Tournament Review: Part III

Editor's Note: Over the course of this multi-part series, we're diving deep into UVa's recent results in the NCAA Tournament and breaking down the data to see what myths can be busted and what long-term lessons can be taken away.

Today we focus on the hot takes. You can check out the first installment on the recent wins and losses as well as how regular-season success compares to the tournament results by clicking here or check out the second piece that focused on the "magic number" by clicking here.

Myth: Virginia loses playing slow, teams that play fast win.

This isn’t usually the “hot take” people use to blame UVa’s style of play for losses. Instead, those people usually just say that if the Wahoos played faster, they’d have a better chance to win. But those same arguments aren’t flipped when teams that play at a blistering pace waste possessions with rushed shots and lose to underseeded opponents. And that happens plenty: There are 353 teams in Division I basketball today and since 2010 only one national champion has been in the top 100 nationally in tempo (UNC was No. 40 in 2017). In fact, half of the title-winners have been in the bottom have nationally in pace. Virginia is the only team ranked 300th or lower, though, which does make the Cavaliers an outlier. They don’t just play slow, they play the slowest. Five of the teams in the Sweet Sixteen this year were top 100 in pace (Gonzaga, Arkansas, Alabama, FSU and Oral Roberts), while five are in the bottom 100 (Loyola-Chicago, Villanova, Houston, UCLA and Oregon State).

Some Truth: Virginia performs far worse in the NCAA’s than other top teams

I compared Virginia’s Tournament record against some of the nation’s premier programs: Kentucky, Duke, Villanova, North Carolina and Kansas, as well as two more comparable programs, West Virginia and Syracuse. UVa is 13-6 in the NCAA’s since 2014, with one Final Four and one title. Kentucky, Duke, and UNC have also won titles in that time frame, and the Wildcats and Tar Heels have made a pair of Final Fours. Duke, like Virginia, has made just one Final Four, but has made one more Sweet Sixteen than UVa has in the last seven years. Kansas is the most comparable to UVa, with a 14-7 record, only three trips to the second weekend, and one Final Four but no national title since 2008. Villanova has been the best team in the nation since 2014, with a 233-44 record and two national titles. But they also have lost four times in the first weekend of the tournament, including twice as a No. 1-seed and once as a 2.

So it can’t be argued that UVa has outperformed the blue bloods in the NCAAs but the biggest difference isn’t the record, it’s the loss to UMBC that the Wahoos have had to wear like a scarlet letter since it happened, even with a title in the year that followed. But UVa has also made every NCAA Tournament since 2014, something that Kentucky and Duke can’t say, despite all of their resources. UNC also would’ve missed the NCAAs last year if a tournament was been played.

Syracuse, hailed as an NCAA Tournament landmine for higher-seeded teams, is 11-4 in the NCAAs since 2014, mostly as a double-digit seed, with three Sweet Sixteen appearances and one Final Four at Virginia’s expense. The Orange also missed the tournament twice during that span. And while Boeheim has beaten some great teams in the tournament as a double-digit seed, they haven’t accomplished as much as UVa has during that time, and the Orange don’t get extra credit for having a more mediocre regular season and making it slightly further in the tournament with no titles to show for it.

West Virginia, a very solid program, has gone 7-5 in the NCAA’s since 2014, missing the Big Dance twice and never making it past the Sweet Sixteen. WVU has also failed to get out of the first weekend twice, both times as a No. 3-seed, including a loss to a No. 14-seed, and this year, No. 11-seed Syracuse. But when’s the last time you saw a Twitter debate about whether Bob Huggins’ press-and-run style works in March? Huggins is a Hall of Famer and a tremendous coach, but he has a 58 percent NCAA Tournament win percentage in four decades of coaching, which is worse than the 64 percent that Tony Bennett has…but Huggins has no national title with just a pair of Final Four trips. Surely he has been criticized by some, but it doesn’t feel like every loss is a referendum on his team’s style of play, which is certainly unique in its own right.

True but Incomplete: “Defense wins Championships”

Virginia has been the nation’s best defensive team over the past decade, with some years being better than others but almost all elite. If their defense is at that level, then the Hoos will be in the mix for a national title. But they have to be great on the other end as well.

Not just good, great.

Since 2010, six of the 10 national champions have been top three nationally in offensive efficiency. Two more were top 10 and the two outliers were the pair of UConn teams that got red hot and ran through the Dance led by NBA-bound point guards Kemba Walker and Shabazz Napier. UConn’s offense in 2014 was the biggest outlier, ranked 39th nationally in efficiency.

All of those champs were great on defense too, but not as many were the best of the best like they were on offense. Only one champion was ranked higher than fifth in defensive efficiency (2013 Louisville was No. 1) with five of the 10 title winners ranked between 10th and 15th, which is still great.

The two Virginia teams that have made it furthest in March were their two best offensive teams: 2016 and 2019. The Malcolm Brogdon-led Hoos were 8th in offensive efficiency in 2016, and 7th on defense. That was the first Bennett team to be top 10 in offense and was the most efficient and balanced team until 2019. The title-winning team was easily Bennett’s best in terms of efficiency. The Cavaliers were fifth on defense and second on offense, a 28-spot improvement from the 2018 team.

So while the 2018 team ran up an impressive win total before De’Andre Hunter’s injury and the UMBC loss, they got a lot better on offense the following year with a similar roster.

And they needed that offense to win the title. UVa broke 80 in wins over Purdue and Texas Tech, albeit in overtime, and scored 1.29 and 1.21 points per possession in those two wins respectively. Purdue’s 1.21 PPP was the highest allowed by a Bennett-coached UVa team in a NCAA Tournament game, win or lose. Texas Tech’s 1.10 PPP was the second-most allowed by UVa in a NCAA win under Bennett, and fourth-most overall (UMBC, 2012 Florida). But the Cavaliers were elite on offense, and they scored points when they needed them.

These numbers also tell us that UVa wasn’t winning the title this year or last year without being a big-time outlier. The Hoos were a horrendous 234th in offensive efficiency, what we saw with our eyes matched the computer numbers. No team anywhere near that bad on offense has come close to winning a title. Even the 2011 Butler team that played that eye-searing 53-41 title game against UConn ranked 43rd in offensive efficiency that year.

And this year, UVa was 18th on offense, and 34th on defense. Those numbers aren’t terrible, but it demonstrates a clear drop-off on the defensive end after finishing first nationally in defensive efficiency in 2020.

While UVa’s offense was loads better than last year, the Cavaliers weren’t quite at the level of past national title winners, UConn voodoo excluded.

Tomorrow: Just tossing this out there but...why can't UVa just play faster?!

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