Do Droughts Predict Losses?

Short answer: yes, but not always. A team's droughts-per-game and win percentage have a real negative correlation across the 2026 D1 men's season — meaningful but not tight. Plenty of teams with high drought rates still win plenty of games. The variance gets explained when you add the costof the drought: average points allowed during scoreless stretches. That's the second chart, and the slope is sharper.

Each point on a scatter is one team's 2026 season. The first chart plots droughts-per-game against win percentage; the second plots points-allowed-per-drought against win percentage. Filter by tier (Power 4 / mid-major / low-major) or to AP-ranked teams only. The regression line recomputes on every filter change.

Three takeaways. Drought frequency matters less than drought impact: teams with many short, low-cost droughts can survive; teams whose droughts get punished cannot. Power-conference teams cluster tightly in the low-drought, high-win quadrant — not just better, more stable. And the outliers in either direction are worth watching: high-drought-but-winning teams have a thin profile that March tends to expose, while low-drought-but-losing teams probably have a defensive problem the drought lens cannot see.

Related: coaching · conferences · drought cost