What does a drought cost?
When a team goes scoreless for 3+ minutes, the opponent keeps scoring unanswered points. Drought cost measures exactly how many points opponents scored during each team's scoreless stretches, a direct read on how much going cold hurts.
Metric: drought cost = points the opponent scores while you don't
7.3
Avg drought cost
Avg points per drought
7.0
Median drought cost
Half of droughts cost more
28.0
Max single drought
Costliest, 2025-26
16,385
Total droughts
2025-26 season
Impact distribution
Unanswered opponent points per drought. The darkest bar is the game-swinging bucket.
Who pays the most?
Average opponent points scored during a team's scoring droughts (min. 5 droughts in the season).
Most exposed
Highest average drought cost
Lowest drought cost
Lowest average drought cost
Top 5 teams by average drought cost.
Frequency vs. cost
Each dot is a team. Right = more frequent droughts. Up = higher average cost per drought. Teams in the top-right are most drought-vulnerable; bottom-left are most resilient. Logos shown for the 15 most extreme outliers.
Games that turned on a drought
Close losses (≤15 pts) where drought cost made up the largest share of the opponent's total score. Sorted by points given up.
| Team | vs. | Longest drought | Drought cost (pts) | Severity | Final |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Northern Arizona Lumberjacks |  Montana State Bobcats | 4:28 | 42 pts | Decisive Factor | L 65–76 |
 North Dakota Fighting Hawks |  North Dakota State Bison | 4:36 | 39 pts | Decisive Factor | L 62–70 |
 Gonzaga Bulldogs |  Saint Mary's Gaels | 3:41 | 39 pts | Decisive Factor | L 59–70 |
 Stonehill Skyhawks |  Wagner Seahawks | 6:13 | 39 pts | Decisive Factor | L 57–68 |
 Tennessee Tech Golden Eagles |  West Georgia Wolves | 4:19 | 39 pts | Decisive Factor | L 59–61 |
 Maine Black Bears |  Rutgers Scarlet Knights | 5:38 | 38 pts | Decisive Factor | L 60–72 |
 George Washington Revolutionaries |  Florida Gators | 3:55 | 38 pts | Decisive Factor | L 70–80 |
 Iowa State Cyclones |  Cincinnati Bearcats | 4:37 | 37 pts | Decisive Factor | L 70–79 |
 UNC Asheville Bulldogs |  NC State Wolfpack | 4:05 | 37 pts | Decisive Factor | L 63–75 |
 Seattle U Redhawks |  Pacific Tigers | 4:41 | 37 pts | Decisive Factor | L 58–61 |
Severity = opponent points scored during team's droughts ÷ opponent's total score. See Influenced Games for severity thresholds and the full game list.
See all →About this metric
Drought cost measures the actual point differential change during scoring droughts. When a team goes scoreless for 3+ minutes, their opponent often scores unanswered points, widening the gap.
This metric shows exactly how many points the opponent scored during each team's drought periods. A drought with 10 points allowed means the score differential worsened by 10 points (team scored 0, opponent scored 10).
This is a direct measurement, not an approximation. It captures the real game impact of going cold: the actual scoring runs that opponents capitalized on.
How drought cost is measured
A scoring drought starts when a team's possession ends without points and runs until they score again. Three minutes is the cutoff for a tracked drought. During every drought, the other team keeps shooting, and a 3-minute cold stretch where the opponent drops a 9-0 run is meaningfully different from one where the opponent goes 0-for-4. Drought cost captures the second number: the unanswered points opponents scored during the drought, summed across every drought a team had in 2025-26.
The ranking above sorts teams by total opponent points scored during their droughts. The scatter plots impact against drought frequency. The close-games table flags every 2025-26 game where the drought margin, opponent points during your droughts, was equal to or greater than the final point margin. Those are the games the drought decided.
Two reads to take away. Drought frequency and impact are correlated but not the same thing: a team can have many short droughts that opponents barely punish, or a small number of long droughts that opponents bury them in. Both patterns lose games; the chart shows which one is happening. The close-games table is the actionable view. A team with a low overall impact number can still have lost three single-possession games because a 4-minute scoreless stretch hit at the wrong time.
Related: coaching · conferences · drought killers