March Madness: Ranking title contenders with historic KenPom data entering NCAA Tournament

March Madness has arrived with the NCAA Tournament tipping off in full swing on Thursday and Friday. KenPom has become one of the sport’s go-to analytics and can provide plenty of unique insights into the best chances at lifting the national championship trophy at the end of it all.

By studying the past five NCAA Tournament fields against the KenPom rankings, the average Offensive Rating and Defensive Rating of the teams that advance into the next round can help provide insight into the most important traits held by this year’s contenders.

View the full NCAA Tournament bracket here.

Defense definitely matters for national championship contenders, and that trope is backed up by the KenPom data. Here is a look at how this NCAA Tournament’s teams line up with the historic numbers.

National Champions

Meets averages: Duke, Arizona, Michigan
Offense only: Purdue, Illinois, Alabama, Arkansas, Vanderbilt, Florida, BYU, Wisconsin, Texas Tech, Texas, Houston, Georgia, Ohio State, Louisville
Defense only: N/A

The top three teams in college basketball remain in the elite group that meets the average KenPom numbers on both offense and defense of the past five national champions. To qualify in this group, each team must hold a KenPom Offensive Rating of 124.1 or higher and a Defensive Rating of 91.3 or lower. The consensus top teams hold steady while Florida falls out after championship weekend.

Beyond this group, there are several programs that meet the average offensive metrics, with First Four rivals NC State and Texas among them. There are none that meet the defense-only metrics. Few teams have reached the defensive threshold at some point during the season, and some have struggled to stay in range.

Final Four

Meets averages: Florida, Iowa State, Houston
Offense only: UCLA, Santa Clara, Michigan State, Virginia, Utah State, Gonzaga, UConn, Iowa, North Carolina, Miami
Defense only: Nebraska

A group of three teams joins the national championship contenders, meeting the slightly lower bar on offense and defense, which the Final Four teams since 2021 have averaged at KenPom. With an Offensive Rating above 121.3 and a Defensive Rating below 93.3, these teams are on the fringe of the top tier, including 2-seeds Iowa State and Houston.

Meanwhile, there are again more teams that meet the offensive numbers than the defensive ones across college basketball, as only Nebraska hits defense-only. This tier also introduces more teams from across the bracket, including First Four participant SMU.

Elite Eight

Meets averages: N/A
Offense only: Tennessee, Kentucky, UCF, Villanova, St. Mary’s, St. John’s VCU, Texas A&M, Missouri, St. Louis
Defense only: N/A

The average Elite Eight team over the past five seasons has boasted an average Offensive Rating of 119.1 and an average Defensive Rating of 93.5, not far off at all from the Final Four category. While no teams join this category, it appears defense is the biggest hurdle to clear, still, as more data is collected, with a majority of the at-large field now in range on offense. A handful of teams sit right on the cusp of this achievement.

Meanwhile, there are still a handful of NCAA Tournament teams that meet the offensive threshold, which continues to drop. There is also a handful of mid-major programs from the bottom portion of the bracket left out.

Sweet 16

Meets averages: Nebraska
Offense only: Akron, Kansas
Defense only: N/A

There is just one team that enters the NCAA Tournament able to qualify for this Sweet 16 category in both lists, Nebraska. The threshold by KenPom averages over the past five seasons sits at 117.7 in Offensive Rating and 93.5 in Defensive Rating.

There are also just two more teams in the field that can claim the offensive firepower needed for the second weekend, including a potential upset candidate on the 12-seed line. As defensive metrics appear to come more rarely among the top teams, it could become a defining piece.

Concern?

Misses averages: Illinois, Purdue, Michigan State, Gonzaga, UConn, Vanderbilt, Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee

While all of these nine teams do meet the offensive threshold for at least the top-tier categories, the defense falls short of the high mark met by the best teams in recent memory. Even with some of the top offenses in college basketball, there is enough of a problem on the other end of the floor to create concern heading into the deep stages of the NCAA Tournament.

These also fall relatively close to KemPom’s top teams — those which fall within the Top 16 of the metric’s final rankings — but did not make it to the second weekend of the NCAA Tournament. While they could still make noise, the defense will need to turn in elite performances.