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#Research2026-02-08

MCM/ICM 2026 — Pro-Insight WNBA system

Our MCM/ICM competition entry: a decision support system for WNBA teams

The Problem

MCM/ICM 2026 asked us to build a data-driven decision support system for a WNBA team — covering player evaluation, draft strategy, and game tactics.

Our Approach

We named our system Pro-Insight and built it around three components:

1. Player Rating Model — a composite metric combining traditional stats with advanced metrics like VORP and win shares

2. Draft Optimizer — a multi-objective optimization model balancing immediate impact vs long-term development

3. Tactical Recommender — a clustering-based system that identifies opponent tendencies and suggests counter-strategies

Results

Our model identified several undervalued players in the 2025 draft class and produced tactically coherent game plans that outperformed baseline strategies in simulation.