| Variable | Description |
|---|---|
| TEAM | The Division I basketball school name |
| CONF | The Athletic Conference in which the school participates |
| G | Number of games played |
| W | Number of games won |
| ADJOE | Adjusted Offensive Efficiency (Points scored per 100 possessions against an average defense) |
| ADJDE | Adjusted Defensive Efficiency (Points allowed per 100 possessions against an average offense) |
| BARTHAG | Power Rating (Chance of beating an average team) |
| EFG_O | Effective Field Goal Percentage Shot |
| EFG_D | Effective Field Goal Percentage Allowed |
| TOR | Turnover Rate |
| TORD | Steal Rate |
| ORB | Offensive Rebound Rate |
| DRB | Offensive Rebound Rate Allowed |
| FTR | Free Throw Rate (How often the team shoots free throws) |
| FTRD | Free Throw Rate Allowed |
| 2P_O | Two-Point Shooting Percentage |
| 2P_D | Two-Point Shooting Percentage Allowed |
| 3P_O | Three-Point Shooting Percentage |
| 3P_D | Three-Point Shooting Percentage Allowed |
| ADJ_T | Adjusted Tempo (Estimated tempo in possessions per 40 minutes) |
| WAB | Wins Above Bubble (Difference from the NCAA tournament cut-off) |
| POSTSEASON | Round where the team was eliminated or ended the season |
| SEED | Seed in the NCAA March Madness Tournament |
| YEAR | Season |
NCAA Division I Men’s College Basketball Analysis
Introduction
NCAA Division I men’s college basketball continues to evolve every year, making the NCAA March Madness a crucial end goal. Each statistic per team is important before and during the tournament and impacts how the team performs. I would like to analyze the comparison of conferences, postseason insights for the NCAA March Madness Tournament, and a deeper dive into the Crosstown Rivalry between Xavier and UC for a sentiment analysis.
At Xavier, basketball is a prominent contributor to the school culture. This leaves students like me, among many others, wanting Xavier to win more and continue on to the NCAA March Madness tournament.
The men’s College Basketball Dataset on Kaggle by Andrew Sundberg shows statistics from 2013-2023 seasons of Division I college basketball teams. I cleansed the data to only show the 2023 season.
Data Dictionary
Conference Performance
In NCAA Division I basketball, conferences are important in shaping the competitive landscape. Teams compete within their conference during the regular season which then leads to their seed for postseason. Specifically, if you are a conference champion, you typically earn a bid to the NCAA March Madness Tournament. The following graphs will be analyzing conference statistics like offensive and defensive efficiency, power ratings, and number of wins.
| NCAA Division I Conferences |
|---|
| A10 |
| ACC |
| AE |
| Amer |
| ASun |
| B10 |
| B12 |
| BE |
| BSky |
| BSth |
| BW |
| CAA |
| CUSA |
| Horz |
| ind |
| Ivy |
| MAAC |
| MAC |
| MEAC |
| MVC |
| MWC |
| NEC |
| OVC |
| P12 |
| Pat |
| SB |
| SC |
| SEC |
| Slnd |
| Sum |
| SWAC |
| WAC |
| WCC |
Power Ratings
Power ratings estimate a team relative to other teams in their division. I wanted to compare the power ratings per conference to see how they differ from one another. A higher average power rating is considered better because it indicates a stronger overall level of competition within that conference. The three conferences with the highest power ratings are the Big 12, Big 10, and Big East.
Offense and Defense Efficiency
This graph shows how well your conference performs on offense and defense. Offensive efficiency is the number of points a team scores per 100 possessions. Higher is better because it means you scored more points. Defensive efficiency is the number of points a team allows per 100 possessions. Unlike offensive efficiency, lower is better because you don’t want to allow points to the other team. The conferences with the best offensive and defensive efficiency are the Big East, American League, PAC-12, Big 10, and SEC.
Overall Wins per Conference
Overall, there are many factors that can show which conference is the “best”. The conference with the highest number of wins is not the best, however teams who are winning also reflect better performance in statistics like power ratings and offense and defense efficiency. This graph reflects this because the Big 12 and SEC appear to have the most average wins, but the Big 12 has the best power rating and the SEC is not in the top 3. The Conference USA has the highest maximum for number of wins and is top 10 for power ratings. The Horizon conference has the lowest minimum for number of wins and is a lower power rating conference.
NCAA Tournament Insights
The NCAA Tournament is an annual championship tournament top tier Division I teams compete in. It is known for its unpredictability, but I will be analyzing different key performance indicators like turnover rate, field goal percentages, and wins above bubble, and how it relates to making it postseason.
Turnover Rate
Turnover rate is how often your team turns over the ball to their opponent. This graph shows that turnover rate does not have any relation with how your postseason ends. The national championship team, UConn, has a higher average turnover rate than teams who did not make the tournament. However, the largest maximum for turnover rate is from teams who did not make the tournament. The average turnover rate is lowest for teams who made it to Round 32 of the tournament.
Effective Field Goal Percentage
Effective Field Goal Percentage shows teams scoring efficiency. This box plot is showing the teams that made it to the Final Four have the highest field goal percentage. The champions as well as teams who made it to the Elite 8 have averages close to the highest. However, the lowest average is from the teams who made it to the Final round as well as teams who made it to Round 68.
Wins Above Bubble
WAB is the difference between a team’s actual number of wins and the number of wins an average team would be expected to earn against the same schedule. This graph is showing the wins above bubble (WAB) in comparison to the seed given to teams in the tournament. You can see in the scatter plot that the higher the WAB, the better the seed in the tournament.
Cross Town Rivalry Sentiment Analysis
With going to school with one of the biggest rivalries in college basketball, I thought it would be interesting to analyze the sentiments of words surrounding Xavier and University of Cincinnati basketball. In order to do this, I scraped both Xavier men’s basketball and University of Cincinnati men’s basketball Wikipedia pages.
Xavier Word Count
The word “Xavier” appears the most and “national” appears the least.
UC Word Count
The word “Cincinnati” appears the most and “AAC” appears the least.
Xavier Sentiment Analysis
Xavier’s sentiment analysis shows there are mostly positive sentiments when describing Xavier men’s basketball. Positive words like “won”, “lead”, “elite”, “success”, and “premier” are fitting to describe Xavier’s top-notch program. The negative words surrounding Xavier men’s basketball are about losing.
UC Sentiment Analysis
UC’s sentiment analysis also shows mostly positive sentiment, however UC has more negative sentiments than Xavier. Words like “win”, “lead”, “victory”, “top”, and “elite” are used to describe their team similar to Xavier. Words like “loss”, “rivalry”, and “expired” are negative sentiments around their team.
Conclusion
Overall, this analysis has been able to show how each statistic impacts conference performance, postseason outcomes, and how your team is viewed. Even though basketball contains numerous statistics, it is a game of uncertainty which made this analysis super interesting. I look forward to seeing the outcome of the 2025 season. Go X!