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Champion Watch - 12/13/12
What does it take to be a champion? Guts, heart, will, other inspirational cliches to describe immeasurable intangibles? More often than not it is a combination of a specific set of skills that would make even Liam Neeson in "Taken" impressed.
Typically, teams have to have one of the top 20 efficient offenses coupled with one or another outstanding qualities. For instance, the 2010 Duke squad rode upper echelon offensive rebounding to multiple offensive chances as Brian Zoubek of all people keyed the Blue Devils to a title.
But let's say your favorite team sucks at rebounding. The natural way to compensate for it is to force a lot of turnovers to balance the possessions. It shouldn't be a surprise that typically, the team that takes the most shots, wins the game.
First, if you look at Turnover %, you'll notice that national champions have come from all walks of life in this category. For instance, the 04 UConn squad with Emeka Okafor was TERRIBLE at forcing turnovers, easily the worst if only by a narrow margin over (surprise!) 2011 UConn.
Only two teams turned the ball over more than they forced (04 UConn and 07 Florida) however both of those teams were aided by outstanding performance in other areas (more on that shortly).
The best performers here were 2010 Duke and 09 UNC, both of whom also had top offenses those seasons. Duke, led by Jon Scheyer, played as a team that prided itself on efficient possessions as it turned the ball over the fewest of the champions and had the second highest offensive rebounding rate. UNC was modeled in the same way with a similarly high offensive rebounding rate.
I find it interesting that Florida actually stopped forcing as many turnovers from 06 to 07. Their turnover rate remained the same but experienced a 4% drop in forcing them. Billy Donovan's squad made up for this by rebounding much better during the title defense.
Speaking of, rebounding rates were a mixed bag as well. If teams weren't elite rebounders, they made up for it on either dTO% or dFG%. Last years UK team was pretty average at turnovers and slightly above average rebounding. However, they were one of the best defensive teams of the last ten years.
Only 09 Memphis, 07 UConn, 05 Boston University, and 04 UConn were better.
That 04 UConn team was also the best offensive rebounding team of the champions which allowed it to negate its terrible turnover ratios.
While Kansas and 07 Florida were pretty weak on the offensive glass, they made up for it on the defensive end by grabbing over 71% of defensive rebounds.
Looking at the defensive numbers, after Kentucky and 04 UConn, every team resided in the 43.6 to 46.4 range. Based on a cumulative average over the last ten years, that would place every team in the top 50 at dFG%.
So, thats a lot of words and numbers to tell us what? Well, it means that aside from having a top offense (a staple of every champion) they must also do one of these at an elite level.
While this all seems fairly obvious, it allows us to build a profile for the top teams of the season. Currently, here are the teams that fall within the profile created by those champions for the 2012-2013 season:
[top 20 offense + (dTO% > 20) or (oTO% < 17) or (off Reb% >40) or (defReb% >70) or (dFG% < 45)]
Florida - 4
Minnesota - 3
Indiana - 4
Ohio State - 5
Pittsburgh - 4
Gonzaga - 2
Michigan - 2
Duke - 3
Creighton - 1
St. Mary's - 1
Notre Dame - 3
Arizona - 3
Syracuse - 4
Wisconsin - 4
Kentucky - 3
Kansas - 3
Belmont - 1
Lehigh - 1
Baylor - 1
That is 19 of the top 20 offenses (oh..sorry NC State) that fall into one of the other categories. The number beside each team is the number of categories they fall under.
Now, something to keep in mind is that as the season progresses, these teams will fall off as the numbers start to regress to the mean.
For example, Minnesota's offensive rebounding percentage is about five percentage points higher than the next closest team in the last ten years and right now about 12 teams are slated to break that record so either its the best offensive rebounding year ever or they haven't evened out yet.
Notably absent you might say is Louisville. The Cardinals actually fit four of the five categories but lay outside the top 20 in offensive efficiency at #23. I'm assuming they will join the ranks shortly but they currently do not meet that criteria. Still, they will absolutely be a final four contender.
By the end of the year, this fellowship of nineteen should be whittled down to only a few strong contenders for their one shining moment.
My early expectations are that Florida, Indiana, Ohio State, Louisville, and Duke are left standing in this group. I'll monitor this list going forward in our monthly Champions update at duke-forum.com.
Raw Data:
What does it take to be a champion? Guts, heart, will, other inspirational cliches to describe immeasurable intangibles? More often than not it is a combination of a specific set of skills that would make even Liam Neeson in "Taken" impressed.
Typically, teams have to have one of the top 20 efficient offenses coupled with one or another outstanding qualities. For instance, the 2010 Duke squad rode upper echelon offensive rebounding to multiple offensive chances as Brian Zoubek of all people keyed the Blue Devils to a title.
But let's say your favorite team sucks at rebounding. The natural way to compensate for it is to force a lot of turnovers to balance the possessions. It shouldn't be a surprise that typically, the team that takes the most shots, wins the game.
First, if you look at Turnover %, you'll notice that national champions have come from all walks of life in this category. For instance, the 04 UConn squad with Emeka Okafor was TERRIBLE at forcing turnovers, easily the worst if only by a narrow margin over (surprise!) 2011 UConn.
Only two teams turned the ball over more than they forced (04 UConn and 07 Florida) however both of those teams were aided by outstanding performance in other areas (more on that shortly).
The best performers here were 2010 Duke and 09 UNC, both of whom also had top offenses those seasons. Duke, led by Jon Scheyer, played as a team that prided itself on efficient possessions as it turned the ball over the fewest of the champions and had the second highest offensive rebounding rate. UNC was modeled in the same way with a similarly high offensive rebounding rate.
I find it interesting that Florida actually stopped forcing as many turnovers from 06 to 07. Their turnover rate remained the same but experienced a 4% drop in forcing them. Billy Donovan's squad made up for this by rebounding much better during the title defense.
Speaking of, rebounding rates were a mixed bag as well. If teams weren't elite rebounders, they made up for it on either dTO% or dFG%. Last years UK team was pretty average at turnovers and slightly above average rebounding. However, they were one of the best defensive teams of the last ten years.
Only 09 Memphis, 07 UConn, 05 Boston University, and 04 UConn were better.
That 04 UConn team was also the best offensive rebounding team of the champions which allowed it to negate its terrible turnover ratios.
While Kansas and 07 Florida were pretty weak on the offensive glass, they made up for it on the defensive end by grabbing over 71% of defensive rebounds.
Looking at the defensive numbers, after Kentucky and 04 UConn, every team resided in the 43.6 to 46.4 range. Based on a cumulative average over the last ten years, that would place every team in the top 50 at dFG%.
So, thats a lot of words and numbers to tell us what? Well, it means that aside from having a top offense (a staple of every champion) they must also do one of these at an elite level.
While this all seems fairly obvious, it allows us to build a profile for the top teams of the season. Currently, here are the teams that fall within the profile created by those champions for the 2012-2013 season:
[top 20 offense + (dTO% > 20) or (oTO% < 17) or (off Reb% >40) or (defReb% >70) or (dFG% < 45)]
Florida - 4
Minnesota - 3
Indiana - 4
Ohio State - 5
Pittsburgh - 4
Gonzaga - 2
Michigan - 2
Duke - 3
Creighton - 1
St. Mary's - 1
Notre Dame - 3
Arizona - 3
Syracuse - 4
Wisconsin - 4
Kentucky - 3
Kansas - 3
Belmont - 1
Lehigh - 1
Baylor - 1
That is 19 of the top 20 offenses (oh..sorry NC State) that fall into one of the other categories. The number beside each team is the number of categories they fall under.
Now, something to keep in mind is that as the season progresses, these teams will fall off as the numbers start to regress to the mean.
For example, Minnesota's offensive rebounding percentage is about five percentage points higher than the next closest team in the last ten years and right now about 12 teams are slated to break that record so either its the best offensive rebounding year ever or they haven't evened out yet.
Notably absent you might say is Louisville. The Cardinals actually fit four of the five categories but lay outside the top 20 in offensive efficiency at #23. I'm assuming they will join the ranks shortly but they currently do not meet that criteria. Still, they will absolutely be a final four contender.
By the end of the year, this fellowship of nineteen should be whittled down to only a few strong contenders for their one shining moment.
My early expectations are that Florida, Indiana, Ohio State, Louisville, and Duke are left standing in this group. I'll monitor this list going forward in our monthly Champions update at duke-forum.com.
Raw Data: