Defense and Projections

Last year, in early January, I wrote an article wondering if Defense was Marquette's Achilles Heel. It's worth re-reading, but here is an update.Teams that are elite have good defenses. In particular, over the past five years, here are the average defensive rankings of teams at each level of the NCAA tourney.Won their first game (#34)Sweet Sixteen (#26)Elite Eight (#20)Final Four (#17)It was the exception rather than the norm for a team like Marquette (defensive rank of #61) to make the Sweet Sixteen last year. In fact, over the last five years, only twelve teams with a defensive rank worse than 50 (15% of teams) make the Sweet Sixteen. Only three teams with a defensive rank worse than 50 made the Elite Eight (8%), and one of them was VCU! It happens, but the odds are against you. This was a giant concern for Buzz's teams, which had never been better than a defensive rank of 50 over three years. Tangent - it was a total freak that the 2003 team (defensive rank of ...