College Basketball’s Top Defensive Teams At Tournament Time

The NCAA Tournament is less than 10 days away, and the College Conference Tournaments (CCT’s) hit their stride this week with the power conferences in action. In past season’s, I’ve updated defensive stats and the top defensive teams in February in the final weeks of the regular season.

But this season with more games cancelled and rescheduled due to the pandemic, I’ve updated the stats for you to review and use at tournament time. In last week’s update at Offshore Gaming Association, I updated college basketball’s top defensive teams. I’ve since updated some of the stats for the power conference teams that just concluded their regular season schedule.

I hope this guide helps you at tournament time for both the conference tournaments and NCAA Tournament. Evaluating stats and information from various sites including  KenPom.com can provide you key stats, adjusted numbers, efficiency and tempo ratings along with match-up analysis. I dig deeper into conference stats and try to compare match-ups between stronger teams on a schedule.

Field goal percentage defense is more important than points allowed, because an opponent’s points can be determined to a degree by the number of possessions they have, which in turn can be influenced by an offensive pace that creates lower overall possessions in a game. The defending national champs Virginia (from 2019) are once again one of the top teams in scoring defense.

Isolating a team’s overall defensive field goal percentage and 3-point field goal percentage defense remain key indicators when judging a team’s defensive ability. These must work in tandem to be efficient since a team can pack the paint defensively to minimize higher percentage two-point shots while sacrificing defense outside the arc. Conversely, too much attention to perimeter defense can sacrifice a team’s ability to defend the paint. When a team combines solid defensive play with rebounding strength and the ability to block or alter shots, you have a team that is capable of competing most any night against any team.

Yet, while strong defensive play is often key to winning more basketball games, successful teams also take care of the basketball, minimize turnovers and have a solid assist/turnover ratio. This is where a strong point guard and leader, along with perimeter defense plays a key part. The ability to create steals and take good shots while controlling the boards inside creates more opportunities, possessions and shots. Thus, look at rebounding rate as another key indicator when evaluating match-ups and working in tandem with defensive shooting percentage and efficiency. Deficient defensive teams often struggle, and many of those teams are in the bottom half of the standings for a reason.

With these concepts in mind it’s up to the handicapper and sports bettor to determine a team’s motivation level, how they match-up with each opponent and how these statistics can be used and adjusted throughout the season and upcoming postseason based on quality of opponent faced.

Through the month of February, 2021 and final regular season games in March for power conference teams, here are the top defensive teams in college basketball with the following parameters:

– Allow 42% or less field goal percentage
– Allow 33% or less shooting from behind the 3-point arc
– Allow 67 points or less per game

I’ve also noted how these defensive dominators do in rebounding the basketball and provided their Adjusted Defensive Efficiency Ranking from KenPom (357 teams). I’ve included Gonzaga and Baylor in the top group of teams, despite coming up just short in a noted category. Both teams still rank top 20 in Kenpom’s adjusted defensive rankings, although Baylor’s defensive FG stats weakened a bit, along with a few other other power conference teams.

Team	Conference	FG% Def	3-pt % Def	PPG Def	Reb Margin	Adj Def Rank
Houston	American Athletic	37.6	28.6	58.1	9.2	9
Michigan	Big Ten	38.9	32.6	65.2	8.4	4
Memphis	American Athletic	38.4	26.8	62.3	7.5	2
St. Bonaventure	A-10	38.8	30.2	60.1	3.7	19
San Diego State	Mountain West	39.3	32.8	60.9	4.9	8
Tennessee	SEC	40.2	31.7	62.7	2.1	5
Wright State	Horizon	40.1	30.1	66.3	9.1	54
La Tech	Conference USA	40.1	29.4	59.7	3.4	35
Mississippi State	SEC	39.9	32.3	65.7	7.1	46
Kansas	Big 12	40.7	31.7	66.3	4.4	7
Loyola Chicago	Missouri Valley	41.1	32.5	55.8	4.7	1
Purdue	Big Ten	41.2	31.3	65.5	6.3	18
Clemson	ACC	41.3	32.9	61.8	0.2	15
Gonzaga	West Coast	41.9	32.9	69.3	7.3	10
Baylor	Big 12	42.8	33.5	65.6	4.5	16

This next tier of solid defensive teams are worth noting, but they come up just short in a statistical area or two.

Alabama	SEC	40.9	28.9	70.4	1.8	3
Colgate	Patriot	40.1	26.3	67.8	4.4	126
USC	Pac 12	39.3	33.6	64.1	7.7	14
UC Irvine	Big West	39.2	34.3	64.3	8.9	38
Grand Canyon	WAC	39.6	30.3	62.9	9.9	104
UC Riverside	Big West	39.7	32.2	63.2	4.3	87
Vermont	American East	39.5	29.8	62.9	4.4	167
SMU	American Athletic	39.5	33.5	66.8	2.4	61
Virginia	ACC	41.6	33.9	60.1	2.2	31
Florida State	ACC	40.1	33.9	69.7	5.3	47
Utah State	Mountain West	39.6	34.8	62.8	10.9	17
Oklahoma State	Big 12	40.9	32.2	70.6	3.6	23
BYU	West Coast	40.6	32.5	67.7	7.1	28
Texas Tech	Big 12	40.8	34.3	63.3	2.6	24
Arkansas	SEC	41.1	32.1	70.2	4.7	22
Illinois	Big Ten	40.9	32.9	69.2	9.9	6

Review more in my previous top defensive teams update at Offshore Gaming Association, and use some of these stat profiles as a guide when handicapping the and betting the college conference tournaments (CCT’s), NCAA Tournament, NIT and other post-season tournaments.