How Teams With Top 30 Offenses and Sub 100 Defenses Have Fared NCAA Tournament
/u/LOLmodel on Reddit compiled a list of how teams with top 30 offenses and sub-100 defenses have performed in the tournament (using Kenpom's adjO and adjD numbers). This year, Michigan enters the tournament with the 3rd best offense and 104th best defense.
The results were not incredibly encouraging, but I found it a highly interesting examination. Click the image below to open a full-sized (i.e. legible) version in a new window.
Sorry I couldn't fit more words in the title...
The reverse (top 30 adjD and sub-100 adjO is also available here).
March 18th, 2014 at 12:05 PM ^
I assume the numbers in your table for all non 2014 teams are KenPom's end of year rankings, meaning final numbers after the tournament has concluded. Look at the jump Michigan's defense made in KenPom's rankings last year before the tournament started and after it ended, almost 30 spots up if I remember correctly. I imagine that teams with a top 30 offense and 100+ defense entering the tournament that have gone on to make a tournament run ended with a top 100 defense. These teams will not be listed using your method. This data is potentially very misleading and cause for unnessecary concern.
March 18th, 2014 at 10:11 AM ^
March 18th, 2014 at 10:26 AM ^
most of these are 1st or 2nd round exits which is obviously the most common thing to happen in the tournament. I would assume a similar chart with elite defenses and awful offenses might be similar, perhaps a couple more that advance to the sweet 16/elite 8/etc but i'd think it be very similar as an overall percentage.
March 18th, 2014 at 10:44 AM ^
What scares me is a team like mizzou from a couple years back that had the number one offense was seeded 2 and lost in the first round. That is just the type of team that we are, wofford is better than charlotte and texas/asu is at least as good as the middle of the big ten and we lost to indiana and beat purdue by 1 with off shooting nights. The biggest problem I see for us is not having a trey burke or jabari parker, a guy who when the threes are not falling can still take over a game and score 20. Stauskas is great but won't break 20 if his jumpshot isn't falling.
Also people comparing us to last year, it doesn't make sense, there will be no mitch mcgary this year, last years team loses to kansas without mcgary last year so looking at how the teams entered the tourney is going to give you a false sense of hope.
March 18th, 2014 at 11:37 AM ^
What I am confused about is WHY we dont play good defense, or even average defense for a team with these sort of players - at least when our starters are playing.
Walton should be a good on the ball defender, Caris should be, and GR3 should be (when not facing a physical opponent which is 60%+ of the time). Morgan is a good defender. I realize Nik is not great. But of our starting 5, 4 should in theory be pretty darn good at what they do yet that 3 game display in the BTT was some of the worse defense of the year. I do realize Irvin is not a good defender, Spike gets overpowered a bit, and Horford is... well Horford - but when our starters are out there, the defense should be adequate. And before people say 100 out of 300 is adequate, I mean adequate versus BCS conference peers, which I'd put at 50-75.
That said the draw offers no excuses in the first 2 games. They have to beat 1 team that is top 15 / not in a tailspin late in the season to get to the Elite 8. If they do that it will help the chart out above but yes we saw with the OSU game (the only game we shot well of the 3 in the BTT) that even when we shot the lights out of the gym early, OSU was still within 12 because they got to the lane just about anytime they wanted and there are a lot better offensive minded teams than OSU out there and I believe that is where the eventual undoing should be.
March 18th, 2014 at 12:18 PM ^
Very few kids are good defenders in their first year. Those who are tend to be shot-blockers. I think we'll see Walton, Irvin, and LeVert all become good defenders if/when they become upperclassmen. Robinson is already a decent defender, and he will presumably improve if he returns next year.
Do you think there's something to, once we get out of the Big Ten our defense in a way averages out? A post was made after mine in a post from yesterday in regards to how we jumped froom mid-70s ranked defense on KenPom to mid-40s by the end of the Tournament. We ended up at ~94.0ppp on defense but forget what the actual ppp jump was to go from 70s to 40s. Anywho, our defense WAS better in the tournament. Was it just because of McGary balling out and Trey doing some things well on defense or did we average out because of the officiating change in the Dance?
I personally likely lean more toward Mitch being a big body and stopper/rebounder but maybe there's something to the Tournament vs Big Ten officiating and we become not as bad is we seem.
Is there a spreadsheet version of these?