Correlations Efficiency Halves & timeouts 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 offensive efficiency (Barttorvik, KenPom-style) and ranks the teams that defy the trend.

−0.69

offense vs drought correlation: efficient offenses drought less

236

teams matched, of 365 D1 (ratings crosswalk)

Maryland Terrapins

streakiest vs efficiency: +0.64 droughts/gm over expected

Tier

236 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	1.45	−0.48
High Point Panthers	93	0.77	1.24	−0.47

Reading the chart

Better offenses go cold less, across the 236 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 236 of 365 D1 teams with enough games, the ones whose name resolves to a ratings 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.