Illinois' defense, net efficiency of top seeds Michigan and Arizona stand out entering Final Four

Offense had stood out all season for Illinois, only for the defense to step up in March Madness.

Arizona and Michigan have been part of college basketball's top tier all year with elite play at both ends of the court, and they've been even sharper at the offensive end in the NCAA Tournament.

Now that trio joins UConn for this week's Final Four in Indianapolis. The Huskies and Illini meet in Saturday’s first semifinal, followed by the Wolverines and Wildcats.

All four teams rank in the overall top 10 of data-driven college basketball rankings for KenPom, Evan Miyakawa and Bart Torvik going into the Final Four. That includes the Wolverines and Wildcats ranking 1-2 for all three currently, as well as posting some of KenPom's best net-efficiency rankings ever recorded.

Illinois (28-8) entered the NCAA tourney ranked second in KenPom's adjusted offensive efficiency by averaging 131.2 points per 100 possessions while ranking just 28th in defense (99.1). Yet the South Region champion's defense has allowed .976 points per possession in the NCAA Tournament to lead the remaining four teams.

“We’ve been very good throughout the season at times,” coach Brad Underwood said before the regional final win against Iowa. “We just haven’t been that consistent.”

Illinois allowed Penn, VCU, Houston and Iowa to score on just 41.2% of their possessions. The Illini also dominated the glass (plus-16.3 per game) to grab the rebounds that completed those defensive stops.

They've done it all with the nation's tallest roster, with seven players from Saturday's eight-man rotation standing 6-foot-6 or taller. That has included an influx of European talent, including Croatian twins Tomislav (7-1) and Zvonimir Ivisic (7-2), as well as 6-9 forward David Mirkovic from Montenegro. The outlier among that big lineup, 6-2 senior guard Kylan Boswell, is a strong backcourt defender.

UConn (33-5), meanwhile, has scored on 52.2% of its possessions going back to the second-round win against UCLA, with a high of 54% in Sunday's comeback from 19 down to shock top overall tournament seed Duke.

Terrence Oglesby, an analyst with ESPN and Field of 68, pointed to the Illini's ability to play in the gaps to disrupt offenses trying to move the ball and space the floor to create mismatches or lanes.

“Positionally, they're just elite on top of being massive,” said Oglesby, a former Clemson player. “You go to the Balkans to grab all these guys, and they're huge and they've also been well coached coming all the way up. ... The good part about being pretty gap-heavy is the fact that if you're huge, you can still get out to shooters."

Michigan (35-3) has the most efficient offense of the Final Four teams, averaging 1.361 points per possession in tournament wins over Howard, Saint Louis, Alabama and Tennessee to edge Arizona's similar average (1.341).

The Midwest Region champion became the first team to score 90 points in every game through to the Elite Eight since UConn did it in 1995 before falling 102-96 to eventual champion UCLA. Dusty May's Wolverines are shooting 55.9% through four games, including 44.6% (45 of 101) from 3-point range, and have scored on 60.4% of their tournament possessions.

Before the Sweet 16 win against Alabama, guard Roddy Gayle Jr. said May's system allows the Wolverines to play “super free.”

“He does a lot of free-flow offense,” star Yaxel Lendeborg said. “He has certain sets, but the sets aren’t necessarily for shots. It’s just for movement, just to get the defense out of their shell, and then attack off those mistakes."

The Wolverines' semifinal against fellow 1-seed Arizona (36-2) will pair teams with all-time great KenPom efficiency metrics.

KenPom bases efficiency on points scored or allowed over a standardized 100-possession pace to eliminate tempo as a factor. Overall rankings are determined by net efficiency in terms of how much a team’s offensive data outpaces its defensive numbers.

Michigan currently leads the country at plus-39.02 after the regionals, followed by Arizona at plus-38.76. By comparison, only two teams have finished a season with higher KenPom numbers going back to the 1996-97 season: Duke in 1998-99 (plus-43.01) and Duke last year (plus-39.29).

“These are these massive teams that also have enough shooting. but they’ve leaned into the everything else," Oglesby said. "They've leaned into the controllable aspects: rebounding, being big, being physical. ... I wouldn’t say that the championship game is Michigan and Arizona, but those two teams have just been a freight train going through.”

Neither of those high-efficiency Duke teams managed to cut down the nets. The first lost to UConn in the title game and the second fell a year ago to Houston in a late collapse in the national semifinals.

The season's final three games will pair strength-on-strength in the halfcourt.

The four teams have played man defense on 97.3% of their combined halfcourt possessions, according to Synergy. Arizona, Michigan and UConn all rated as “excellent” in the 91st percentile or better, while Illinois is rated “very good” in the 81st percentile.

Yet Synergy rates all of those teams as “excellent” in running halfcourt offense against man defense, with Illinois (97th percentile) and Michigan (96th) as the best.

The key for Saturday could be which teams can get out in transition to avoid tussling with set halfcourt defenses. That could favor Illinois (97th percentile) and Arizona (94th) as the top teams in transition offense with “excellent” ratings from Synergy.

AP March Madness bracket: https://apnews.com/hub/ncaa-mens-bracket and coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/march-madness

Iowa's Tavion Banks, center, goes up for a shot as Illinois' David Mirkovic (0) and Zvonimir Ivisic defend during the first half of an Elite Eight game in the NCAA college basketball tournament Saturday, March 28, 2026, in Houston. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

UConn guard Solo Ball scores over Duke guard Cayden Boozer, rear, during the second half in the Elite Eight of the NCAA college basketball tournament, Sunday, March 29, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough)

Michigan's Roddy Gayle Jr. (11), Yaxel Lendeborg (23) and Elliot Cadeau (3) celebrate during the first half in the Elite Eight of the NCAA college basketball tournament against Tennessee, Sunday, March 29, 2026, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Erin Hooley)

Arizona guard Brayden Burries (5) grabs a rebound during the second half in the Elite Eight of the NCAA college basketball tournament against Purdue, Saturday, March 28, 2026, in San Jose, Calif. (AP Photo/Godofredo A. Vásquez)

Arizona forward Koa Peat, center, shoots past Purdue center Oscar Cluff, left, during the second half in the Elite Eight of the NCAA college basketball tournament, Saturday, March 28, 2026, in San Jose, Calif. (AP Photo/Godofredo A. Vásquez)

NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks are sinking again Monday as oil prices keep climbing because of uncertainty about when the war with Iran could end.

The S&P 500 fell 0.7% and deepened its losses since the war began to pull 9.3% below its record set early this year. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 50 points, or 0.1%, as of 3:15 p.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 1.1% lower.

Caution was prevalent throughout financial markets. After jumping to an initial gain of 0.9%, the S&P 500 quickly erased nearly all of it before seesawing lower. Stock indexes rose in Europe but fell sharply in some Asian markets, while the price for a barrel of benchmark U.S. crude rose 3.3% to settle at $102.88

The mixed movements followed a whirlwind of action in the war over the weekend, including an entry into the fighting by Houthi rebels in Yemen. The main issue for investors is whether oil and natural gas can resume their full flow from the Persian Gulf to customers worldwide and prevent a brutal blast of inflation.

Shortly before the U.S. stock market opened for trading Monday, President Donald Trump said on his social media network that “great progress has been made” with “A NEW, AND MORE REASONABLE, REGIME to end our Military Operations in Iran.”

But he also threatened the possibility of “blowing up and completely obliterating” Iranian power plants if a deal is not reached shortly and if the Strait of Hormuz, an integral waterway for the flow of oil, is not opened immediately.

The statement fit and condensed last week’s pattern, where Trump would tout progress being made in talks and offer some optimism for the market, only for doubts to rise quickly afterward about whether the war can end soon.

All the back and forth has some investors saying they’re giving Trump’s pronouncements less weight than before. But stock prices are nevertheless cheaper than they were before the war, which has some investors waiting for an opportune time to buy.

The S&P 500 is roughly 9% below its all-time high, which was set in January. The Dow and Nasdaq both finished last week more than 10% below their records, a steep-enough fall that professional investors call it a “correction.”

Taking into account how much profits are expected to grow in the coming year for companies in the S&P 500, the index looks roughly 17% cheaper than before the war, by one measure. That’s in a similar range as where prior growth scares for the market ended, as long as they didn’t result in a recession or the Federal Reserve hiking interest rates, according to strategists at Morgan Stanley.

That’s one of the signs that the strategists led by Michael Wilson point to as “growing evidence the S&P 500 correction is getting closer to its ending stages.”

Of course, the Federal Reserve could upset that if it decides oil prices are threatening to stay high for long enough that it needs to raise interest rates. Higher interest rates would help keep a lid on inflation, but they would also slow the economy and push down on prices for all kinds of investments.

Treasury yields have been leaping in the bond market since the war began because of such worries, but they eased somewhat on Monday.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 4.34% from 4.44% late Friday. That’s a significant move for the bond market and offers some breathing room for Wall Street. But it remains far above its 3.97% level from before the war.

On Wall Street, Sysco fell 15.5% to help lead the market lower after it said it was buying Jetro Restaurant Depot for $21.6 billion in cash and enough Sysco shares to value the company at about $29.1 billion.

Alcoa rose 6.5% for one of the market’s biggest gains on speculation it could get more business after attacks damaged rival aluminum facilities in the Middle East over the weekend.

In stock markets abroad, the FTSE 100 in London climbed 1.6%, and the CAC 40 in Paris rose 0.9%. That followed drops of 3% for Seoul’s Kospi, 2.8% for Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 and 0.8% for Hong Kong’s Hang Seng.

AP Business Writers Yuri Kageyama and Matt Ott and AP journalist Ayaka McGill contributed to this report.

This story has been corrected to show that the S&P 500 finished last week 8.7% below its record.

Christopher Lagana, left, and Dilip Patel work on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange in New York, Monday, March 30, 2026. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

Bobby Charmak works on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange in New York, Monday, March 30, 2026. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

People walk past the New York Stock Exchange, Friday, March 27, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)

A general view shows the New York Stock Exchange, Friday, March 27, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)

Workers walk in an area at a degassing station in Zubair oil field, whose operations have being reduced due to the Mideast war triggered by the U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran, near Basra, Iraq, Saturday, March 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)

A person walks by an electronic stock board showing Japan's Nikkei index in Tokyo Monday, March 30, 2026. (Yusuke Hashizume/Kyodo News via AP)

A dealer walks near the screens showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI), the foreign exchange rate between U.S. dollar and South Korean won and the Korean Securities Dealers Automated Quotations (KOSDAQ) at a dealing room of Hana Bank in Seoul, South Korea, Monday, March 30, 2026. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)

Dealers work near the screens showing the foreign exchange rates at a dealing room of Hana Bank in Seoul, South Korea, Monday, March 30, 2026. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)

Dealers work near the screens showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI), right, and the foreign exchange rate between U.S. dollar and South Korean won at a dealing room of Hana Bank in Seoul, South Korea, Monday, March 30, 2026. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)