Sweet 16 Team KenPom Profiles

If you have been listening to the podcast or reading any sort of gambling blogs from Dom and I, you often have heard us refer to KenPom's offense, defense, and pace rankings. Those are the three main statistics we look at when we handicap games so I am going to put them all on paper for you guys to see as well when you start handicapping. The order of teams listed is going to be KenPom's rankings. The rankings are out of 353 division 1 teams.

As I mentioned in a blog last week, KenPom has been around since 2002. In the 17 completed seasons in KP's existence (this season is the 18th), the champion each year has ranked top 20th in both offensive and defensive efficiency in 16 of 17 seasons. If that trend is to stick around this year we are looking at our champion coming from this group of nine teams: Virginia, Gonzaga, Michigan State, Duke, Michigan, North Carolina, Kentucky, Virginia Tech, and Houston. Wager wisely.

For reference, KenPom measures these stats in this way:

Offensive Efficiency: Points scored per 100 offensive possessions

Defensive Efficiency: Points allowed per 100 defensive possessions

Pace (Tempo): Possessions per 40 minutes

1) Virginia

-Offense: 2nd

-Defense: 3rd

-Pace: 353rd

2) Gonzaga

-Offense: 1st

-Defense: 16th

-Pace: 71st

3) Michigan State

-Offense: 4th

-Defense: 8th

-Pace: 179th

4) Duke

-Offense: 7th

-Defense: 6th

-Pace: 18th

5) Michigan

-Offense: 19th

-Defense: 2nd

-Pace: 317th

6) North Carolina:

-Offense: 8th

-Defense: 11th

-Pace: 6th

7) Kentucky

-Offense: 11th

-Defense: 9th

-Pace: 274th

8) Texas Tech

-Offense: 35th

-Defense: 1st

-Pace: 233rd

9) Purdue

-Offense: 5th

-Defense: 27th

-Pace: 267th

10) Tennessee

-Offense: 3rd

-Defense: 33rd

-Pace: 170th

11) Virginia Tech

-Offense: 12th

-Defense: 19th

-Pace: 332nd

12) Houston

-Offense: 20th

-Defense: 12th

-Pace: 247th

13) Auburn

-Offense: 6th

-Defense: 45th

-Pace: 157th

14) Florida State

-Offense: 28th

-Defense: 10th

-Pace: 128th

15) LSU

-Offense: 13th

-Defense: 49th

-Pace: 59th

16) Oregon

-Offense: 74th

-Defense: 15th

-Pace: 328th