Introducing the Cohort V Student Spotlight Series. In this series, we will be featuring different graduate students and their academic and professional backgrounds that led them to become a part of Cohort V of the MSBA-BA program. Our first story features Dylan Orrell from Kingsville, Maryland who completed his undergraduate degree at VT in Industrial and Systems Engineering in 2020. 

Dylan states, “The opportunity to spend a year after graduation as a member of the MSBA-BA program was the best opportunity for me to continue to learn in a discipline that will prepare me for my dream job.”  Starting his senior year, Dylan has been involved with the men’s basketball team, assisting them with creative content and bolstering their analytics capabilities.  Spending an extra year as a part of the MSBA-BA program gives him the opportunity to continue his role on the men’s basketball team as a graduate student.

Dylan’s career goal is to eventually combine his interests in both sports and analytics to get the “best of both worlds.”  He states, “Virginia Tech is a ‘powerhouse’ in the sports analytics world. We have 4 awesome alumni who are doing amazing things.  Cory Jez formerly with the Utah Jazz and now with Austin FC, Zac Robertson with the Miami Heat, MSBA-BA alumni Faizan Hasany with the Chicago Bulls and Ken Pomeroy of KenPom.com.” 

“There is so much data available in the game of basketball, with hundreds to thousands of data points being created in each minute of a game that is being played.”  Dylan’s role is finding ways to make sense of all of that data.  “The MSBA-BA program will allow me to develop my technical abilities and gain the critical leadership skills that are paramount to using data in the world of business.”