What the stats say about Baylor’s chances in March

With all the game previews and bracket prognostications going around this week, I wanted to take a step back and look at the big picture for the 2023 Baylor Men’s basketball team. How does our offense rank in the recent history of the tournament? What about our defense? Is there anyone else quite like us?

Let’s start with the data. I’m using KenPom’s adjusted offensive and defensive efficiency ratings from 2002 to 2023. As a reminder, efficiency ratings are adjusted for strength of schedule and tempo. Not only are the KenPom ratings considered the gold standard in college basketball analytics, they offer simple measures for comparing hundreds of schools all at once.

First, some good news.…