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Shooting Percentage And The Big Dance

A quick follow-up to the previous post on stats.  One conversation I always find myself having with other coaches centers around what makes the teams in the sweet 16 of the NCAA tournament capable of getting to that level.

While it takes tons of good fortune to win in the tournament, a sweet 16 team seems to have a great regular season, solid conference tournament run and in the DI (48 team tournament) and DII (35 team tournament) won at least one match, or had a stellar enough season to earn a bye to within one win of the sweet 16 while in DIII (61 team tournament) the teams have won two in a row in the most topsy-turvy environment around.  Surely a sign that the quality is real, right?

Here's shooting percentage for the whole division, with the number of sweet 16 teams per column shown in red (the sweet 16 are not individually labelled in red, unfortunately).  Hover your mouse over each rectangle to see what team is in each column.  A reminder...Virginia, Lynn and Tufts were your champions this fall.

That crazy little red fella way out on the left in the DIII chart?  Amherst College.  Not unprecedented, as Wesleyan and Williams are in that column as well, both fellow NESCAC members, and traditionally successful programs.   A post to follow shortly may offer some insight as to why several of the most respected programs in the nation appear to have very poor shooting percentages...