Correlations Efficiency Coaching Timeout Myth

Efficiency vs Droughts

Efficient offenses go cold less — but some teams freeze far more, or less, than their efficiency predicts. This crosses every team’s 2026 drought rate with its KenPom-style offensive efficiency and ranks the teams that defy the trend.

Offense ↔ Drought

−0.69

correlation — efficient offenses drought less

Teams Matched

235

of 366 D1 (KenPom crosswalk)

Streakiest vs Efficiency

Maryland Terrapins

+0.64 droughts/gm over expected

Tier:AllP4G5Other

235 teams shown

Drought Rate vs Offensive Efficiency

Each dot is a team’s 2026 season. X = offensive efficiency (adj. O, higher is better); Y = droughts per game. The solid line is the league trend — teams above it are streakier than their offense implies, below it steadier.

Streaky — freeze more than efficiency predicts

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Team	KP	Dr/Gm	Exp.	Δ
Maryland Terrapins	113	2.00	1.36	+0.64
Louisiana Ragin' Cajuns	286	2.28	1.65	+0.63
Minnesota Golden Gophers	57	1.78	1.23	+0.55
Merrimack Warriors	170	2.03	1.52	+0.51
Davidson Wildcats	105	1.88	1.40	+0.48
Delaware Blue Hens	276	2.00	1.53	+0.47
Evansville Purple Aces	302	2.09	1.63	+0.46
Stanford Cardinal	59	1.64	1.20	+0.44
Charlotte 49ers	172	1.76	1.32	+0.44
Wake Forest Demon Deacons	67	1.59	1.18	+0.41

Steady — freeze less than efficiency predicts

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Team	KP	Dr/Gm	Exp.	Δ
South Dakota Coyotes	277	0.87	1.57	−0.70
William & Mary Tribe	160	0.74	1.39	−0.65
Lindenwood Lions	272	1.12	1.69	−0.57
Oakland Golden Grizzlies	178	0.74	1.30	−0.56
Longwood Lancers	269	1.06	1.61	−0.55
UAB Blazers	137	0.93	1.45	−0.52
Wagner Seahawks	317	1.14	1.64	−0.50
Akron Zips	71	0.71	1.20	−0.49
Austin Peay Governors	159	0.97	1.44	−0.47
High Point Panthers	93	0.77	1.24	−0.47

Reading the Chart

Better offenses go cold less — across the 235 teams with a KenPom-style efficiency match, drought rate and offensive efficiency correlate at roughly −0.69. That much is intuitive. The useful signal is the residual: how far a team sits above or below the line its offense predicts.

Teams above the line are streaky — they freeze more than an offense that good should. A top-60 team that droughts like a mid-major is a fragile-favorite flag the ranking alone can’t see. Teams below the line are steady — they grind out possessions more reliably than their efficiency implies.

Coverage: this view covers 235 of 366 D1 teams with enough games — the ones whose name resolves to a KenPom row. The unmatched tail (mostly name-variant mismatches) is excluded, not silently folded in. Extreme residuals also skew toward low-majors (small samples, weaker schedules); the Power 4 filter isolates the credible high-major outliers.