Rocketball Premier League: Inside the AlgoSports23 Sports Prediction Competition

86 minds. 32 teams. 1,007 submissions. One question, can a human out-predict the machine?

We threw down a challenge to the brightest student minds in data science and finance: beat our algorithm at its own game. The response blew us away.

Over the course of the AlgoSports23 Sports Prediction Competition, hosted on Kaggle, 86 entrants across 32 teamsfired off 1,007 submissions, each one a fresh attempt to outsmart the model that lives and breathes sports data. This wasn’t a homework assignment. It was a genuine proving ground, students from some of the top quantitative programs in the country going head-to-head with code, intuition, and a whole lot of caffeine.

Our Sponsors

This competition was made possible by the generous support of our partners:

Kissell Research Group (KRG) · The Society of Quantitative Analysts (SQA) · AlgoSports23 · Fordham University · Aaron Gomes

Their backing turns a great idea into a real opportunity for students, internships, mentorship, and a stage to prove what they can do.

The Winners

These three didn’t just compete, they conquered!

1. Drew Pezzullo — BS, Finance, Fordham University

2. Nidhi Rajani — MS, Data Science, University at Buffalo

3. Shawyan Tabari — MS, Finance, Fordham University

The prizes:

• 🥇 1st Place — Summer 2026 Internship with AlgoSports23 + $500 cash prize

• 🥈 2nd Place — Summer 2026 Internship with AlgoSports23

• 🥉 3rd Place — Summer 2026 Internship with AlgoSports23

The Runner-Ups

The depth of talent went far beyond the podium. Our standout runner-ups, each earning a guest spot on the AlgoSports23 National Podcast were:

1. Kritika Sukhramani — MS, Statistics, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

2. Aidan Ruvins — MS, Finance, Fordham & Maanas Lalwani — MS, Data Science, NYU

3. Cooper Lipscomb — BS, Data Science, Mississippi State

4. Marc Melone — MS, Finance, Fordham

5. Sean Slattery

6. Spencer Medendorp — BS, Statistics & Economics, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

7. Rishi Chauhan — MS, Quantitative Finance, Fordham & Nav Pathak — MS, Quantitative Finance, Fordham

8. Taylor Conselyea — BS, Finance, Fordham

9. Yoni Bresler — BS, Data Science, Drexel

10. Ryan Zhang — BS, Computer Science, Columbia

Top Universities

Talent travels in packs. The schools that showed up strongest across the leaderboard:

The Judges

Every great competition needs sharp eyes at the table. Huge thanks to our panel of judges, who brought deep expertise in quantitative finance and algorithmic modeling to the evaluation process:

• Robert Kissell - President and Founder of the Kissell Research Group, and a globally recognized authority in algorithmic trading, transaction cost analysis, and quantitative modeling. He is the author of Algorithmic Trading Methods, Multi-Asset Risk Modeling, Optimal Sports Math, Statistics, and Fantasy and has taught quantitative finance at leading universities, bringing decades of industry and academic expertise to the panel.

• Sezim Zhenishbekova - Co-founder of AlgoSports23, where she leads the development of quantitative models for sports prediction. With expertise in data science and machine learning and a Master’s in Finance from Fordham University, she serves as an invited judge of the AlgoSports23 Sports Prediction Competition, evaluating the work of emerging quantitative talent from top universities nationwide.

• Zhiyue Xu (Summer) - Quantitative Researcher at the Kissell Research Group, specializing in quantitative finance and statistical modeling. She holds a Master's degree from Fordham University and brings rigorous, research-driven analysis to her work. As an invited judge of the AlgoSports23 Sports Prediction Competition, she evaluates and adjudicates the work of emerging quantitative talent from top universities nationwide.

What’s Next

To everyone who submitted, debugged at 2 a.m., and refused to let the algorithm have the last word, thank you. You are exactly the kind of curious, competitive, relentless thinker we built AlgoSports23 for.

The algo won some rounds. But the future? That belongs to the humans chasing it.

Want to be in the next one? Follow AlgoSports23 and stay tuned, the next challenge is coming!