2013-14 UConn Huskies: Winning on the margins
In 2014 UConn made a surprising run as a 7 seed to win the title. They won not by dominating in obvious areas, but in some hidden ways.
The 2013-14 UConn Huskies are the 2nd lowest seeded team to win an NCAA title since the bracket expanded to 64 teams in 1985. As a 7 seed, not much was expected of them. It’s not that they were particularly disappointing or bad during the regular season; they went 24-7 and only had 2 losses by double digits. However, they didn’t do much to distinguish themselves. They had 8 wins over teams ranked in the top 100 by KenPom, but only two by more than 6 points and none by more than 12. Their two double digit losses were both to Louisville (ranked #1 in KenPom), but they were by 12 and 33 points.
They didn’t have much notable on their statistical resume either. According to BartTorvik.com, UConn was 61st in offense and 14th in defense at the end of the regular season. The Huskies were 4th in free throw shooting and 33rd in 3 point shooting, 8th in 2pt Fg% allowed and 13th in block rate, but mostly outside the top 100 in everything else.
So how exactly did this unremarable regular season team put together a title winning run? By being solid and winning on the margins. In this edition of Hoops Hindsight, I explain how UConn succeeded in some hidden areas to win a title.
No sexy, dramatic narratives here
First, let’s be clear about what didn’t happen.
UConn wasn’t dramatically underseeded: The Huskies were a 7 seed, and per Bart Torvik they ranked 22nd prior to the postseason. They did nab an impressive win over Memphis in the AAC tournament, but lost to Louisville in the final which put them at 23rd prior to the NCAAs. It’s not exactly an injustice for a team with that resume to be seeded 7th.
UConn wasn’t especially good in games against better teams that season: UConn did knock off a very good Florida team that season, but weren’t especially competitive against Louisville as the Huskies went 0-3, lost by 55 total points, and never led in the second half against the Cardinals. Per BartTorvik, UConn rated just 40th best among teams in games against Quad 1 opponents that season (min 3 games).
Shabazz Napier didn’t turn superhuman: Napier did score 128 points over the 6 game NCAA run, but he did play 218 minutes over the 6 games (36.3 per). He averaged 23.5 pts per 40 minutes, up from 20.5 during the regular season but not dramatically so. In 5 of the 6 games during the tourney, Napier had a usage rate above 30% and an offensive rating above 110, but that wasn’t a new thing. He did that 12 times during the regular season and UConn was 9-3 in those games. In the words of Dennis Green, “he was who we thought he was”
They didn’t win a series of nailbiters: UConn won their 6 tourney games by 47 points, or 7.8 per game. The only game where they trailed during the final 5 minutes of regulation was their opener against St Joe’s; they won that one by 8 in overtime and never trailed in the extra period. Contrast that with Kentucky, who made the title game by winning 5 games by 18 total points. After Kentucky’s first round win against Kansas State they actually trailed by 5 or more points for more total time than they led by 5 or more points during the second halves of their games. UConn didn’t live that dangerously.
What did happen is less thrilling and isn’t the stuff you tell your grandkids about, but is clearly pretty important in winning basketball games.
Winning on the margins
There are 3 clear things that propelled UConn to the championship:
They hit their free throws: This seems to be the most important factor to me. UConn hit 101 out of 115 free throws during the NCAA Tournament, for 88%. Their opponents hit 78 of 119 for 66%. In roughly the same number of attempts UConn racked up 23 more points. That accounts for almost half of their 47 point scoring margin. This was a continuation of the regular season when UConn was the 4th best free throw shooting team in the country at 78% and whose opponents collectively were 27th worst at 66%. When the game was close late, UConn wasn’t going to give away points when their opponents had to foul.
They were comfortable with the shot clock winding down: One area where UConn was sneakily good that season was late in the shot clock. The Huskies had a 44% effective FG% on shots taken in the final 5 seconds of the shot clock, compared to 34% for their opponents. During the NCAA Tournament, they took this to another level. UConn had a 50% effective FG% in the final 5 seconds of the clock, compared to just 28% for their opponents. This meant UConn could bleed clock late in games with a short lead and still have a good chance to score. Incredibly, UConn had a better eFG% on these late shots (50%) than their opponents did on all shots during the tournament (48%). Combined with #1 above, UConn was able to tighten their grip late in games and burn clock while maintaing their ability to score.
They didn’t do anything poorly: There were 36 teams who played at least 3 games following conference tournaments in either the NCAAs, NIT, CBI, or whatever minor tournaments existed in 2014. Of those 36 teams, UConn ranked 4th in overall rating per Bart Torvik. In the “Four Factor” stats on offense and defense, UConn was 6th among these 36 teams in forcing turnovers but between 13th and 24th in every other “Four Factor” category. However, every other team who made the Sweet 16 ranked 30th or worse in at least 1 area.
UConn’s gameplan was basically to keep mistakes to a minimum by keeping turnovers in check, play a solid all-around game, and then just squeeze the life out of a team by holding a 4 or 5 points lead for the last few minutes of a game. They executed this perfectly, and benefitted from a little luck in that no team had an especially hot shooting night from three against them. It might sound like a simple strategy but it’s hard to pull off in the crucible that is NCAA Tournament basketball, and UConn did it perfectly. They may not go down in history as one of the more memorable champions, but they actually put forth a template of how to win close games. They deserve to be remembered for that, if nothing else!
Before concluding this article, I wanted to make an announcement about the future of this series. The idea for this came from the cancellation of the 2020 NCAA Tournament, and I wanted to come up with content that I could keep putting out if the COVID-19 pandemic continued to disrupt college basketball. I have enjoyed my trips into the time machine, and I hope you’ve enjoyed reading them. However, it looks like college basketball is out of the woods (at least as far as the current pandemic goes), and I have been wanting to get back to focusing 100% of my time on current teams. I wrote my Kentucky and Louisville newsletters this season, but I felt like juggling two current teams plus Hoops Hindsight plus a 9-to-5 job stretched me too thin. As such, I am going to retire Hoops Hindsight. I’d encourage folks to subscribe to my other newsletters, and I may use the Hoops Hindsight format to write about past UK and UofL teams in those newsletters. Thank you for giving me some of your time and energy this season, I’m forever grateful and hope you enjoyed it.
-Sean Vinsel