Where Does UConn’s Dominance Rank on the Road to the Final Four?
The Huskies have crushed the opposition... though nothing is guaranteed from here.
As if the Connecticut men’s basketball team needed to strike even more fear into the hearts of opponents, the defending champs put on an absolute clinic Saturday while punching their ticket to next weekend’s Final Four. Toying with Illinois — the No. 4 offensive team in the land — for roughly 18 minutes, the Huskies then proceeded to go on a 30-0 (!!!!) run that lasted well into the second half. When the dust cleared, a 23-23 game was suddenly 53-23 in favor of UConn, paving Connecticut’s way to a 77-52 victory in the East regional final.
Such a lopsided result is nothing new for this team. Somehow, that 25-point blowout was only UConn’s third-widest margin of victory in four tourney games so far. (It was also the Huskies’ 10th straight double-digit win over the past two tournaments.) A year after producing one of the most dominating championship runs in men’s NCAA tourney history, the Huskies will go into the Final Four on an even greater hot streak this season.
How hot, exactly?
We can measure how dominant a team has been on the road to the Final Four by comparing its scoring margin to that which we’d expect based on the Simple Rating System (SRS) scores of its opponents. In four games so far, UConn has an average point differential of +27.8 PPG against a set of teams with an average SRS of +10.5,1 so they’ve won by an average of +38.3 points relative to expected.
That’s one of the best performances through the Elite Eight since the tournament expanded to 64 teams in 1985 — though it’s not quite No. 1:
This year’s Huskies rank slightly ahead of last year’s version, which won its region with a +37.5 PPG differential relative to expectations. But they trail Kentucky in 1993 (+41.7) and 1996 (+39.5), as well as Arizona from 1988 (+39.4).
(UConn probably also doesn’t have a Hall of Fame-caliber future MLB outfielder like Arizona had with “Ken Lofton”.)2
That ‘96 Kentucky team was insanely stacked, with 9 future NBA players, and it ended up beating UMass and Syracuse by 15 combined points in the Final Four to claim the national title. (UK’s +21.5 average scoring margin that tournament remains the best by any champ in the 64-team era.) But both Kentucky in ‘93 and Arizona in ‘88 lost immediately upon reaching the Final Four, despite their impressive runs through the regionals. So did UNC in 2008 and UConn in 2009, for that matter, while Duke’s 1999 powerhouse lost in the national final… to UConn of all teams.
All of which is to say this: Blazing a dominating trail to the Final Four is nice, but it doesn’t guarantee anything once you get there. Pending what UConn does this year, only 2 of the Top 10 teams on our list above ended up winning the national title — and a number of those teams didn’t even make the final.
We should also note that UConn isn’t the only team that blew through the regionals in historic style this year. Purdue is lower on the list (No. 18), but Zach Edey and the Boilermakers also beat opponents by +31.7 PPG versus expected on the road to the Final Four.
If both Connecticut and Purdue win in their respective semifinal matchups, we could be looking at a historic battle of two red-hot finalists. (The only comparable battle of the 64-team era on our list might have been in 2013, with Louisville facing Michigan.) If it does come down to that, the winner would have a chance to lay claim to the greatest title run in modern history if they run the margins up enough — and UConn could be looking at potentially owning both of the top two entries on that ranking.
Filed under: College basketball
As of Sunday (i.e., not including the Elite 8 games of Sunday afternoon).
Yes, I know Lofton dropped off the HOF ballot in 2013 after just one appearance — which remains one of the biggest travesties in the history of Cooperstown voting.