A lot of what happens in sports is unpredictable. Take the Cougar baseball team’s recent victory over William & Mary, which stretched on for 23 innings, making it the second longest NCAA baseball game in history. No one saw that coming.

RELATED: Read what Coach Monte Lee had to say about his team’s historic baseball victory.

But there are ways to predict the outcomes of sporting events based on past performances of the teams involved. College of Charleston math majors Steve Gorman and Tyler Perini explain how this is done using team schedules and computers analysis.

Gorman and Perini have been researching sports rankings for the past year. In fact, last summer, Gorman participated in a Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) internship with one of the nation’s top bracketologists, Tim Chartier. Both students love the ability to predict the future using mathematical algorithms.

Both students are conducting research with math professor Amy Langville, author of “Who’s #1? The Science of Rating and Ranking.”