Which Team is Hotter: Kansas or North Carolina?
The North Carolina Tar Heels this season are an unbelievable story. In case you haven't heard all the details, long-time UNC assistant and first-year head coach Hubert Davis was having an up and down season after taking over for the retired Roy Williams. Back on February 16th, the Tar Heels suffered a 76-67 home loss to the Pittsburgh Panthers, which dropped them to 18-8 on the season and started serious discussions about whether North Carolina was even worthy of being on the bubble.
Since then, this team has been on an absolute tear. Thanks to Bart Torvik's T-Rank site, we can actually quantify just how impressive they have been thanks to the ability to specify the start and end date of games to use in the analysis. And if we start from February 17th and run all the way through the Final Four games, North Carolina has the 3rd best BARTHAG (his version of the power ranking). In fact, there run is even more impressive than the "7th best team in the last 6 weeks" that has made the media rounds after North Carolina upset Duke to move to the national title game.
In fact, I've heard many media members who want to pick North Carolina in that game cite that statistic as justification for their selection. There's just one problem with that (other than the fact that I listen to WAY too many national college basketball podcasts).
Kansas has been even better.
Don't believe me? Here's the screenshot from the T-Rank website:
barttorvik.com
Oh look, that's Kansas as the best team in the same time period, and not by an insignificant margin.
In fact, here is the ranking and BARTHAG for both Kansas and North Carolina at various points from then through just before the Final Four:
| Date | KU Rank | KU BARTHAG | UNC Rank | UNC BARTHAG |
|---|---|---|---|---|
2/17/2022 | 1 | 0.9705 | 3 | 0.9670 |
2/24/2022 | 2 | 0.9706 | 1 | 0.9727 |
3/3/2022 | 2 | 0.9791 | 1 | 0.9792 |
3/4/2022 | 1 | 0.9824 | 2 | 0.9792 |
3/7/2022 | 1 | 0.9849 | 2 | 0.9790 |
3/14/2022 | 3 | 0.9806 | 1 | 0.9860 |
3/21/2022 | 1 | 0.9877 | 2 | 0.9764 |
3/28/2022 | 1 | 0.9953 | 3 | 0.9560 |
For transparency, I tried to pick dates that either were a week apart or that happened after particularly important games. Specifically, from Feb 24th to March 3rd, both of Kansas' most recent losses (to Baylor and TCU) both dropped off the data. Then March 4th saw second game against TCU drop off for Kansas. Finally, March 7th was after the end of the regular season for both teams.
There is some jockeying back and forth in the last few weeks of the regular season, but the breakdown comes down to something like this.
For Kansas:
- The overall rating gets significantly better as you get closer to the end of the season.
- When you remove the impact of their final two losses, they take a jump.
- Remove the TCU win in the final week of the regular season, the remaining games since then are even better.
- Remove the season finale against Texas, it's even better.
- Their win over Creighton was their worst game of the postseason.
- Their win over Villanova was by far their best single game of the postseason.
For North Carolina:
- The rating gets a big boost when you remove a good-but-not-great Louisville game.
- The win over Duke to end the regular season didn't do much to move the needle.
- The ACC Tournament was not good for the resume, as it provides a big boost when it is removed from the data.
- UNC had a big first weekend, highlighted by the win over Baylor.
- They have cooled significantly as the tournament has gone on.
Ultimately, while it is fair to say that North Carolina is one of the hottest teams in the nation since their loss to Pittsburgh, it's clear to see that Kansas has been just as good or better every step of the way. And if you are looking for momentum going into the national title game, Kansas has been steadily improving throughout the tournament. Don't let the media narrative fool you into thinking otherwise.
