The Bucket List: Pilot – introductions, sneaky good and metric-loved teams

Quick – who’s offense is number five in efficiency this past month?  

Wrong. Virginia Commonwealth, of course! The Rams have netted an adjusted offensive efficiency rating of 128.9 since Feb. 1 – fifth best out of 364 Division I teams.  

What about this one: which team has complied three top 20 wins in two weeks, is undefeated since Jan. 25 and ranks number nine in defensive efficiency nationally?  

The 13-11 Kansas State Wildcats.  

See, without those metrics listed as they are above, you probably wouldn’t believe me when I told you that Joe Bamisile and Max Shulga have been one of the country’s best scoring duos for VCU since the start of February, or that Jerome Tang has Kansas State playing at the highest level in America the past two weeks.  

It’s one thing to make a claim about your favorite mid-major team who will undoubtedly make a run to the Elite Eight in March. It’s another to back up that claim with undisputable evidence.  

That’s what this column will be centered around. I will look to provide you – the future March Madness bracket pool champion that you are – with analytically fortified evidence as to how to build your bracket and bring home the bacon come April.  

Trust me, I won’t bore you. I’ll keep things short – a handful of little sections each week highlighting some of the trendiest analytical teams in the country with a side of March Madness bracket advice.  

Let’s get started, shall we? 

Why: Do AP Pollsters hate the Houston Cougars? 

Since losing three games in three weeks and starting the season 4-3, Kelvin Sampson’s squad has won 16 of 17, ranks first in the nation in adjusted defensive efficiency since Dec. 7 (86.9) and has scored over 75 points eight times en route to a smoking 12-1 start in Big 12 play. 

But the Cougars – who are 20-4 overall – are ranked No. 6 in the AP Top 25 Poll, receiving votes as low as No. 10 overall and sliding one spot from last week’s poll. Why is that?  

Well, the truth is, I don’t really know. Houston matches up fairly well against each of the five teams ranked ahead of them in the AP Poll (Auburn, Alabama, Duke, Florida, Tennessee).  

Using the Bracketologists’ resumé comparison tool, I plugged all of these teams in and compared them. Houston ranks No. 2 in NET, No. 1 in Torvik’s T-Rank and No. 3 on KenPom. The Cougars’ BARTHAG rating (chance of beating an average D-I team) is a sterling .98, according to Torvik.  

Houston is holding its opponents to an average of 57.3 ppg (No. 1 nationally), sporting the third best two-point defense (43%) and ninth best EFG% allowed (45.2) in the country.  

Sure, Sampson’s defenses are always wound tight and sure to give opponents headaches – the Cougars have finished top 15 in defensive efficiency seven of the last eight seasons – but what about the other side of the floor?  

Last season, the Cougar offense struggled tremendously from the floor (228^th in 2PT%) and flopped in its Sweet 16 loss to Duke, scoring just 51 points. The unit scored 80-plus points just six times against high-major opponents.  

The addition of Oklahoma transfer Milos Uzan this offseason has gone a long way in transforming Sampson’s offense. The dime-running point guard has aided in Houston’s three-point revival, as the team ranks seventh nationally in 3PT% (39.4) and has scored above 80 points against high-major opponents four times already.  

Who: Are the Virginia Commonwealth Rams? 

Ryan Odom’s second season at the helm in Richmond has been an emphatic success up to this point. The Rams are 20-5 overall, second in the A-10 and have wins against Colorado State, Dayton and Saint Louis under their belt.  

The only black eye: a three-point overtime loss to a 6-18 Seton Hall team back in November. 

Regardless, the Rams are powering towards the-large conversation with a little under a month remaining in the regular season.  

Led by the terrific scoring duo of Bamisile (15.8) and Shulga (15.1), the Rams rank fifth nationally in adjusted offensive efficiency (points per 100 possessions) and are the best offensive rebounding team in America since Feb. 1.  

The identity of this VCU team is engrained in its board-crashing, physical backcourt attack that bottlenecks opposing guards on defense and forces contested shots – a heavy pill for high-major teams to swallow in March.  

Will: St. John’s improve on its worrisome shooting percentages? Is this style sustainable in March? 

The salty defensive play of Rick Pitino’s Red Storm has barnstormed the country, as the Johnnies – now notoriously known as a defensive juggernaut – have climbed inside the top 10 of the AP Top 25 Poll.  

Yes, St. John’s slipped up on Wednesday and dropped its first game of the 2025 calendar year at Villanova, but what the Red Storm have done defensively this season cannot be overlooked. 

Ranking second in adjusted defensive efficiency (points allowed per 100 possessions) this season, the Johnnies’ street fight style physicality has given the likes of Marquette, Connecticut and Creighton (all of whom scored 70 points or lower) trouble in Big East play.  

St. John’s pilots the nation’s seventh-best two-point defense (43.9) and sports the 15^th highest turnover percentage among all D-I teams (22.1).  

The height, length and power the Johnnies put out on the court make interchanging the two through four positions effortless. Kadary Richmond needs a breather? In comes RJ Luis, Aaron Scott or Simeon Wilcher – all of which are 6-foot-4 or above.  

The issues with this bully-ball style lineup can be seen when looking at SJU’s field goal percentages. The Johnnies shoot – as a team – 29.2% from three, 68.7% from the charity stripe and have an EFG% of 49.5 (239^th nationally).  

How are the Johnnies winning all of these games? The answer can be found in the catacombs of college basketball.  

See, Pitino has drawn inspiration from the ancient cave drawings of players taking mid-range jump shots and long two-pointers.  

Conventionally speaking, those days of the sport are well behind us. The jump-shot philosophy of cash-grab two pointers has been replaced with the analytically sound three pointer and lay-in strategy. Look at Grinnell College for instance, who attempts nearly half of its shots from three.  

The Johnnies – to put it bluntly – stink at shooting the basketball… from three. Pitino has emphasized the importance of taking advantage of the shots a defense voluntarily allows.  

Mid-range jumpers from the top of the key? Elbow shots off ball-screens from two feet in front of the three-point line? The Johnnies are pining for those kind of looks.  

See, defenses oftentimes leave looks such as these – traditionally viewed as low percentage – wide open in hopes of crashing the boards and running tempo the other way.  

Pitino has encouraged his team to take these difficult shots – because they’re open. 

So, while the bedrock of this Johnnies team remains its defense (and rightfully so), the SJU offense, while not revered by the analytics, still has the ability to sustain itself come postseason basketball.