The Rocky Road

[SWC75]

After we beat Louisville by a point, (and not long after we beat West Virginia by 2 and Georgetown by 3 in overtime), it was said that these games were good practice for the type of games we would have to win to win the national championship. Jim Boeheim pointed out that you could win 9 straight close games and still lose the tenth. Someone suggested that it was like flipping a coin: no mater how many times it row it comes up heads it’s still got a 50% chance of being heads the next time. I like to think that there is a nack for winning close games or team qualities that allow us to do so when other teams would have lost those games. But I think it’s important to limit how many close games we have on the way to a possible second national title.

I decided to look at the teams that have won national championships and see how “rocky” their roads to the title games were. I began with the 1985 tournament, when the field went to 64 teams such that the winner had to win 6 games.

In 1985 Villanova was 19-10 and unranked when the tournament began. They were #8 see. They won games by 2,4,3,12,7 and 2 points, a total of 30 points. They had five games decided by 10 points or less out of 6. I’ll abbreviate that thusly:
1985 Villanova 19-10 unranked 8S 2,4,3,12,7,2 = 30 /5 close
I’ll list the highest ranking the team got in either poll and when a game goes into over time, I’ll list the margin as “E”, for even and count that as a close game even if the final margin may occasionally have been double figures.

1985 Villanova 19-10 unranked 8S 2,4,3,12,7,2 = 30 /5 close
1986 Louisville 26-7 #7 2S 20,14,15,8,11,3 = 71 /2 close
1987 Indiana 24-4 #2 1S 34,17,6,1,4,1 = 63 /4 close
1988 Kansas 21-11 unranked 6S 13,3,13,13,7,4 = 53 /3 close
1989 Michigan 24-7 #10 3S 5,9,5,37,2,E = 58 /4 close
1990 UNLV 29-5 #2 1S 30/11/2/30/9/30 = 112 /2 close
1991 Duke 26-7 #6 2S 29,15,4,17,2,7 = 84 /2 close
1992 Duke 28-2 #1 1S 26,13,12,E,3,20 = 74 /2 close
1993 North Carolina 28-4 #2 1S 20,45,6,7,10,6 = 94 /3 close
1994 Arkansas 25-3 #1 1S 15,12,19,8,9,4 = 67 /3 close
1995 UCLA 25-2 #1 1S 36,1,19,6,13,4 = 79 /2 close
1996 Kentucky 28-2 #2 1S 38,24,31,20,7,9 = 129 /2 close
1997 Arizona 19-9 #13 4S 8/4/3/E/8/E = 23 /6 close
1998 Kentucky 29-4 #5 2S 15,27,26,2,E,19 = 79 /3 close
1999 Connecticut 28-2 #3 1S 25,22,10,5,6,3 = 71 /3 close
2000 Michigan State 26-7 #2 1S 27,12,17,11,12,13 = 92 /0 close
2001 Duke 29-4 #1 1S 43,13,13,10,11,10 = 100 / 0 close
2002 Maryland 26-4 #4 1S 15,30,10,8,9,12 = 84 /2 close
2003 Syracuse 24-5 #12 3S 11,12,1,16,11,3 = 54 /2 close
2004 Connecticut 27-6 #7 2S 17,17,20,16,1,9 = 80 /2 close
2005 North Carolina 27-4 #2 1S 28,27,1,6,16,5 = 83 /3 close
2006 Florida 27-6 #10 3S 26,22,4,13,15,16 = 96 /1 close
2007 Florida 29-5 #3 1S 43,7,8,8,10,9 = 85 /4 close
2008 Kansas 31-3 #4 1S 24,19,15,2,18,E = 78 /2 close
2009 North Carolina 28-4 #2 1S 43,14,21,12,14,17 = 121 /0 close
2010 Duke 29-5 #3 1S 29,15,13,7,21,2 = 87 /2 close
2011 Connecticut 24-9 #9 3S 29,11,7,2,1,12 = 62 /3 close

The average pre-tournament record of a national champion has been 26-5. Their average ranking, (counting the two unranked teams as #26), has been #6. Their average seeding has been #2. They’ve averaged winning in the first round by 25 pints, the second round by 16 points, the Sweet 16 by 12 points, the Elite 8 by 10 points, the National semis by 9 points and the championship game by 8 points. Their average margin of victory for the entire tournament has been 79 points. They’ve had 3 close first round games, 6 in the second round, 11 in the Sweet 16, 15 in both the Elite 8 and Semis and 18, (of 27) in the final game. Overall they’ve averaged 2.5 games decided by under 10 points. Of their 68 close games, 26 were decided by less than 5 points in regulation and another 5 went to over time.

23 of 27 champions have had at least two games decided by less than 10 points or OT on their way to the title. Three teams avoided close games: the 2000 Michigan State, 2001 Duke and 2009 North Carolina teams. One team, the 1997 Arizona team, had nothing but close games. They won their title over defending national champion Kentucky, who the previous year, had won it’s 6 games by a record 129 points.

I still fee l that the key is to avoid close games because you can’t control the result but it’s unlikely that we could win the national title without pulling a couple out of the fire. I hope we really are good at it.

 

[cliftonparksufan]

Amazing how we only had five losses in 2003 but only had a best ranking of 12th. We were really underrated that season. People knew about Carmelo but no one believed how good and well balanced we really were.

 

[Oakland]

Luv the metrics. SWC, you are a Cusenational treasure. Haven't seen any other poster, on any site, that compares with you.

 

[skurey]

The measure of how good a team isn't by pulling out close games, it's by blowing out your opponent over and over

 

[Oakland]

The measure of how good a team isn't by pulling out close games, it's by blowing out your opponent over and over

Which this team has done many times this season.

 

[LennX6]

Amazing how we only had five losses in 2003 but only had a best ranking of 12th. We were really underrated that season. People knew about Carmelo but no one believed how good and well balanced we really were.

Remember we started the 2002-03 season unranked and rightfully so. Shumperts class graduated, and although we made the Quarters of the NIT, our promising season went down in the flames called DeShawn Williams. Also the scary thing is if the Univ did not finally cut the ties with Williams, JB wanted him back and if that happened we would have had no championship in '03. Back to 2003 , we had a lot of Freshman and GMac basically came in as an unknown. I know myself did not think Melo was as good as he turned out, and he was that good from day1. Warrick was real rough as a frosh. He grew a lot that summer. Edelin sat out 14 games . So see if I got this, we startout unranked due to a lot of turnover from 2002. We lose our first then we win a lot, but nothing separated us to the worlds eye from the 20 other 12-1 teams in January. Then we lose to a bad Rutgers team. We had probably climbed up to 15 by then and that knocked us back.

 

[TODDNTEXAS]

How many of the close and non close games were against rivals or fellow conference teams?

 

[DallasCuse]

Excellent research.

I agree that you want to avoid close games, but some are inevitable. I've always wondered if Laz doesn't get hurt, and we keep the game against Kentucky real close (like -2/+2), how they would have fared down the stretch. They were so used to routing everyone, and we had played very tight games.

 

[SWC75]

How many of the close and non close games were against rivals or fellow conference teams?

You can figure that one out.
http://www.shrpsports.com/cb/brackets.htm

 

[SWC75]

Excellent research.

I agree that you want to avoid close games, but some are inevitable. I've always wondered if Laz doesn't get hurt, and we keep the game against Kentucky real close (like -2/+2), how they would have fared down the stretch. They were so used to routing everyone, and we had played very tight games.

Sims played 39 of 40 mintues in that game. He ahd the ball with 1:05 left when he tried to thread the enedle on a pass to wallace and the ball was tipped. John fouled out trying to ge tit back. We were down 5 at the time and he was ahead of the pack and would ahve scored if Z had only lofted the ball a bit. It was the only bad mistake I saw him make all season.

 

[SWC75]

Luv the metrics. SWC, you are a Cusenational treasure. Haven't seen any other poster, on any site, that compares with you.

I'm just a guy who likes to look things up.

 

[M2MPrinciples]

Winning close games is largely a function of things out of the team's control (i.e. the non-goaltend call on Baye against WV). This is going to sound a little obnoxious, but if a team is truly great, it's blowing out opponents and not playing in many games that are decided at the last minute.