on February 13, 2026, 15:36:40, in reply to "Avoiding other work today, so I spent some time digging into kenpom data on defense and title teams"
Previous Message
You see different numbers cited all the time about the historical cutoff for defenses of national champs (usually top 20), but that always strikes me as problematic because the basic kenpom numbers include all of the games played in the Tourney, and naturally a team's numbers will improve after winning 6 games in a row against high level competition.
Kenpom has pre-tourney data going back to 2001, so I sorted through all the national champs and compared the pre-tourney with post tourney data for the 24 champs in that span:
Average defensive rating pre tourney: 16.29
Average defensive rating post-tourney: 8.78
Median defensive rating pre-tourney: 12
Median defensive rating post-tourney: 7
Pre tourney the defensive ratings broke down to:
8 teams with pre-tourney defensive ratings at 20+ (including a 44, 37, 37, and 31!)
8 teams with pre-tourney defensive ratings from 10-20
8 teams with pre-tourney defensive ratings in the top 10
Also randomly looked at a few non-champ examples. 2015 Wisconsin, for example, which made the title game had the #1 offense and #16 defense before the tourney, and then ended up with the #1 offense and #35 defense after the Tourney.
At any rate, TL:DR, seems like yes, you still need a top 20 defense to be a true contender, but not having one doesn't necessarily eliminate the possibility historically (which is what bracket prognostications usually claim). Previous Message
We all watched Saturday night and it was right there for the taking, so this is a bounce back game that we need to get. No multi-game slides like Purdue and MSU have had.
Wisconsin is unranked and currently 42nd in the NET. However, this is a team that has been as hot as anybody in the Big Ten lately. Their last "big" loss was on January 1st in a 16 point loss vs. Purdue. Since that game, they are 7-2 with wins vs. Michigan, UCLA, Minnesota (twice) and OSU. Their two losses have been from a combined 3 points (vs. USC and @IU). We are their highest ranked NET opponent from here on out, and a win against us tomorrow night would be HUGE for them. They are lead by Boyd and Blackwell at the guard position, as well as Winter on the wing.
We know who we are. 8th in AP, 4th still in the NET. Does Wagler bounce back with a big game? Does Wisconsin try to do the same thing to him that MSU did? Do we have good energy or do we look tired due to 3 weeks of only playing 7 guys? If we want to keep on the track for an outside shot at a Big Ten title and a 2 seed in the NCAA's, hopefully we have good answers/results for all of these questions. It's Jake Davis wig night at the Hall, so hopefully it's rocking.
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