There are Thrill Scores and then there are Thrill Scores.
Arizona and Michigan promise to give us the game of a lifetime when the Wildcats and Wolverines tip-off Saturday night in the Final Four.
And KenPom has the receipts to prove it well before the opening tip.
THE THRILL…WHAT?
What’s a Thrill Score, you ask?
The highly-trusted college basketball database KenPom tracks its adjusted efficiency ratings going back to the 1996-97 season, formulating a unique score per team based on multiple variables. Those ratings are then run through another algorithm to produce a game rating aka Thrill Score.
In layman’s terms, it’s the measure of how strong a game should be.
Michigan enters Saturday’s contest in Indianapolis with a +39.02 KenPom efficiency, while Arizona clocks in with a +38.76 mark making them the No. 3 and 4 rated teams in KenPom history, respectively.
History. Not just this year. History.
Only two teams rank above the Wildcats and Wolverines all-time on this list and both of them are, of course, Duke between the 1998-1999 and 2024-25 Blue Devils squads.
That guarantees a slam dunk national championship for whomever emerges victorious in the Final Four, right?
Ehhh. Don’t book your victory parade plans quite yet.
Of the top-8 all-time KenPom rated teams, only two of them went on to claim a March Madness title…with Arizona or Michigan soon to be joining the other four that fell short.
The 2024 UConn Huskies handled their business with a championship, as did the 2001 Blue Devils.
The rest is heartache and the haunts of what could have been.
That highest rated KenPom team ever, Duke lost its 32-game win streak and the 1999 national title to UConn in upset fashion. The top-rated Blue Devils also lost in last year’s Final Four to Houston, while the 2015 Kentucky Wildcats underperformed and was stung by Wisconsin.
And who can forget the 2021 Gonzaga team that ran the table…until they faced Baylor in the NCAA championship game.
GREAT ON PAPER AND HARDWOOD
Michigan is No. 1 in the country with 16 wins over top-50 KenPom opponents. Arizona follows closely behind with 15. In fact, the Wolverines’ emphatic win over Tennessee in the Elite Eight was enough to eke Michigan slightly ahead of the Wildcats entering the weekend in Indy.
It’s that close between these two teams.
But is having two of the top four all-time rated teams playing in this year’s Final Four a sign of pure, historic dominance or a symbol of the new era in college basketball? Especially considering last year’s Duke squad is No. 2 on the list.
The evolution of the game has sped up in recent years, courtesy of NIL money, the transfer portal and the 2024 closing of the NBA G-League Ignite. The talent is funneling up.
THE LANDING
Every single March Madness champion over the past decade entered the tournament with a KenPom rating that ranked in the top three for that season.
Duke entered this year’s tournament ranked No. 3, according to KenPom. With the Blue Devils back home on campus, that leaves Arizona and Michigan as the frontrunners…if we’re to follow the data.
And as we all know in March, data can sometimes get thrown out the window along with the madness.
