Hurrdat Delivers Pro-Level Data to High School Basketball: NebPreps Computer Ratings System Brings Advanced Analytics to Nebraska Courts
Hurrdat launches NebPreps Computer Ratings for Nebraska high school basketball, leveraging AI and advanced analytics to provide objective team rankings across all six classes.
When Hurrdat Senior Strategist Jeff Swanson combined his expertise in analytics and data science with his passion for Nebraska sports, the result was a computer ratings system that brings professional-level insights to high school basketball. The NebPreps High School Sports Computer Ratings system, which debuted in January 2026 with boys and girls basketball across all six Nebraska classes, represents a technical achievement built on the foundation of Hurrdat’s expanding AI and data science capabilities.
The system addresses a persistent challenge in high school sports coverage: the limitations of traditional human polls. While polls provide valuable perspective, they rely on limited visibility and subjective assessment. Coaches and voters can only watch a fraction of the games across Nebraska’s six classification levels, creating inevitable blind spots in traditional rankings.
“Human polls provide valuable perspective, but voters can only see a fraction of the 200+ high school basketball games happening across Nebraska each week,” Swanson said. “Our computer ratings system fills that gap by evaluating every game with consistent criteria – opponent strength, margin of victory, home vs. away performance, and how teams perform throughout the season as rosters develop.”
How the System Works
The NebPreps Computer Ratings operate on a sophisticated points-based efficiency model that evaluates multiple performance factors simultaneously. The algorithm weighs game results against opponent strength, margin of victory, game location and timing throughout the season. This multi-variable approach recognizes that defeating a strong opponent on the road carries different weight than a home victory against a weaker team. The system also accounts for game timing, understanding that early-season performance may not reflect a team’s capabilities later in the year as players develop and rosters solidify.
“The algorithm uses a points-based efficiency model that weighs multiple factors simultaneously,” Swanson explained. “We’re not just looking at wins and losses – we’re analyzing the quality of those wins. Beating a top-ranked team on the road in February carries more weight than a home win against a struggling opponent in December. The system processes these variables to provide objective rankings that complement traditional polls.”
The mathematical rigor behind the system provides transparent, consistent evaluation criteria. Unlike human polls where voting patterns can shift based on recent performance or visibility bias, the computer ratings maintain objective standards throughout the season. This consistency allows coaches, fans, and media members to track team progression and competitive positioning with greater precision.
Built on Hurrdat’s AI Foundation
The computer ratings system reflects Hurrdat’s broader investment in artificial intelligence and advanced analytics. Through Hurrdat Innovations, the company has been developing AI-driven tools and data science capabilities that serve both internal operations and external clients. Brandon Taylor leads Hurrdat Innovations as President, focusing on building proprietary technology that delivers competitive advantages across marketing, media and data analysis.
“This project is a practical application of the data science capabilities we’ve been building at Hurrdat Innovations,” Taylor said. “The same analytical frameworks we use for enterprise marketing clients and AI-driven content tools translate directly to sports analytics. It demonstrates how investing in core technical infrastructure creates value across different business applications – from optimizing search campaigns to evaluating high school basketball teams.”
The expertise developed through Hurrdat Innovations work on AI tools for content creation, search optimization and data analytics directly informed the development of the NebPreps Computer Ratings. The system represents an application of these capabilities to sports analytics, demonstrating how technical infrastructure built for one purpose can scale across different business applications.
This cross-pollination of expertise exemplifies Hurrdat’s operational model, where investments in technology infrastructure generate returns across multiple divisions. The data science skills developed for enterprise marketing clients and AI automation tools now power sports analytics that serve Nebraska’s high school basketball community.
“We’ve been intentional about building AI and data science capabilities that serve multiple parts of our business,” said Bill Hipsher, President of Hurrdat. “The expertise developed through Hurrdat Innovations doesn’t just improve our marketing services – it enables projects like the NebPreps Computer Ratings that serve Nebraska’s sports community. This is the competitive advantage of having integrated teams with deep technical capabilities under one roof.”
Cross-Functional Collaboration
The launch of the computer ratings system required coordination across Hurrdat’s specialized teams. Jeff Swanson’s technical expertise in analytics and AI merged with Hurrdat Sports’ editorial understanding of Nebraska athletics. The website development team engineered the digital infrastructure to host the ratings and automate weekly updates, ensuring the system could operate efficiently throughout the basketball season.
The digital strategy team optimized the ratings pages for search visibility and user experience, making the data accessible to coaches scouting opponents and fans tracking their favorite teams. The PR team at Lukas Partners, a Hurrdat company, developed the strategic messaging around the launch, distributed news releases to Nebraska media outlets and coordinated media interviews that explained the system’s methodology to the public.
“The computer ratings give our NebPreps coverage an analytical dimension that complements our game coverage and traditional rankings,” said Sausha Durkan of Hurrdat Sports. “Coaches are already using the data to evaluate opponents and track their team’s performance against strength of schedule. It’s become a tool that serves the high school basketball community while demonstrating Hurrdat Sports’ commitment to comprehensive, data-informed coverage.”
This collaborative process ensured the system delivered value beyond mathematical accuracy. The ratings needed to be operationally seamless, editorially relevant and accessible to various audiences with different levels of technical understanding.
Future Applications
This successful launch of basketball ratings establishes a framework that can expand to other sports. The underlying methodology—evaluating performance against strength of schedule while accounting for game context—applies across athletic competitions. As the system processes more data throughout the basketball season, refinements to the algorithm will improve accuracy and may inform applications in football, volleyball and other sports where objective performance measurement provides value to coaches and fans.
The infrastructure built for this system also creates opportunities for enhanced coverage of Nebraska high school athletics. Real-time data integration, historical trend analysis and predictive modeling represent potential expansions of the platform as Hurrdat continues investing in sports analytics capabilities.
For more information about the NebPreps Computer Ratings and to view current rankings, visit hurrdatsports.com/nebpreps/computer-ratings.
About Hurrdat
Hurrdat operates an integrated business ecosystem spanning marketing and PR services, media production, sports content and technology development across Nebraska. Through Hurrdat Innovations, the company develops AI-driven tools and advanced analytics capabilities that serve both internal operations and external clients nationwide.
