Sports outcome prediction

We may be able to do better by trying other features. We have a method for testing how accurate our models are. The cross_val_score method allows us to try new features.

There are many possible features we could use, but we will try the following questions:

• Which team is considered better generally?
• Which team won their last encounter?

We will also try putting the raw teams into the algorithm, to check whether the algorithm can learn a model that checks how different teams play against each other.

Putting it all together

For the first feature, we will create a feature that tells us if the home team is generally better than the visitors. To do this, we will load the standings (also called a ladder in some sports) from the NBA in the previous season. A team will be considered better if it ranked higher in 2015 than the other team.

To obtain the standings data, perform the following steps:

1. Navigate to http://www.basketball-reference.com/leagues/NBA_2015_standings.html in your...