,” he says. “It would not be as successful and have grown into what it is today if the faculty at all the schools did not work so well together. We have many great schools and programs in Indiana and we are working together to showcase that and make an impact with our community partners.”
To learn more about the competition visit https://crossroadsclassicanalyticschallenge.com.
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