NCAA Tournament 2017: One key stat that shows why your team is doomed in March

Kansas and North Carolina: Defense and free throws

Next up are two of the blue-blooded No. 1 seeds — Kansas and North Carolina. Both teams are quite strong, and earned their No. 1 seeds this year. But there are, of course, some telling flaws that DEFINITIVELY show they cannot possibly win the national championship.

Both sides, while good on defense, don’t exactly make their hay there. North Carolina comes in at 25th in adjusted defense, while Kansas currently sits at 30. While the historical results aren’t as unfriendly for teams with defenses outside the top-25 before the tournament, they’re not exactly earth shattering endorsements. Just four national champions of the last 15 started the tournament with a defense outside the top-25 in adjusted efficiency, and only nine of 86 top-4 seeds that had a defense outside the top-25 made the Final Four. That’s just 10 percent of all teams, while nearly 45 percent drop out in the first weekend.

Since North Carolina and Kansas also pair those iffy defenses with excellent offenses, their chances aren’t so dire. Squads among the top-4 seeds with top 10 offenses and defenses outside the top 25 have two national champions, and seven Final Four appearances. But that’s still just good for 14 percent, in terms of Final Four appearances, for the 49 teams in this group.

And that’s not even getting to the problems from the charity stripe! Kansas can’t hit them, ranking 286th in free throw percentage this year, and North Carolina can’t generate them, sitting at a 33.1 free throw rate (247th) for the year. Just one national champion in the last 15 years has ever had a conversion percentage on free throws worse than Kansas’s, and no national champion has ever struggled to generate free throws at a rate worse than North Carolina’s.

With this statistical double whammy, you can cross Kansas and North Carolina off your list of national title contenders.

Doomed Rating: Elite 8? Yeah, right.