Duke is testing our ability to mint new superlatives. You’ve already heard that the Blue Devils posted far and away the best conference season on offense of any team “ever.” (KenPom ever.) They also recorded the best effective FG percentage I’ve come across in major-conference play (59.3). Cooper Flagg is Cooper Flagg.
Here’s one more example of extreme performance from Jon Scheyer’s bunch. Duke came closer than any team I’ve seen to being three standard deviations better than its conference on offense. Part of that’s an anemic ACC, sure, but most of it’s the Blue Devils. They’re just really good at scoring.
Then again it’s Auburn that continues to carry the title of best overall KenPom offense ever (defined as adjusted offensive efficiency in all games). If the Tigers make it to the far side of the NCAA tournament with this distinction still intact, the oft-praised SEC will appear even more mighty. The Best Offense Ever was merely the fourth-best offense in league play behind Alabama, Florida, and Missouri.
Yes, the Gators and Mizzou eclipsed Bruce Pearl’s group on offense by the tiniest of margins. Still, Bama was alone at No. 1 and Auburn really did have itself one magical non-conference season.
(Hot take coming soon to Now and Again! Treat non-conference games as true friendlies. Stop sweating those box scores. Hide the results from the archaic and unnecessary 1960s-era committee. Who knows, maybe we’ll get much better games at campus sites.)
One trait shared by Duke and Auburn alike is that both teams attempt a metric ton of shots. Indeed, there’s a fair chance all four of your upcoming 2025 No. 1 seeds can be found among the top five teams for shot volume in major-conference play. It’s volume’s world and we’re all just living in it.
The hot new trend is attempting shots
Shot volume index (SVI)
Conference games only: ACC, Big 12, Big East, Big Ten, SEC
TO% OR% SVI
1. Duke 13.8 35.2 103.2
2. Auburn 13.5 33.7 102.9
3. St. John's 15.1 37.5 102.8
4. Houston 14.7 35.9 102.5
5. Florida 14.8 35.8 102.3
6. Marquette 13.2 31.4 102.1
7. Cal 14.1 33.3 101.9
8. Texas Tech 14.5 32.4 101.0
9. Texas A&M 17.7 39.9 100.7
10. Illinois 15.8 34.9 100.7
Conversely, among sure-thing, likely, or potential tournament teams, your low-low-volume offenses are Creighton, Michigan, and Oklahoma.
TO% OR% SVI
67. Creighton 17.8 26.8 94.6
68. Providence 19.5 30.5 94.3
69. Michigan 19.6 30.7 94.2
70. DePaul 17.4 24.7 94.0
71. Arizona State 17.5 24.3 93.7
72. South Carolina 19.8 29.8 93.6
73. Oklahoma State 19.2 27.9 93.4
74. Virginia Tech 19.5 28.5 93.4
75. Washington 18.4 25.4 93.2
76. Oklahoma 18.5 24.5 92.7
77. Penn State 18.5 24.3 92.6
78. LSU 18.9 24.7 92.3
79. Colorado 21.7 28.7 90.9
The Blue Jays are interesting because their accuracy against Big East opponents was outstanding. For a team to shoot 2.3 percentage points better on its twos in conference play than Duke did and be merely good on offense instead of amazing is odd.
Jordan Sperber has of course gone onto bigger and better things, but more than a decade ago as an analytics wunderkind he came up with an elegantly simple stat he called the WHACKS rating. Basically it measures whether you’re scoring the points your eFG says you should be scoring.
This year Creighton ranks dead last out of 79 teams on WHACKS. Due to a so-so turnover rate and a lack of second chances, no major-conference offense gets less juice from its accuracy squeeze than do the Blue Jays. We don’t do opportunity costs here at SVI headquarters, but the number of chips Creighton leaves on the table with its No. 67 volume might be termed historic.
Michigan’s is a much more straightforward case of too many turnovers. In major-conference play only South Carolina, Utah, and (by a mile) Colorado gave the ball away more often than did the Wolverines.
As for Oklahoma, the Sooners need to pick a poison. You can say a principled no thanks to offensive boards a la Ole Miss but you can’t afford that luxury when you don’t take care of the ball either.
Note however that, whatever else it may be, saying a principled no thanks to offensive boards is off-trend. The big volume news in 2025 is surely the crossing of a major round-number boundary.
As a group major-conference teams rebounded 30.0 percent of their misses in conference play, up a full 1.0 percent from last year. The trend for all of Division I’s been charting this same upward trajectory for the past three or four years. After a long decline from roughly Florida’s back-to-back titles to the pandemic, offensive boards appear to be making a comeback.
Here’s the entire major-conference leader board for shot volume along with pithy category titles at plus and minus one standard deviation. Where does your team rank?
Shot volume index (SVI)
Conference games only: ACC, Big 12, Big East, Big Ten,
Gluttonous TO% OR% SVI
1. Duke 13.8 35.2 103.2
2. Auburn 13.5 33.7 102.9
3. St. John's 15.1 37.5 102.8
4. Houston 14.7 35.9 102.5
5. Florida 14.8 35.8 102.3
6. Marquette 13.2 31.4 102.1
7. Cal 14.1 33.3 101.9
8. Texas Tech 14.5 32.4 101.0
9. Texas A&M 17.7 39.9 100.7
10. Illinois 15.8 34.9 100.7
11. Clemson 15.4 33.4 100.5
12. Missouri 14.9 31.9 100.5
13. Arizona 15.7 34.0 100.4
Normal TO% OR% SVI
14. Michigan State 16.7 35.8 100.0
15. Tennessee 16.1 33.6 99.7
16. Northwestern 15.1 30.9 99.6
17. Vanderbilt 15.9 32.4 99.4
18. SMU 17.1 35.2 99.3
19. Miss. State 16.2 32.7 99.2
20. Purdue 15.2 30.2 99.2
21. NC State 14.4 28.1 99.1
22. Alabama 17.0 34.4 99.0
23. Indiana 15.7 31.1 99.0
24. UCLA 15.5 30.6 99.0
25. Ole Miss 12.5 23.1 98.8
26. Baylor 17.2 34.0 98.6
27. Wisconsin 14.8 28.0 98.6
28. Iowa 13.6 24.5 98.3
29. Rutgers 16.3 31.0 98.3
30. North Carolina 15.9 29.9 98.2
31. UConn 18.5 36.5 98.2
32. Texas 15.7 29.2 98.1
33. Maryland 15.8 29.4 98.1
34. Pitt 15.2 27.9 98.1
35. Louisville 15.7 28.9 98.0
36. Villanova 14.3 25.5 98.0
37. Oregon 16.1 29.7 97.9
38. Cincinnati 15.9 29.1 97.8
39. UCF 17.1 31.9 97.7
40. TCU 17.5 32.5 97.5
79-TEAM AVERAGES 16.6 30.0 97.4
TO% OR% SVI
41. Stanford 16.8 30.2 97.3
42. Ohio State 16.7 29.5 97.1
43. Minnesota 17.1 30.5 97.1
44. Georgetown 16.9 29.9 97.0
45. Notre Dame 17.1 30.4 97.0
46. Kansas 17.5 30.6 96.7
47. Arkansas 16.1 26.9 96.6
48. Florida State 16.9 29.0 96.6
49. Butler 15.3 24.8 96.5
50. Georgia 19.0 33.9 96.4
51. Kentucky 16.7 27.6 96.2
52. Miami 16.5 27.1 96.2
53. Seton Hall 18.0 30.7 96.1
54. Syracuse 18.6 32.1 96.1
55. Georgia Tech 17.9 30.2 96.0
56. Nebraska 15.7 24.8 96.0
57. Wake Forest 15.9 25.2 96.0
58. BYU 18.3 30.8 95.8
59. West Virginia 15.6 24.0 95.8
60. Utah 19.9 34.7 95.7
61. Iowa State 18.6 31.0 95.6
62. Xavier 15.8 23.1 95.1
63. Virginia 15.1 21.2 95.0
64. Boston College 17.3 25.8 94.7
65. Kansas State 17.9 27.4 94.7
66. USC 18.3 28.4 94.7
Starving TO% OR% SVI
67. Creighton 17.8 26.8 94.6
68. Providence 19.5 30.5 94.3
69. Michigan 19.6 30.7 94.2
70. DePaul 17.4 24.7 94.0
71. Arizona State 17.5 24.3 93.7
72. South Carolina 19.8 29.8 93.6
73. Oklahoma State 19.2 27.9 93.4
74. Virginia Tech 19.5 28.5 93.4
75. Washington 18.4 25.4 93.2
76. Oklahoma 18.5 24.5 92.7
77. Penn State 18.5 24.3 92.6
78. LSU 18.9 24.7 92.3
79. Colorado 21.7 28.7 90.9
Enjoy the volume!
John Gasaway 