Postseasons come with different stakes for different teams. For some, any more wins are gravy. For others, a loss in a particular round would be a catastrophic failure.
We’ve done desperation rankings before across various sports, but we’ve never tried a quantitative approach. With the Sweet Sixteen tipping off tonight, we’re putting numbers on it.
I’ve identified five different categories which, at least in the NCAA Tournament, should impact a team’s desperation. We’ll be assigning teams a number in each, on scales between 1–5 and 1–10.
- Basketball School: Is this a school that cares about basketball? If so, how much?
- Drought: How long is this school’s Final Four drought? Have they ever won a national championship?
- Expectations: How good is this year’s team? Should they win?
- Urgency: If the Final Four doesn’t happen this year, is next year a realistic option? Or is the balance about to blow up?
- Banked: Was making the Sweet Sixteen a significant achievement?
Basketball School
| Team | Basketball School |
| Duke | 10 |
| Kentucky | 9 |
| Purdue | 9 |
| Maryland | 9 |
| Arizona | 9 |
| Houston | 9 |
| Michigan State | 9 |
| BYU | 5 |
| Texas Tech | 5 |
| Arkansas | 3 |
| Auburn | 2 |
| Florida | 2 |
| Tennessee | 2 |
| Alabama | 1 |
| Mississippi | 1 |
| Michigan | 1 |
For one of these schools (Duke), basketball is everything. For three (Alabama, Michigan, Mississippi), football is currently everything. For six (Arizona, Houston, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan State, Purdue), basketball is clearly the identity, but there’s either 1) enough football interest to somewhat temper basketball’s importance or 2) no blue-blood status to defend. For three (Auburn, Florida, Tennessee), football is the preference but basketball’s more realistic right now. For one (Arkansas), football is the preference but basketball’s been more realistic for a long time. For the last two (BYU, Texas Tech), basketball’s stronger and football’s the preference but both are doing well enough for there to be a balance.
Drought
| Team | Drought |
| BYU | 10 |
| Tennessee | 10 |
| Mississippi | 10 |
| Arkansas | 6 |
| Purdue | 5 |
| Houston | 5 |
| Texas Tech | 5 |
| Auburn | 5 |
| Alabama | 5 |
| Maryland | 4 |
| Arizona | 4 |
| Michigan | 3 |
| Kentucky | 2 |
| Michigan State | 2 |
| Florida | 2 |
| Duke | 1 |
We used a two-part system here: How long has it been since each team won a title? How long has it been since each team made a Final Four? For every decade in each category, we added a point, maxing out at five points per category.
Expectations
| Team | Expectations |
| Duke | 5 |
| Houston | 4 |
| Auburn | 4 |
| Florida | 4 |
| Michigan State | 3 |
| Texas Tech | 3 |
| Tennessee | 3 |
| Alabama | 3 |
| Kentucky | 2 |
| Purdue | 2 |
| Maryland | 2 |
| Arizona | 2 |
| BYU | 1 |
| Arkansas | 1 |
| Mississippi | 1 |
| Michigan | 1 |
Teams naturally sort themselves into five categories here. Duke is the best team in the country. Houston, Auburn, and Florida are the other 1-seeds and make up the rest of the kenpom top 4 (by some margin). Tennessee, Alabama, and Michigan State are all 2-seeds in the kenpom top 8, and Texas Tech’s in the top 8 itself facing the most beatable opponent still in action. Maryland, Arizona, Kentucky, and Purdue are all top-16 teams, per kenpom. The rest are the rest.
Urgency
| Team | Urgency |
| Maryland | 6 |
| Mississippi | 5 |
| Houston | 4 |
| Michigan State | 4 |
| Tennessee | 4 |
| Duke | 3 |
| Purdue | 2 |
| Arizona | 2 |
| Texas Tech | 2 |
| Alabama | 2 |
| Auburn | 2 |
| Florida | 2 |
| Arkansas | 1 |
| Kentucky | 1 |
| BYU | 1 |
| Michigan | 1 |
We have natural categories here as well. Six of them: Four teams have a first-year head coach. Five are relatively stable, with positive momentum. One fits that last category but isn’t going to have Cooper Flagg again next year. Three have a coach approaching retirement. One has a coach who probably wants a bigger job. One has a coach who might leave tonight.
We could go non-linear here, but I’m afraid that would give Kevin Willard too much credit. Maryland’s not that much more urgent of a place than Michigan State right now.
Banked
| Team | Banked |
| Duke | 6 |
| Purdue | 6 |
| Arizona | 6 |
| Houston | 6 |
| Tennessee | 6 |
| Alabama | 6 |
| Michigan State | 5 |
| Arkansas | 5 |
| Texas Tech | 5 |
| Michigan | 5 |
| Kentucky | 4 |
| Auburn | 4 |
| Florida | 3 |
| Maryland | 3 |
| BYU | 2 |
| Mississippi | 1 |
The numbers here are inverse to how much success has been banked.
Again, the categories here are natural. Six teams made last year’s Sweet Sixteen. Four more have made it since 2021. Two hadn’t made it in five or more years. Two hadn’t made it in almost ten years. One hadn’t made it in about fifteen years. One hadn’t made it in 24. For Duke, there’s no success in the bank. For Mississippi, a lot’s already been accomplished.
(Credit to reddit user SaintArkweather for the data on when each team last made the Sweet Sixteen. I did not fact check.)
Total
There are two ways to find a total. We can either multiply the numbers together or add them. Which we do makes a big difference. Maryland’s the most desperate either way, and Michigan’s the least desperate, but Duke is the second-most desperate if we add the numbers up and sixth-most desperate if we multiply them together.
In a very subjective conclusion to a very subjective exercise, we’re going to average each team’s additive score with its multiplicative score to get a final Desperation Score. For an example on how this works: Duke’s numbers were a 10, 1, 5, 3, and 6. Adding those together yields 25. Multiplying them together yields 900. Averaging those numbers gives us a Desperation Score of 462.5.
The final numbers and rankings:
| Rank | Team | Desperation Score |
| 1 | Houston | 2174.0 |
| 2 | Tennessee | 732.5 |
| 3 | Maryland | 660.0 |
| 4 | Purdue | 552.0 |
| 5 | Michigan State | 551.5 |
| 6 | Duke | 462.5 |
| 7 | Arizona | 443.5 |
| 8 | Texas Tech | 385.0 |
| 9 | Auburn | 168.5 |
| 10 | Alabama | 98.5 |
| 11 | Kentucky | 81.0 |
| 12 | BYU | 59.5 |
| 13 | Florida | 54.5 |
| 14 | Arkansas | 53.0 |
| 15 | Mississippi | 34.0 |
| 16 | Michigan | 13.0 |
Do these rankings pass the smell test? I would say yes. Michigan is playing with house money. Mississippi and Arkansas are less comfortable, but so much success is in the bank. A loss this weekend for Florida would probably be more disappointing than this implies, and I’m not sure Arizona/Texas Tech/Auburn/Alabama are in the right order or the right place (though the “basketball school” variable is driving a lot of that, which actually might be fair). But as we approach the top of the list, it starts to hold up again. At some point, Houston and Tennessee and Purdue each needs to break through. Rick Barnes and Tom Izzo are getting older. Duke hasn’t won a championship in ten years and shouldn’t be this good next year.
Do these scores pass that same smell test? I’d say so, based mostly on them calling Houston 167 times more desperate than Michigan. That sounds about right.
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