NCAA Basketball: Seeking out title contenders by the numbers

5. FT% or 3PT%

Free throws involve scoring points while no one is guarding you, and 3-point field goals are worth more than 2-point field goals. Consequently, it should come as no surprise that a team’s ability to make free throws and 3-pointers at a high percentage is correlated to being successful, especially in the inevitably close games against strong opponents that take place during the NCAA Tournament.

The fifth and final identifier of championship pedigree is unique in that features “or” as the conjunction, rather than “and” as the conjunction. This is because while both free throw percentage and 3-point percentage are correlated to success in the tournament, a team can have success without having high measurements in one or the other. A handful of teams that have experienced success in March have had high measurements in both categories, but almost all of them at least have a strength in one or the other.

One final note: though both these statistics are strongly correlated to tournament success, free throw percentage is marginally more important than 3-point percentage in predicting success.

Some of the top teams with the highest FT% and 3PT% (as measured by Sports Reference) include:

• FT%
  • Marquette
  • Tennessee
  • Virginia
  • Louisville
  • Gonzaga
  • Iowa
  • Virginia Tech
  • Maryland
  • Kentucky
  • North Carolina
• 3PT%
  • Virginia Tech
  • Wisconsin
  • Virginia
  • Marquette
  • NC State
  • Michigan State
  • Purdue
  • Mississippi State
  • North Carolina
  • Iowa