Editor's Note: Over the course of this multi-part series, we're diving deep into UVa's recent results in the NCAA Tournament and breaking down the data to see what myths can be busted and what long-term lessons can be taken away.

Today we focus on scoring. You can check out the first installment on the recent wins and losses as well as how regular-season success compares to the tournament results by clicking here.

When pouring through these numbers, one detail stuck out: Teams rarely win games when they don’t get to 60 points.

Virginia fans have grown accustomed to winning slugfests in the 50s, sometimes even in the 40s. And those defensive struggles have often gone UVa’s way, even if the Hoos didn’t play their best offensive game. Since 2014, they are 36-17 in games where they fail to reach 60 points. They have been even better in games where they score between 60 and 65, and there have been a lot of those games.

When the Cavaliers score in the low 60s in regular-season games, they are 51-13, an 80 percent win percentage. But when they are scoring, they are nearly impossible to beat. In the last eight regular seasons, UVa is 97-10 when scoring 66 points or more. And although fans are used to lower-scoring games, it’s worth remembering that 66 is a relatively modest point total for nearly every team in the sport. Teams often get to the high 60s and lose by wide margins.

So how does Virginia’s scoring translate to tournament success? Just as they are in the regular season, the Cavaliers are dominant in March when they score 66 or more. UVa is 10-0 when scoring 66+ in the NCAA Tournament under Tony Bennett. While UVa has scored between 60 and 65 points in 64 regular-season games in eight years, the Hoos have done so just three times in the NCAA’s. They have gone 2-1 in those games, with wins over Oklahoma and Auburn in the 2019 title run, and the heartbreaking loss to Syracuse in 2016, when the Hoos scored 62.

But while the Cavaliers have gotten by in the regular season in games where they haven’t made it to 60 points, that success has not translated to the NCAA’s. UVa has won more than two-thirds of its games scoring under 60 in the regular season but has been a dismal 1-6 in NCAA Tournament games scoring 59 or less.

This is a bonafide trend for Bennett’s teams. In six of their seven NCAA losses, the Wahoos have scored 59 or less. When scoring less than 60 points, they lose. When scoring 60 or more—again, a modest output at best—the Cavaliers are 12-1, with the lone loss coming to a Syracuse team that had a 1.8 percent win probability with nine minutes to go in the game and needed a 25-4 run just to sneak by with a W.

This 60-point plateau isn’t necessarily a product of UVa’s tempo or just a problem the Hoos have faced, either. In the first two rounds of this year’s tournament (48 total games), only one team won scoring less than 60 points: No. 14-seed Abilene Christian shocking 3rd-seeded Texas 53-51 in the First Round.

In the 2019 Tournament, UVa’s 53-49 win over Oregon in the Sweet Sixteen was the only such game. And in 2018, only four games out of 63 were won by a team scoring less than 60; Kansas State’s two wins (including a 50-43 win over No. 16-seed UMBC) and two wins of Loyola-Chicago’s Cinderella run to the Final Four. More on them in a bit.

Scoring in the low 60s isn’t exactly safe territory either. Only 10 winners in the 63-game tournament in 2019 were won by teams scoring between 60 and 65 and two of those wins belonged to Virginia. Another was Texas Tech’s win over Michigan State in the Final Four. Some 52 of the 63 winners scored 66 points or more. In the 2018 and 2019 Tournaments, there were eight games where both teams reached 80 points.

Based on these numbers, a gambler could make a lot of money parlaying UVa with the over total in NCAA games or pairing its opponent with the under.

Tomorrow: Separating the hot takes from the realities for UVa hoops

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