No. 1 seed Duke’s opening-week offense in March Madness was a display of elite efficiency

By Canadian Press on March 24, 2025.

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Baylor coach Scott Drew knew beating No. 1 seed Duke would be a tough task considering the Blue Devils’ elite efficiency rankings at both ends of the court.

“The analytics showed they didn’t have any weaknesses,” Drew said Sunday after a 89-66 loss to Duke in the second round of the NCAA Tournament.

And the Blue Devils have lived up to that heading into the Sweet 16.

Sure, the point margins are impressive enough. But the underlying data for teams still alive in the Sweet 16 can indicate which teams fit the profile of those that reach the Final Four or cut down the nets, and the Blue Devils have been absolutely dominant — notably at the offensive end behind junior Tyrese Proctor going on a sudden outside-shooting tear.

“First of all it helps when Tyrese is on the heater he was on,” graduate guard Sion James quipped.

“But we’ve built this throughout the year. This isn’t something that just kind of came on. We’ve been building toward this for the season. And now we’re hoping for the next few weeks that we can keep it sustained.”

Profiles of a winner

Going back to the 2001 tournament, 16 of 23 national champions were ranked inside the top 25 in both adjusted offensive and defensive efficiency for KenPom entering March Madness, with six owning top-10 status at both ends.

Take a step back, and more than half of the Final Four teams (51 of 92) were inside the top 25 at both ends, with 18 of those being top 10 in both areas.

As for the others, slightly more than half of the remaining teams held at least top-10 status at one end of the floor to offer one commonality.

The tiers

That creates three tiers of Sweet 16 teams for this week:

—Five favorites who entered the tournament with top-25 rankings for both ends: the Blue Devils, fellow 1-seeds Florida, Houston and Auburn; and 2-seed Tennessee. Of that group, the Blue Devils are top 5 at both ends, while the Gators and Cougars are in the top 10.

—Six teams that ranked in the top 10 to offer elite play at one end of the court: 2-seeds Alabama and Michigan State; 3-seeds Kentucky and Texas Tech; and 4-seeds Purdue and Maryland. Of that group, the Spartans were the only top-10 defense and also flirted with joining the aforementioned top tier by entering the tournament ranked 27th offensively (118.1 points per 100 possessions).

—Five outliers: 4-seed Arizona, 5-seed Michigan, 6-seeds BYU and Mississippi; and 10-seed Arkansas. Of that group, BYU and Arizona were slightly outside of the top-10 offensively, while Michigan flirted with top-10 status defensively.

Duke’s start

The Blue Devils entered the tournament ranked third in KenPom’s adjusted offensive efficiency (128.0 points per 100 possessions) and fourth in defense (89.8). They have started their push for a sixth national title with home-state romps against Mount St. Mary’s and Baylor as the headliner in the East Region, led by an offense exceeding its own elite season-long performance.

Duke has scored on 79 of 123 possessions (64.2%) through two games and is averaging 1.48 points per possession. By comparison, UConn began its blowout-filled march last year to a second straight NCAA title by averaging 1.29 points per possession and scoring on 59.7% of its possessions in the opening weekend.

Defensively, Duke has allowed 0.927 points per possession, a slight downtick from its regular-season numbers.

When it comes to this year’s Sweet 16 teams, Duke’s effective field-goal percentage — which factors in the added value of 3-point shots — was 67% through two games, according to Sportradar, with the Crimson Tide (61%) as the next-best team. The Blue Devils also have a Sweet 16-low eight turnovers through two games while posting a nearly 5:1 assist-to-turnover ratio.

And Duke’s 67-point victory margin through two games is 24 points better than Houston’s as the next closest team, with the Blue Devils standing as the only member of the Sweet 16 to win both tournament games by at least 20 points.

Tournament tests

The other 1-seeds offer statistical profiles close to Duke, but they also have faced something the Blue Devils haven’t: a test.

The Gators entered the tournament ranked No. 1 in adjusted offensive efficiency (128.6) and No. 10 in defense (92.4), while the Cougars were the inverse by ranking 10th in offense (123.2) and second in defense (87.8). And No. 1 overall seed Auburn was slightly outside of that group by ranking third and 12th, respectively.

Yet all three have encountered a bit more resistance, notably with Florida having to take over down the stretch to end UConn’s two-year title reign and Houston fending off Gonzaga in Round 2.

There’s value in that, too, beyond the numbers.

“If you’re going to make a deep run in March, you’ve got to catch some breaks, and you’ve got to win some games like this to be able to push through and stay alive,” Florida coach Todd Golden said. “Theoretically, beating a team like UConn, that’s used to winning this time of year, in the fashion that we did should be really good for us moving forward.”

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AP March Madness bracket: https://apnews.com/hub/ncaa-mens-bracket and coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/march-madness. Get poll alerts and updates on the AP Top 25 throughout the season. Sign up here.

Aaron Beard, The Associated Press

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