We never want turnovers. But let’s face it, you never have a game with zero turnovers. Even if you’re blowing out a team, you’ll have a fast break that ends with a pass sailing out of bounds. The question is how many turnovers are we ok with?
Let’s first define turnover percentage. It’s an estimate of how many turnovers would occur per 100 possessions. The importance of looking at it per 100 possessions lies in the fact that not every team plays at the same pace and therefore a team may average more possessions per game than another but that’s more of a function of their pace than just sloppy play.
Looking at the last ten champs on the men’s side, here’s what we end up with:
| Men’s Division | Turnover % |
| NCAA D1 | 14.2% |
| NCAA D3 | 14.5% |
| NCAA D2 | 14.8% |
| NAIA D2 | 15.7% |
| NAIA D1 | 16.1% |
Meanwhile on the women’s side:
| Women’s Division | Turnover % |
| NCAA D1 | 15.8% |
| NCAA D3 | 16.8% |
| NAIA D1 | 16.8% |
| NCAA D2 | 17.5% |
| NAIA D2 | 18.0% |
Let’s put this in further perspective, by looking at the turnover percentage of their opponents and the difference:
| Men’s Division | Opp. Turnover % | Difference |
| NCAA D2 | 18.8% | 4.0% |
| NCAA D3 | 18.0% | 3.5% |
| NCAA D1 | 17.3% | 3.0% |
| NAIA D1 | 18.6% | 2.6% |
| NAIA D2 | 18.1% | 2.3% |
| Women’s Division | Opp. Turnover % | Difference |
| NCAA D3 | 25.8% | 9.0% |
| NCAA D1 | 21.7% | 5.9% |
| NAIA D1 | 22.5% | 5.7% |
| NCAA D2 | 23.1% | 5.5% |
| NAIA D2 | 23.2% | 5.2% |
In the tables above, you can see that while the women’s turnover percentages are higher than the men’s, the difference between their opponents’ percentages and theirs is significantly higher than on the men’s side indicating the champions on the women’s side are dominating their opponents much more than on the men’s side.
Remember this is for the whole season, not just during the NCAA tournament so there a number of factors that go into these numbers. However, it should provide you with a pretty good baseline of where you want your team to be next season. And it starts by being on the positive side of this difference.