Busting Brackets
Fansided

NCAA Basketball: Seeking out title contenders by the numbers

By Joe Cook-Shugart

NEW YORK, NY - MARCH 8: Selection committee. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
NEW YORK, NY - MARCH 8: Selection committee. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images) /
facebooktwitterreddit
Prev
7 of 7
Next
NEW YORK, NY – MARCH 8: (L to R) Tom Holmoe, director of athletics at Brigham Young University, works. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
NEW YORK, NY – MARCH 8: (L to R) Tom Holmoe, director of athletics at Brigham Young University, works. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images) /

Teams that fit the mold best

So does your head hurt after reading all that? Hang in there – now that the statistical analysis is over, we have reached the climax: the list of teams that best fit the mold of championship contender at this point in the 2018-2019 season. As a conservative threshold, I required that a team be ranked in the top-100 in any given category to qualify. Only five teams check off all the five previously mentioned championship-pedigree boxes:

  •  Gonzaga
    • SOS: 59th
    • Offensive/Defensive Efficiency: 1st/12th
    • STL%/TOV%: 78th/7th
    • Preseason AP Points: 1461 (3rd)
    • FT% or 3PT%: Both (22nd/78th)
  • Virginia
    • SOS: 54th
    • Offensive/Defensive Efficiency: 2nd/2nd
    • STL%/TOV%: 164th/1st
    • Preseason AP Points: 1286 (5th)
    • FT% or 3PT%: Both (15th/11th)
  • Tennessee
    • SOS: 31st
    • Offensive/Defensive Efficiency: 5th/26th
    • STL%/TOV%: 236th/31st
    • Preseason AP Points: 1268 (6th)
    • FT% or 3PT%: FT% (14th)
  • Auburn
    • SOS: 27th
    • Offensive/Defensive Efficiency: 11th/70th
    • STL%/TOV%: 7th/89th
    • Preseason AP Points: 974 (11th)
    • FT% or 3PT%: 3PT% (80th)
  • Virginia Tech
    • SOS: 100th
    • Offensive/Defensive Efficiency: 3rd/38th
    • STL%/TOV%: 76th/85th
    • Preseason AP Points: 630 (15th)
    • FT% or 3PT%: Both (27th/3rd)

Next. Bracketology Bubble Watch. dark

With another month and a half of regular season and conference tournament basketball to enjoy, this is subject to change. By the time Selection Sunday rolls around, I’m sure that at least one of the above teams will have fallen out of the championship pedigree circle of trust. In the same vein, I’m sure they’ll be a currently unforeseen team that enters.

At the end of the day, these numbers are indicative of the most likely outcomes, but the games aren’t decided on a calculator – they’re decided on the court.

Home/NCAA Basketball News