Yesterday, I did an analysis of Kansas over the last 24 years. I came up with the conclusion that there really isn’t much (if any) difference in the value of one versus the other (offense or defense). So, I decided to evaluate the NCAA overall. There are two ways to look at this – scoring and field goal percentage. Here are the results of both.

If you read yesterday’s post on this subject, you will recall that I determined Kansas might have a very slight advantage during the regular season based upon defense versus offense. On the other hand, I also determined KU might have a minimal advantage in the postseason for offense versus defense – just the opposite. But, the truth is that neither difference was statistically meaningful and both differences could easily be a result of margin of error due to sample size. Thus, there is no conclusion to be drawn.

I wasn’t sure what to expect when I did the NCAA as a whole. I decided the best way to do this would be to take the last 11 years (that’s how far back the NCAA site goes) and go from there.

As you probably know, there are around 340 teams in basketball. Thus, I decided to take the top-10 by scoring offense and the top-10 by scoring defense and to compare their cumulative records. I did that for all 11 seasons.

When comparing their records, I simply took the number each team was above .500. So, if a team was 28-6, it was +22.

Shown below are the 11 seasons for scoring offense and scoring defense. The number shown is the cumulative wins above .500 for each of the top-10.

As you can see, the difference between offensive and defensive value isn’t much. But, honestly, I don’t think scoring is the most important variable when it comes to good offense or good defense. Scoring could simply be a function of game pace. Thus, I decided the better way to look at it would be Field Goal Percentage.

Shown below are the 11 seasons for FG% offense and FG% defense. Again, the number shown is the cumulative wins above .500 for each of the top-10.

The first thing to take note of is that the correlation between FG% and winning (+16.73 and +16.25) is higher than the correlation between Scoring and winning (+13.92 and +12.59). This is as I expected. Therefore, FG% is a better indicator as to whether offense or defense is more important to winning.

And, since it is true that FG% is the better indicator, we find the difference between Offensive FG% and Defensive FG% to be negligible. At least I consider 16.73 versus 16.25 to be negligible.

COOL FACTOID: Had I only gone back nine years instead of 11, Offensive FG% and Defensive FG% would be tied at 16.82.

Considering we are talking about 110 teams (10 teams x 11 years) for both the offensive and defensive FG%, it’s my opinion that nobody can justifiably state that either offense or defense is more important. Nevertheless, if you listen to the talking heads or analysts, you will come to the conclusion that defense is more important.

I think the reason you hear that so much is because it comes from coaches. And, I think the reason coaches say it so often (and may even believe it) is because they have to work so much harder on it.

Most players today are not as motivated to play defense as they are offense when they come out of high school. Who can blame them? Scoring is where the notoriety comes from and, besides, defense isn’t as important in high school because most opponents can’t shoot anyway! Certainly, for the best HS players that come into college, they are almost always more advanced offensively than defensively. When a kid practices hours and hours on his own, he can’t practice defense, but he can perfect a lot of offensive moves – including shooting.

Thus, whether coaches think defense is more important to winning or not, it appears clear to me there isn’t any difference.

Keep in mind, this study today is based upon the season as a whole – all the way through the tournament. But, it doesn’t really address the tournament separately.

Tomorrow I’m going to do a post just on the tournament. I think I’m going to take all the Elite Eight teams and see where those teams rank during the season based upon Offensive and Defensive FG%. I might also give extra weight to the four in the Final Four and even more weight to the runner-up and even more weight to the champion.

So, even though offense and defense are of equal value for the season as a whole, no law says it is true for the tournament even though I couldn’t find any meaningful difference when I just looked at KU in the tourney.

Martin Manley

Sports In Review

SportsInReview.com