Louisville team

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- This is not a prediction that the University of Louisville men's basketball team will win the 2025 national championship, crash the Final Four, celebrate the Sweet Sixteen or win the Atlantic Coast Conference Tournament.

It is not even a prediction that the surging Cardinals will win another game.

It is NOT.

Are we clear?

But some fascinating numbers about Pat Kelsey's first U of L team are percolating on analytics sites. This is the sixth day of March. We are less than a week from the ACC Tournament in Charlotte and 10 days from Selection Sunday.

So I'll get to it: There is no perfect predictive formula for March success. Impossible. Try looking at the numbers that North Carolina State posted prior to its ridiculous five-game run through the ACC Tournament to the Final Four last season and tell me why you saw a team capable of running off nine straight wins while beating Duke twice.

Other than an elite low turnover rate, those numbers are not there for the Wolfpack.

But there are a pair of benchmarks that many wise basketball people consider when evaluating teams: Offensive efficiency and defensive efficiency.

It's a number that measures how many points a team is likely to score per 100 offensive possessions. Generally, an average offense generates slightly more than 100 points per 100 possession.

Of course, defensive efficiency is how many points a team allows per 100 possessions.

For several years, the talk around the game, especially when folks begin filling in their NCAA Tournament brackets, has been the teams most likely to make deep tournament runs are teams that rank in the top 20, or even top 25, in offensive and defensive efficiency.

Makes sense. A flawless offense can be turned upside down by a flawed defense. A barbed-wire defense cannot always overcome a team that cannot make shots.

I checked Bart Torvik's analytics site Thursday morning, searching for teams that rank in the top 25 in offensive and defensive efficiency.

Only six programs made the cut: two from the ACC, two from the Southeastern Conference and two from the Big 12. Sorry, Rick Pitino, but St. John's sometimes shaky offensive performances (No. 86 in efficiency) leaves your team far outside the cut.

Here are the six teams that are nearly as good on defense as they are on offense:

  • Auburn, first in offense at a staggering 131 points per 100 possessions and 12th in defense at 94
  • Houston, with an impressive overall blend by ranking fifth on offense (125.9) and first in defense (89.4)
  • Duke, with the finest overall numbers, second in offense (129.4) and fourth in defense (91.6)
  • Florida, sixth in offense (125.8) and 13th on defense (94.8)
  • Arizona, a 10-loss team that ranks 14th (122.8) on offense and 25th (96.6) on defense
  • Louisville, which sits 23rd on offense (119) and 19th (95.8) on defense

Not a bad club to crash.

The beauty of Torvik's site is you can separate the numbers from segments of this season — and also look the pre-tournament figures from recent years. I did both.

Before Jan. 1, when Louisville had played only Duke and Florida State from the ACC but lost to four squads from the Southeastern Conference, the Cards ranked 53rd in offensive efficiency (113.8 points per 100 possessions) and 78th on defense (99.5).

Starting with Jan. 1 when Louisville played North Carolina through the game the Cards won over California on Wednesday night, Louisville ranks 19th on offense (120.4) and 10th on defense (93).

Have the Cardinals significantly improved or has U of L benefited from playing one (Clemson) or maybe two (UNC) teams that will make the NCAA Tournament?

Cue the debate.

I'll also leave you with this: "Defense wins championships" are the three motivating words coaches have printed on the back of practice shorts.

I have my doubts. Offense has become the more direct route to success. Using Torvik, I charted the pre-NCAA Tournament offensive and defensive efficiency numbers of the Final Four and Sweet Sixteen teams from the last five tournaments.

This is what I found:

  • In 2024, the Final Four featured three Top 25 offenses, two Top 25 defenses. NC State had neither. For the Sweet Sixteen, 12 team qualified on offense, 11 on defense
  • In 2023, there were two dual qualifiers on offense and only two on defense. In the Sweet Sixteen, 9 on offense, 10 on defense
  • In 2022, every Final Four team qualified on offense but only national champ Kansas hit the mark on defense. In the Sweet Sixteen, there were 11 offensive qualifiers, eight on defense
  • In 2021, every Final Four team qualified on offense, but Baylor and UCLA missed on defense and the Bears won the title. In the Sweet Sixteen, there were 10 offensive qualifiers, eight on defense
  • In 2019, three Final Four teams qualified on offense, three on defense. In the Sweet Sixteen, it was 13 on offense and 11 on defense

Overall, that's 16 of 20 Final Four teams on offense, 10 of 20 on defense. In the Final Four, make it 55 of 80 on offense, 48 on defense.

You've got time to start worrying about your bracket. But Louisville's offensive and defensive efficiency numbers, measured against questions about the difficulty of an ACC schedule, will make the Cards a challenging team to forecast in March.

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