Observations from the 2025 NCAA D1 Tournament: A Numbers Guy’s Deep Dive
- coachdhopkins
- May 1
- 4 min read
As a former math teacher, I’ve always had a love for numbers—and March Madness gives me the Coach the perfect excuse to dive deep into stats just for the fun of it. This year, I decided to look for patterns and trends that might explain what separates Final Four contenders from early exits. My focus: Offensive Efficiency, Defensive Efficiency, Pace of Play, and Turnover Percentage—all using data from KenPom, through the Elite Eight (so Final Four and Championship numbers are not included).
Offensive Efficiency: The Cream Rises
Starting with offensive efficiency, the trend was exactly what you’d expect—the average efficiency rating improved with each round. With the range between the highest ranking and the lowest ranking being large at the start of the tournament I'm sure you understand why the biggest jump came after the Round of 64, as automatic qualifiers and lower-seeded teams with poor offensive metrics were quickly eliminated. By the time we hit the Final Four, three of the four teams were ranked in the top three for offensive efficiency. The outlier? Houston, ranked 12th.
Defensive Efficiency: A Championship Formula
On the defensive side, we saw a similar trend of improvement through each round—except for one twist. When Florida won the national title, they did so with a slightly lower defensive ranking than Houston. Still, all Final Four teams were inside the top 10 in defensive efficiency, with Houston leading the way and Florida rounding out the group.
The Offense + Defense Combo
When comparing offensive and defensive efficiency together, an interesting pattern emerged. The only three teams that were top 10 in both metrics made the Final Four. Houston the one team not in the top ten in both ranking 12th in offensive efficiency but #1 in defense:
It’s worth noting that only 3 teams in the top 40 for offensive efficiency missed the tournament—Villanova, Ohio State, and Butler. But on the defensive side, nine top-40 teams failed to make it in. Among the snubs, Ohio State and Indiana had the best overall balance between the two metrics.
Pace of Play: No One Formula
Next, I looked at pace of play, and this is where things got messy—in a good way. Among the top 10 defensive teams, pace rankings ranged from 61 (Florida) to 360 (Houston). Clearly, there’s no single pace profile for elite defense. If you look at pace of play based on the top 10 offensive teams, pace ranges from 1 (Alabama) to 300 (Purdue). We will see later how pace appears to affect turnover percentage. I was interesting to see that only 6 of the top-20 pace of play teams made the tournament.
Turnover Percentage: Less Important Than You’d Think?
Turnover percentage (TO%) was the next factor I explored. I was surprised to find that four of the top 10 teams in TO% didn’t even make the tournament. Among Final Four teams here is a comparison of TO% and pace of play:
Of the teams making the tournament and in the top-10 for TO% Gonzaga had the highest pace rank at #42 and UC San Diego had the lowest rank of #275. So while turnovers matter, the effect seems limited compared to efficiency metrics.
Biggest Shifts by Round
I also tracked where the biggest range changes occurred for each stat. Where were there big range changes in the rounds. First it was round of 64 to the round of 32. This is because most of the low end ranking automatic qualifiers lost. What then was the biggest change in each category other than the opening round:
Offensive Efficiency: From Sweet 16 to Elite Eight, Arkansas’ loss caused the low end of the range to jump from 63 to 23.
Defensive Efficiency: Same round—BYU’s loss raised the low end of the range from 82 to 39.
Pace of Play: Alabama’s Elite Eight exit eliminated the fastest-paced team, with Florida (ranked #61) becoming the new fastest.
Turnover Percentage: Sweet 16 again—Ole Miss (TO% rank #3) and Michigan (#324) both lost.
These shifts happened mostly when statistical outliers were knocked out.
So, What Does It Take to Win?
The biggest takeaway from this analysis: Elite defense matters, but it must be paired with top-tier offense. A high pace doesn’t guarantee success—in fact, it can magnify weaknesses in efficiency. Ultimately, the champion had top-10 rankings in both offense and defense, plus the highest pace of any team with that combo.
Turnover percentage? It seems less predictive—mostly because the gaps between rankings aren’t wide enough to be consistently meaningful.
I don’t claim to be a basketball analytics guru, but digging into these numbers was a blast. I’m planning to compare this year’s Final Four to past years when I get the chance. Until then—back to the portal to find players!
Here is the comparative chart for rounds with other data files for your pleasure.
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