What is the most important stat in NCAA tournament games?

If there was one mistake I made this year with my bracket it was picking the wrong statistic to be my leading indicator for predictions. That was defense.
The result was picking Kentucky to beat Virginia in the title game. Whoops.
As you can see in the top 50 defenses, Virginia and Kentucky are at the top. While Kentucky and Wisconsin made the Final Four with elite defenses, Duke was outside the top 100 and Michigan State was outside the top 80.

Think offense is the key stat? Think again. The top 50 is a mixed bag of teams who did well in the tournament and teams who flopped like Davidson and Iowa State.

Three-point shooting? Only two teams in the top 20 of 3-point field-goal percentage even made it to the Sweet 16 in Gonzaga and Utah.

This leaves the stat coaches talk about all the time. Turnovers.

While it’s not overwhelming, the quality of teams in the top 50 is significant. Turnover margin was the key to getting West Virginia to the Sweet 16 and Georgia State’s big upset of Baylor.
Georgia State was plus 15 in turnovers in its upset of Baylor, turning over the Bears 21 times. Baylor’s rebounding and defense was not good enough to make up for it.

West Virginia was plus 5 in turnover margin against Buffalo and was plus 13 vs. Maryland. The problem for WVU is it met Kentucky in the Sweet 16; a team that also forces miscues because of its length and size. The Mountaineers were minus 3 against the Wildcats and that contributed to a 78-39 drumming.

Virginia Commonwealth is known for its pressure and forcing mistakes, but Ohio State was strong in the turnover game too. The result was the Buckeyes winning in overtime as the two squads ended with 11 turnovers each. Having the same number of turnovers as VCU is quite the accomplishment.

Wichita State shot a dreadful 15.4 % from 3 against Indiana but edged out a win thanks to plus six in turnover margin.

The Louisville Cardinals are always good in the turnover game as that’s Rick Pitino’s forte. An upset from UC-Irvine appeared likely but Louisville survived courtesy of a plus five in turnover margin. It was the only team stat the Cardinals clearly controlled. The turnover edge nearly propelled the Cardinals to the Final Four as lost to the Spartans in overtime in the East Regional Final. Louisville was just plus three in that game.

Remember the First Four? BYU came in as an offensive powerhouse and shot an insanely 15 of 29 from 3. Problem though was Ole Miss turning BYU over 15 times to its 7.

It’s also interesting that among the teams with the fewest turnovers per game you’ll find Wisconsin at No. 2. It’s an advantage that might neutralize the defense of Kentucky a tiny bit.

It’s not unanimous, but turnover margin has been a key stat throughout the tournament. Six of the Elite Eight are in the top 75 of the stat with Michigan State being the only true anomaly at No. 215.

Now I wish I could have just reworked the bracket with that in mind.

Are teams shooting too many 3s in the NCAA Tournament?

No wonder they miss. They’re wearing Nikes.

A stat I keep seeing over and over in the NCAA Tournament is the sheer volume of 3-pointers some teams are taking. I used to see the three-pointer as an equalizer for the smaller schools. A way for schools lacking in size to stay competitive against the basketball elite. Yet it’s the basketball elite that are launching the 3s in this tournament. And the underdogs start a dance circle every time those 3s go up. Literally.

Oklahoma shot 30 3s against North Dakota State and made 12 of them. The Bison only took 14 and made six for a higher percentage. Why would a Big-12 team good enough to make the tournament settle for so many jumpers against a mid-major?

Ivy League schools like Harvard are expected to be filled with finesse jump shooters. Yet in its upset vs. Cincinnati, Harvard shot 12 more free throws because it attacked the rim more.

Manhattan nearly pulled off the upset over Louisville even though it only attempted five 3s. In comparison, Louisville went 4-13 from deep.

And then of course there’s Duke, a member of basketball’s royalty. Yet against underdog Mercer, Duke attempted 37 3s! Duke even made 15 of them and still lost. That’s because it gave away 22 free possessions to Mercer with all those misses from deep. The Bears went to the free throw line 15 more times the Blue Devils. Two days later against Tennessee, Mercer only attempted nine foul shots. The correlation is evident.

Even the best 3-point shooting teams in the country are clanking left and right. Creighton, the No. 1 3-point field-goal percentage team in the country, shot 5-24 from behind the arc in its embarrassing 85-55 defeat to Baylor.

Gonzaga, a top 10 3-point percentage team, shot 6-16 in its loss to Arizona in a game that was never competitive.

One team even won last week while not hitting a single 3 at all. Stanford defeated Kansas 60-57, despite going 0-9 from 3. It helped that Kansas went 5-16.

Dayton defeated Ohio State but only went 3-13 from 3. The Buckeyes didn’t do any better going 3-12.

Syracuse went 0-10 in its loss to Dayton. After a 0-7 start you would think the Orange would get the hint to attack the basket.

St. Louis was the worse among all of them against Louisville, going 0-15 from 3. Might as well have been 15 turnovers.

The first weekend of the tournament validated all the people who say you must attack the basket. In six games against above average defenses, no team is going to be hot from 3 all the time. You have to have multiple ways to score.

Now the pressure falls to schools like Michigan, Michigan State, UCLA, Baylor, UConn, and Dayton. All are top-50 teams in 3-point field goal percentage but will now be shooting in large NBA and even NFL venues this weekend. These larger venues are not to kind to shooters who are trying to gauge their range.

We’ll see if the feast and famine trend from the 3-point line continues. For those who rely on the 3, I sure hope they have a contingency plan.

Hypocrisy on Cupcakes

Sure, it was not a great weekend of college football action. Contrary to what ESPN might tell you, I say there is nothing wrong with that.

Several top ranked schools loaded up on easy schools Saturday. No. 4 Ohio State pounded FCS Florida A&M 76-0 and had a whopping 34-2 edge in first downs. How do you only get two first downs? No. 16 Miami (The U) made a worthless statement beating FCS Savannah State 77-7. The game was shortened with a 12-minute fourth quarter to end the slaughter quicker. There were other cupcake wins for No. 8 Florida State over FCS Bethune-Cookman 54-6 and No. 7 Louisville at least played a FBS school blowing out Florida International 72-0. That’s sure to make the Sun Belt conference proud. Note FIU defeated Louisville 24-17 just two years ago.

Was it good football? No, but that does not mean these games should have been scheduled.

These were budget games for the smaller schools in need of revenue. It also provided a chance to gain exposure for programs that rarely receive it. Who knows, if Florida A&M put up a fight against Ohio State this is a different story.

But because we did not have another Alabama at Texas A&M this Saturday we have to complain. We as in the sports media from ESPN to NBC Sports Network. The latter a network 10 people watch.

This comes off the day ESPN Gameday celebrated North Dakota State with a party in Fargo.

So in about 12 hours ESPN went from talking up FCS programs only to tear them down after the Top 25 rolled to easy wins. There is nothing wrong with these games. If you want to complain it’s that all of them occurred one weekend. The reason is because most of these powerhouses wanted to rest up before conference play starts.

You can’t have it both ways sports media. Do want to praise a tiny school when it beats a juggernaut? Great! Just don’t discourage these games from even happening if the upset doesn’t come.