It’s a long-standing question in basketball. Are slow-paced teams at risk of an upset more than fast-paced teams? It was particularly relevant this season, as Virginia and Cincinnati entered the tournament among the favorites to make a title run. And I was pretty excited to write this piece this week, anticipating that both teams would be a part of the national discussion.



But Cincinnati and Virginia didn’t make it to the second weekend in events that don’t need to be rehashed here. Now we are left to pick up the pieces of history and continue to wonder whether playing slow, low-scoring games is a suboptimal way to try and win a championship.



Indeed, it’s long been a thought among basketball people, whether their worldview was influenced by analytics or not, that playing high-possession games gives the favorite more opportunities to demonstrate its superiority. I’ll let North Carolina’s plain-spoken coach Roy Williams explain it...