The Women’s Tournament is down to its last two Elite 8 games. Tonight’s lineup is insane. If you’re not watching then you’re definitely not reading this. LSU vs Iowa followed by UCONN vs USC. The team’s alone should make tonight the most intriguing day of basketball in a long time. The players…..well, Angel Reese and Caitlin Clark rematch from last year’s National Championship, then we get Paige Bueckers and Juju Watkins. Two of the best scorers the game of basketball has to offer. I truly believe both of them will be top WNBA players ever when their career ends way down the road. 

We are obviously here to look at the numbers. I would consider this series of posts are like your introduction to analytics. We’re not here to break down the stats, were just simply looking at them, and analyzing what is important. The other 4 teams participating in the Elite 8 squared up on your Easter Sunday and South Carolina moved onto the FInal 4 along with N.C. State. 

What do our Elite 8 teams all have in common? Well they’re good, that’s for sure. Statistically, some of our teams have a few things in common and there are obviously some outliers but not so much. Remember, we’re looking for teams that fall in the Top 15 in the country in each specific stat. Tournament games are included so as competition gets tight some teams may fall out of the Top 15. For example, for FG% LSU now sits at 16th and Oregon St sits at 18th.

So which stats seem to be the most common with our final 8 teams. Most are offensive, which we selfishly like here. The most common which has 5 teams in the Top 15 are Scoring Offense, Scoring Margin(not really counting this) and Defensive Rebounds Per Game. The second most common with 4 teams in the Top 15; FG% and Defensive FG%. The other stat that 3 teams fall in the Top 15 are Assists per Game, Assist/Turnover Ratio, Blocks per Game, Rebounds per Game, Rebound Margin and 3FG%. 

We talk a lot about offense and that offense is exciting but defense wins games and championships. So far, offense is giving teams a really good chance at winning a championship this year. Five of the eight remaining teams rank in the Top 15 in scoring offense. Iowa leads the way at the top at 91.9ppg, followed by LSU at 85.9 then South Carolina at 85.6. Those are the top 3 scoring offenses in the country. Our last two teams in the top 15 are Texas at 12 with 80.1ppg and UCONN at 14 with 79.9ppg. 

The other obvious offensive stat that should be important here is FG%. Four teams in the Top 15 in FG%; Iowa, UCONN, South Carolina, Texas. LSU and Oregon State finding themselves right outside the top 15 at 16th and 18th.  Our outliers for FG% would be NC State who ranks 88th and USC who ranks 92nd. Well that seems slightly outrageous. If offense is important how does a top 8 team find themselves so far down in FG%. Well, NC State ranks 12th in the country in Defensive FG% and 2nd in the country in Defensive Rebounds per Game. What about USC? Well they are 3rd in the country in blocked shots, only behind four Elite 8 teams in Turnover Margin and in the Top 25 in Assist/Turnover Ratio. 

So you’re saying rebounding, assists or A/TO ratio are important too? Listen, yea these are important. They’re important because when you break basketball down to a simpler form the game is just about your possessions and what you do with them. If you give your opponent more possessions than you then you better be super efficient with yours. We saw it when Oregon State beat Notre Dame. Oregon State turned the ball over 24 times but they shot 62% from the field when they didn’t turn it over. In our first Elite 8 game between Oregon State and South Carolina, SC took 23 more FGA than the Beavers. They took more free throws as well, because they turned it over 6 total times and rebounded their own miss 22 times. Were they efficient with their possessions? No, so they created more possessions. Quantity over quality can surely win you some games sometimes. 

You can create more possessions in different ways, steals and offensive rebounds are the simplest. Only three of our Elite 8 teams rank in the top 50 in offensive rebounds. Stats are a full circle, if you’re efficient offensively you don’t have many chances to get rebounds. Only two of our Elite 8 teams rank in the top 50 in steals per game(LSU-21st, UCONN-37th). My philosophy, according to these stats is you don’t have to find ways to create more possessions, you just have to limit your opponent from creating more possessions. The majority of our Elite 8 teams don’t give their opponent more possessions. 

Five of our teams left rank in the Top 15 in defensive rebounds. Simply, these teams try their best to force you to take a tough shot and do an outstanding job of making sure you don’t get another shot. The five teams are NC STATE(2ND), SOUTH CAROLINA(3RD), OREGON ST(5TH), IOWA(7TH) AND LSU (13TH). You want to beat one of these teams? You better be efficient because you are not getting another chance at your possession. Of those 5 teams, 3 of the same fall in the Top 15 in Def FG%, SOUTH CAROLINA(1st), OREGON ST(8th) and NC STATE(12th). I don’t care who these teams play, they’re going to be tough to beat on any night. 

We already have 2 of our FINAL FOUR teams. Here is where they rank on these specific stats. 

NC STATE

• DEF FG% 12th 
• DEF REB 2nd
• TO Per Game 10th

SOUTH CAROLINA

• APG 13th
• Bench Points  2nd
• Blocks per game 1st
• FG % 4th
• DEF FG% 1st
• REB MARGIN 3rd
• DEF REB 3rd
• RPG 3rd
• Margin 1st
• Scoring OFF 3rd
• 3 Point DEF 15th
• 3FG % 3rd

Excited to see how the rest of our Final Four shapes up.