Trinity Student Uses Sports Analytics to Forecast the NBA Finals

While NBA fans are turning to Air Corgi, the social media-famous dog known for predicting playoff outcomes, Trinity University student Aaron Chang '27 turns to business analytics.

During the spring semester, Chang, a business analytics major, used predictive modeling techniques from Trinity's "Sports Analytics Seminar" to analyze the 2026 NBA Finals matchups. His model gave the San Antonio Spurs a 62.73% chance of winning the championship.

The prediction may grab attention, but for Chang, the real lesson wasn't picking a winner. It was learning how to turn data into insights.

"What I really learned was the actual experience of working with the dataset and diving deep into sports analytics," said Chang. "I've always been interested in sports and statistics, but this class showed me how deep you can really go into that."

"The seminar isn't about predicting winners and losers. It's about giving students opportunities to apply analytics to real-world questions," Carbal Balreira, Ph.D. said.

Through sports-related projects, students learn to work with data, build predictive models, and communicate findings-skills that extend beyond athletics.

The seminar traces its roots to 2014, when Mathematics Professors Balreira, Brian K. Miceli, Ph.D., and Thomas Tegtmeyer, Ph.D., adapted an "Oracle Method" they developed for NFL games to predict the NBA Finals. After the model correctly forecasted a Spurs championship, Balreira launched an informal seminar for students interested in sports analytics.

Over the past decade, the seminar has evolved beyond predicting game outcomes. Thanks to the support of Jacob Tingle '95, Ph.D., director of Trinity's sport management minor, the seminar is now part of the minor's curriculum. Students work closely with Trinity athletics teams in football, volleyball, basketball, softball, and soccer, analyzing play-by-play data, optimal line-ups, and player performance to help inform coaching decisions.

"We still do team predictions because they're fun and help put things in context," Balreira said. "But now we're also looking at player valuation, style of play, and decision-making."

Students also use emerging tools such as artificial intelligence to streamline data engineering. Rather than replacing critical thinking, AI helps automate repetitive tasks such as organizing data, allowing students to spend more time interpreting results.

Balreira said the experience prepares students for careers far beyond sports. Alumni who took the course have landed jobs with professional sports organizations such as the Los Angeles Dodgers, Detroit Tigers, Utah Jazz, and Colorado Rockies, while others have built careers in finance and other data-driven industries.

For Chang, who will be studying away in Japan this summer, the experience reinforced the value of learning by doing.

"The best classes I've had at Trinity were the classes where I had to actually do it instead of just read a textbook," he said.