The Saddest Stats From Day 2, Round 1 Of The 2024 NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament
Welcome back March Sadness. The play by play data on Round 1, Day 2 of Men's March Madness is in and I was able to run just a few sad stats to put things in perspective for some downtrodden fandoms out there wishing things turned out differently.
Sad Stat #1 - Northwestern and Florida Atlantic should both be disqualified for scoring a total of 39 first half points
As painful to the eyes as it was to watch the Wisconsin/JMU Pardon My Take Off, it's very hard to believe 14 fewer points were scored in the first half of FAU/NU. 39 first half points ties for 12th fewest out of what my data is telling me 6,088 total D1 games this season.
Bonus sub sad stat: Grambling was involved in the very worst first half performance (31 points vs Mississippi Valley State on Jan 27th).
Double bonus sad stat: Samford was involved in the highest scoring first half (126 points vs VMI on Jan 13th). What could have been had they not gotten screwed.
Sad Stat #2 - Uconn is on pace to giving up 156 points to Northwestern Sunday Night
Dan Hurley is everyone's favorite crazy gym teacher who crushes Monster BFCs before every class. After UCONNs paltry 33 point halftime lead in the opening round he went off on his team for letting off the gas. I'll remind you that they were up by 33. Well, things got much worse (for UCONN) in the second half when they gave up 33 points (1.73X the amount given up in the first half). Just a disaster for Dan Hurley's squad. This lackluster defense could have ended up forcing them to play overtime had UCONN not score a single second half point.
If UCONN continues to surrender 1.73X the points as they did in the prior half played, they'll be giving up 57 points in the first half to Northwestern and 99 in the second half for a totoal of 156. You might think this unlikely for a team who just scored 19 in a half but that's exactly why I think Dan Hurley might be using this logic to fire up his team.
Sad Stat #3 - Drake lost to a team that went 2/12 in layups
Hand up. I was fishing for a Wisconsin stat but came across Washington State going 2/12 from layup land (16.7%) and yet still managed to win their game vs Drake. I didn't see much or any of this game but I'd be curious to know how many of these were tip in attempts because those can actually be difficult to make.