It's not Defense that wins Championship but Offense

[DefenseBB]

I have been pouring over the stats in WCBB since the 1999-2000 season which is 26 seasons and 25 titles (Covid cancelled the 2020 Tournament) and that "old adage" of defense wins championships is BUNK! I put it in the same vein as "parents have no favorites and love ALL their kids the same". Again, poppycock-parents have favorites and OFFENSE wins titles.

Of the 25 title winners, all 25 were in the top 15 in scoring offense for that year. In fact, 23 of 25 were in the top 10, only the 2022 SC team ranked 12th and the 2017 SC team ranked 15th were outside the top 10.

Even more evidence is in the 100 teams to make a final four from '00 to '25 season, 91 have placed in the top 15 in scoring.

Of the 9 teams who did not qualify for the top 15, only 3 made it to the final-Arizona in 2021, Rutgers in 2007 and Purdue in 2001.

The list of the 6 "defensive teams" with their year qualified for the final 4
2024 NC State
2023 Virginia Tech
2022 Louisville
2016 Oregon State
2007 LSU
2000 Rutgers

Yes, you need to have a good defense but you need to have a great offense to even be considered as a contender.

This is good news for the Tennessee and Oklahoma fans and bad news for the Duke.

Thoughts?

 

[azfan]

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Thoughts?

I'd be interested in the defensive ranking of the past 20 women's championship teams. I made a half-hearted effort to locate that and wasn't interested in doing the work.

I would anticipate that the national championship teams over the last 20 years were all within the top 20 defensively. I'm pretty sure that's true of the Connecticut national championship teams.

If that hypothesis is correct I'm not certain one would dismiss the old axiom that defense wins championships.

It just may be that outstanding championship teams are very good on both sides of the ball.

 

[DefenseBB]

I'd be interested in the defensive ranking of the past 20 women's championship teams. I made a half-hearted effort to locate that and wasn't interested in doing the work.

I would anticipate that the national championship teams over the last 20 years were all within the top 20 defensively. I'm pretty sure that's true of the Connecticut national championship teams.

If that hypothesis is correct I'm not certain one would dismiss the old axiom that defense wins championships.

It just may be that outstanding championship teams are very good on both sides of the ball.

I appreciate the honesty in the comment but not sure I am inclined to spend all the time to completely assess your theory. I can tell you that the data states the teams are in the top 40% defensively of all teams, just not as elite as the offenses.

 

[visitingcock]

I'd be interested in the defensive ranking of the past 20 women's championship teams. I made a half-hearted effort to locate that and wasn't interested in doing the work.
. . .
It just may be that outstanding championship teams are very good on both sides of the ball.

It may be that championship team are pretty good on both sides of the ball and outstanding on one side.

(Half-hearted attempts at research. Understood.)

 

[Forego]

I have been pouring over the stats in WCBB since the 1999-2000 season which is 26 seasons and 25 titles (Covid cancelled the 2020 Tournament) and that "old adage" of defense wins championships is BUNK! I put it in the same vein as "parents have no favorites and love ALL their kids the same". Again, poppycock-parents have favorites and OFFENSE wins titles.

Of the 25 title winners, all 25 were in the top 15 in scoring offense for that year. In fact, 23 of 25 were in the top 10, only the 2022 SC team ranked 12th and the 2017 SC team ranked 15th were outside the top 10.

Even more evidence is in the 100 teams to make a final four from '00 to '25 season, 91 have placed in the top 15 in scoring.

Of the 9 teams who did not qualify for the top 15, only 3 made it to the final-Arizona in 2021, Rutgers in 2007 and Purdue in 2001.

The list of the 6 "defensive teams" with their year qualified for the final 4
2024 NC State
2023 Virginia Tech
2022 Louisville
2016 Oregon State
2007 LSU
2000 Rutgers

Yes, you need to have a good defense but you need to have a great offense to even be considered as a contender.

This is good news for the Tennessee and Oklahoma fans and bad news for the Duke.

Thoughts?

Wholeheartedly agree. My Mom and Dad loved me the best. I don’t have the supporting statistics but this has been confirmed consistently throughout the years by my brother and sister. Often they would call me Marcia, Marcia, Marcia, and I am a boy.

 

[KnightBridgeAZ]

The anecdote is actually that offense sells tickets, defense wins games and rebounding wins championships. This is very true for some teams - especially those that rely for a portion of their offense on putbacks.

Historically, UConn teams are almost always near the top of both offensive and defensive rankings. I'm not sure that there is an actual argument. Really good defense gives you a fighting chance against almost any opponent. Even one with good offense. Teams with good offense can generally overwhelm a team that lacks a good defense.

I really think that - since most of the teams analyzed were enormously better than most of their opponents during the season they made the final four - analysis of their season's offense and defense numbers is suggestive but probably hard to really specifically quantify.

 

[YKCornelius]

DefenseBB, as I stated on the UConn board, I am interested in understanding how you define Top 15 in scoring offense. Is it simply total points per game? Or is it points per possession?

 

[YKCornelius]

The anecdote is actually that offense sells tickets, defense wins games and rebounding wins championships. This is very true for some teams - especially those that rely for a portion of their offense on putbacks.

Historically, UConn teams are almost always near the top of both offensive and defensive rankings. I'm not sure that there is an actual argument. Really good defense gives you a fighting chance against almost any opponent. Even one with good offense. Teams with good offense can generally overwhelm a team that lacks a good defense.

I really think that - since most of the teams analyzed were enormously better than most of their opponents during the season they made the final four - analysis of their season's offense and defense numbers is suggestive but probably hard to really specifically quantify.

KnightBridgeAZ, I completely agree with your thoughts I highlighted in bold.

 

[YKCornelius]

DefenseBB, if you stated "Elite Offenses will help immensely towards getting your team to the NC game" or some other seemingly obvious thesis, I probably would have responded to your lengthy analysis with a simple "Like" and moved on.

However, by arriving at a conclusion that flies in the face of the adage that "Defense wins championships", your position seemed counterintuitive to the actual results of the NC games of the past 26 years. So, between sips of my morning coffee, I decided to invest a few minutes to present the facts that refute your conclusion.

First, here's the data from the offense perspective looking at the winners:

• 17 of the 25 winners didn't crack 80 points. In fact, over a third (nine) didn't even get to 70 points, and three teams won scoring in the 50s.
• Of these 25 "Top 15 Offenses", only four scored above 82 points.

Now from the defense perspective looking at the losers:

• 19 of the 25 losing teams weren't able to score 70 points with their Top 15 Offenses. Over half (thirteen) of these Elite Offenses couldn't score 60 points, and four couldn't even reach 50.

Evaluating all of the NC participants, over half (28 of the 50) Elite Offenses in the championship games didn't crack 70 points.

These facts show that, generally speaking, defense does indeed win championships. Specifically speaking, it doesn't matter if your team has a Top 15 Offense (however that is defined) - you just have to score one more point than your opponent.

I hope these facts provide you with some added pride towards your Boneyard name. Good luck with your parental love issues.

 

[DefenseBB]

So, @azfan guilted me into doing a LIMITED deeper look at the last 10 years of data for all the Final Four teams. Based on the data available, here is the crux of the problem:
Offensively, using points per game is fairly straight forward (albeit not perfect) but using points allowed for defense is problematic as there are just so many really bad teams at the mid-major level that they can't score, and their conference leaders look awesome.

Here is the NCAA leader for each of the 10 years and the number of P4/BE teams listing in the top 20
2025 Middle Tennessee 52.2 (only 3 P4/BE teams in top 20; UConn was #2)
2024 Albany 51.3 (only 1 P4/BE-Georgetown team in top 20; UConn was #30)
2023 Norfolk State 50.7 (only 3 P4/BE teams in top 20; UConn was #47)
2022 UCF 47.8 (only 5 P4/BE teams in top 20; UConn was #14)
2021 UCF 50.5 (only 5 P4/BE teams in top 20; UConn was #6)
2019 Drexel 50.5 (only 4 P4/BE American teams in top 20; UConn was #22)
2018 Green Bay 47.4 (only 4 P4/BE teams in top 20; UConn was #5)
2017 Cambell 49.6 (only 6 P4/BE American teams in top 20; UConn was #9)
2016 UConn 48.3 (only 5 P4/BE American teams in top 20; UConn was #1)
2015 UConn 48.6 (only 4 P4/BE/American teams in top 20; UConn was #1)

In looking at the 40 Final Four participants, the points allowed stat is truly useless. While UConn ranked #1 in both 2015 and 2016, in total there were only 13 of the 40 teams that made Final Fours from 2015-2025 ranked in the top 15 defensively, whereas 30 of 40 ranked in the Top 15 offensively.

So, I had to find other calculations based on the statistics I had. I decided to use the DER (Defensive Efficiency Rating) in conjunction with SOS (strength of schedule) to see if that would filter out the teams who play truly horrible competition. It helped especially in relation to the Final Four team assessment but was still limited on the overall listing. The data size forced me to restrict my searching (and my time) to just the top 40ish teams based on Opponents PPG. I got a 407-team listing that produced 91 teams from the P4/BE over the ten years. 63 (of 150 slots) ranked in the top 15 each year (vs. 107 of the 150 offensively). So PPG showed 71.3% composition of the P4/BE schools dominating offense but only 42.0% of the P4/BE dominating the defense. Again, not a perfect set but enough to draw some educated conclusions.

UConn appears in all 10 years, but SC only appears in 7 of the 10. Texas appears 5 times (4 with Vic) and Miss State appeared 5 times with Vic, so he was in all 10. The problem becomes the absolute ranking. Vic "only" appears in the top 10 twice in 10 years which seems wrong. Dawn appears 3 times of the 7 in the top 10 which is better, but we know SC is still a top 40 team (or better) even in those other years. SC always has an elite defense, so it has to do with the quality or lack of quality of opponents as the BE is NOT the SEC. UConn only showed 1 time outside the top 10 in 2023 and ranked 27. I agree UConn is good, but I also think defense is a strong combination of poor offensive opponents as well as the team effort on defense.

Now to directly compare the DER to the 40 Final Four participants from 2015-2025:
Offensively we said that 31 of these teams were ranked in the top 15 offensively with 21 in the top 10.
Using DER, we have 26 of 40 in the top 15 and 18 of 40 in the top 10. So DER does show a correlation to Final Four success.
In the last 10 years of champions, 9 teams were top 15 in DER (only the 2018 Notre Dame was not a strong defensive team (#3 offensively). Remember all 10 Champions were in the top 15 in points per game.

So as not to appear to be picking on @Bone Dog- Yes, defense is absolutely an important component for winning titles but Offense is slightly MORE important and the stats, albeit limited, bear this out.

Fact is, defense is about effort and so lesser talented teams need to focus on that effort (hence the large number of mid-major teams in the DER listing). Offense is more about the skill of the player and why the better ranked players go to the bigger P4/BE schools.

Hope this helps.

 

[azfan]

So, @azfan guilted me into doing a LIMITED deeper look at the last 10 years of data for all the Final Four teams. Based on the data available, here is the crux of the problem:

Hope this helps.

Amazing. I wouldn't call this survey of research and data limited. Very helpful context and I think you definitely make the point about the importance of effort as well as the measurement challenge.

There is also the intimate connection between defense and offense. How often have we heard a coach talk about how defense played a major role in getting the offense going.

With that said my read of the data you provided in your thorough post suggests the complimentary nature of offense and defense and thus the challenge in trying to isolate one or the other as a major factor in reaching the championship.

I suspect if we had Geno on the thread or if he were talking with us he would begin with and emphasize defense.

As skill development continues to increase and player development raises the ceiling on the offensive side defense again becomes important.

In the time I've been watching women's basketball both the skill level and ceiling of these athletes on the offensive side has improved tremendously.

So perhaps it's both offense and defense that one's championships. Thinking over the recent past I don't recall a single women's champion that didn't excel on both sides of the ball

 

[Bone Dog]

So as not to appear to be picking on @Bone Dog- Yes, defense is absolutely an important component for winning titles but Offense is slightly MORE important and the stats, albeit limited, bear this out.

I appreciate not being picked on, but in truth I really don’t know what any of this has to do with me. I only just bothered to read this thread a few minutes ago. In a thread on the other board I said I didn’t think offense and defense are fully independent variables at some (many?) schools and this is probably especially true at UConn. This thought is not in conflict with the claim you seem to be making as far as I can tell. If you’re looking for someone to disagree with, look elsewhere.

 

[Gamecockfan77]

I have been pouring over the stats in WCBB since the 1999-2000 season which is 26 seasons and 25 titles (Covid cancelled the 2020 Tournament) and that "old adage" of defense wins championships is BUNK! I put it in the same vein as "parents have no favorites and love ALL their kids the same". Again, poppycock-parents have favorites and OFFENSE wins titles.

Of the 25 title winners, all 25 were in the top 15 in scoring offense for that year. In fact, 23 of 25 were in the top 10, only the 2022 SC team ranked 12th and the 2017 SC team ranked 15th were outside the top 10.

Even more evidence is in the 100 teams to make a final four from '00 to '25 season, 91 have placed in the top 15 in scoring.

Of the 9 teams who did not qualify for the top 15, only 3 made it to the final-Arizona in 2021, Rutgers in 2007 and Purdue in 2001.

The list of the 6 "defensive teams" with their year qualified for the final 4
2024 NC State
2023 Virginia Tech
2022 Louisville
2016 Oregon State
2007 LSU
2000 Rutgers

Yes, you need to have a good defense but you need to have a great offense to even be considered as a contender.

This is good news for the Tennessee and Oklahoma fans and bad news for the Duke.

Thoughts?

Have done that same dive and came to the same conclusion.

But defense is not optional. You have to play a little bit and generally in a sport still dominated by a handful of teams the champ is almost always fairly elite at both.

 

[Gamecockfan77]

I would still pick elite rebounding first overall though.

 

[Monte]

Yogi Berra said: "Good pitching beats good hitting, and vice-versa."

If Yogi was here today, he might say: "Good offense beats good defense, and vice versa."

 

[VaConnFan11]

According to Massey's ratings, the Final 4 teams were ranked...

Offense: 3, 5, 13, 16
Defense: 1, 2, 3, 6

Looks like defense is very important to winning at a high level.

 

[Puppy Love]

Have done that same dive and came to the same conclusion.

But defense is not optional. You have to play a little bit and generally in a sport still dominated by a handful of teams the champ is almost always fairly elite at both.

I am on the side that defense is what wins championships. In order to get a real look at how games are won, you need to be able to analyze how many points are scored based on turnovers and other non-scoring plays. Top level teams get a lot of their offense off of their defense. In many basketball games, the winning team is the often the one who controls the ball for the majority of the game. At least some of that control is determined by how well the team defends. I’m not saying that you don’t need to be able to score, because of course you need to be able to score points to win. However, even if you can score a lot of points, you can’t give up a lot of points because you will still lose.

When a team is having an off night and having trouble scoring, a good gritty defense might get an ‘ugly’ win. One of the easiest ways to get an upper hand in a game is to consistently stop the other team from scoring and make them play defense as a result. They’re going to get worn down and not play as well. Based on all of those things, I’m giving the edge defense with a nod to the fact that scoring often comes from it.

 

[DefenseBB]

I would still pick elite rebounding first overall though.

...and how did that work out for your Gamecocks this year? In both games (UConn 87-58 and 82-59)....

 

[GamecockFam]

...and how did that work out for your Gamecocks this year? In both games (UConn 87-58 and 82-59)....

Well South Carolina wasn't an elite rebounding team this year...

I think 2022 is a better example

 

[visitingcock]

...and how did that work out for your Gamecocks this year? In both games (UConn 87-58 and 82-59)....

UConn out rebounded SCar in both games. Ergo, you have failed to rebut gamecockfan77’s assertion.

 

[Gamecockfan77]

...and how did that work out for your Gamecocks this year? In both games (UConn 87-58 and 82-59)....

The most noticeable difference between SCar's undefeated championship and its runner up finish last year was that the Gamecocks went from an incredibly dominant rebounding team to just very good.

UConn destroyed SCar on the boards in the first game and won the rebounding game in the rematch.

That was a dramatic reversal of previous meetings between the schools.

Fact of the matter is almost every WBB champion is going to be elite at all three things because of the concentration of talent.

But you'll find a few more so so defenses manage to win it all than so so offenses.

 

[YKCornelius]

Fact of the matter is almost every WBB champion is going to be elite at all three things because of the concentration of talent.

But you'll find a few more so so defenses manage to win it all than so so offenses.

Okay, I'll bite. Of the last 25 NCAA champions this century, who do you think had a "so-so defense" and by what metric? Or perhaps you are going back even further in time?

 

[DefenseBB]

Using DER, my last 10 years of data has the 2018 Notre Dame team that didn't sniff being a good defensive team but was lethal offensively at #3 in points per game.

2025 UConn #7 in Pts per game and #1 in DER
2024 SC #3 and #1 DER
2023 LSU #3 and #14
2022 SC #15 in pts per game and #2 DER
2021 Stanford #10 and #6 DER
2019 Baylor #6 and #4
2018 Notre Dame #3 and worse than #40 in DER
2017 SC #12 and #11
2016 UConn #1 and #1
2015 UConn #1 and #1

So from a "Title contender component", you see direct evidence of an elite defense winning. However, as I noted many times (and much to @YKCornelius chagrin) to get to the Final Four, a top offense gets you there, but a top DER might not. Of the last 40 Final Four participants, 36 have had a top 15 offense and only 26 have had a top 15 DER ranking. A top 10 Pts per game earned 21 Final Fours and a top 10 DER earned 18 Final Fours.

Yes, you need a very good defense to win a title but offense appears to mean a bit more.....

 

[YKCornelius]

Using DER, my last 10 years of data has the 2018 Notre Dame team that didn't sniff being a good defensive team but was lethal offensively at #3 in points per game.

2025 UConn #7 in Pts per game and #1 in DER
2024 SC #3 and #1 DER
2023 LSU #3 and #14
2022 SC #15 in pts per game and #2 DER
2021 Stanford #10 and #6 DER
2019 Baylor #6 and #4
2018 Notre Dame #3 and worse than #40 in DER
2017 SC #12 and #11
2016 UConn #1 and #1
2015 UConn #1 and #1

So from a "Title contender component", you see direct evidence of an elite defense winning. However, as I noted many times (and much to @YKCornelius chagrin) to get to the Final Four, a top offense gets you there, but a top DER might not. Of the last 40 Final Four participants, 36 have had a top 15 offense and only 26 have had a top 15 DER ranking. A top 10 Pts per game earned 21 Final Fours and a top 10 DER earned 18 Final Fours.

Yes, you need a very good defense to win a title but offense appears to mean a bit more.....

Ha ha, no chagrin on my part, DefenseBB! My last post was just trying to understand where Gamecockfan77 was coming from regarding so-so defenses. Just looking for clarity....

As far as your post, which has shifted away from your original posture about "defense doesn't win championships" to a much broader "top offenses get you to a Final Four" posture, I am simply amused by how you changed your goal posts. What gets you to a FF is a different goal post than winning a NC, correct?

Anyway, no chagrin or even the slightest negative thoughts from me whatsoever about your earlier contentions! Truth be told, I am feeling pretty good that my post (#9 on 27 June) helped you see the light and influenced you to change your stance. You're welcome!

Peace!

 

[DefenseBB]

Ha ha, no chagrin on my part, DefenseBB! My last post was just trying to understand where Gamecockfan77 was coming from regarding so-so defenses. Just looking for clarity....

As far as your post, which has shifted away from your original posture about "defense doesn't win championships" to a much broader "top offenses get you to a Final Four" posture, I am simply amused by how you changed your goal posts. What gets you to a FF is a different goal post than winning a NC, correct?

Anyway, no chagrin or even the slightest negative thoughts from me whatsoever about your earlier contentions! Truth be told, I am feeling pretty good that my post (#9 on 27 June) helped you see the light and influenced you to change your stance. You're welcome!

Peace!

My "tongue in check" retort was to the adage that "defense wins championships" in which I am unequivocally stating NO, OFFENSE wins titles with help from defense. I never, ever said "Defense was not important" and that is exactly how you tried to frame my discussion. You struggled with the pretty simple and straightforward concept of points per game as the barometer which I still think is a good stat (albeit not perfect) for offense. Defense, does need a more refined metric than "points allowed" so I incorporated DER. Whether that is as strong an indicator of good defense vs. points per game on offense is unknown but at least it is something. Somehow you decided on an "interesting take" of a tangential points scored which I am assuming is the point totals in the title game, which is not a logical assessment at all. To be clear, I am not "shifting" but stating for you OFFENSE IS MORE IMPORTANT than defense at the elite level AND YES you need defense but your offense if more important.

The data is very clear- TOP 15 Scoring offenses (as defined by Pts per game) make it to the final four more than TOP 15 DER defenses do.

In the past 10 years 12 TEAMS ranked in the top 15 in offense made to a FINAL FOUR without a defense in the top 40. Conversely, only 1 Defensive team ranked in the top 15 made to the FINAL FOUR without an offense in the top 40 (Oregon State in 2016-118th in offense and 4th in defense). That alone should be pretty telling.

There were two teams with mediocre offense and mediocre defense who made Final Fours- Virginia Tech in 2023 (51st/43rd) and NC State in 2024 with 49th offense and 59th defense.

Being more specific to you is MM at Notre Dame won 2 titles 2001/2018) with a top offense and a not top 40 defense. ND qualified for 3 Final Fours in the past 10 years with #1, #3, #5 offenses and NO top 40 defenses. Maybe she would have won more titles with better defenses, but she at least got to 3 final fours without stellar defense. No one has won a title with just a TOP 15 Defense and not a TOP 15 Offense.

So I again assert OFFENSE wins titles.