Win On the Scoreboard
The New York Knicks just completed a historic championship run, defeating the San Antonio Spurs 4–1 in the NBA Finals, and raucously celebrating today with a parade down Broadway.
If you paid even glancing attention to the finals, you likely saw some eye-popping stats. One in particular caught my attention:
Across the five games played in the series, the Spurs led for 72.3% of all minutes played.
Think about that. For nearly three-quarters of the series, the Spurs were ahead. More time leading. More stretches of control. More opportunities to win.
And yet, they lost the series in five games.
Trophy Made of Fool’s Gold
Throughout the playoffs, the Knicks were a bit of a statistical paradox. They didn’t always dominate the box score. They weren’t always cleaner, sharper, or more efficient.
This ‘statistics vs. reality’ discrepancy even led to a now-infamous statement from the Cleveland Cavaliers head coach after a loss to the Knicks earlier in the playoffs. Referring to the statistical probability of which team will win, he said, “I think analytically, I think we've won…two out of three [games] in expected wins.” This was said seriously. After losing all three games.
Sports have a way of clarifying what matters – which stats are signals, and which are noise.
But only one determines who advances.
The scoreboard.
Application Rich, Enrollment Poor
Higher education has a similar dynamic.
The industry is awash in data—applications, discount rates, inquiry volume, admit rates, open rates, retention rates, click-through rates, campus visits, engagement scores. All can be useful. But too often, institutions elevate supporting metrics into primary goals, confusing the side character for the hero.
That’s when strategy gets blurry.
One of the clearest examples is discount rate. We’ve worked with many institutions where leadership—sometimes cabinets, sometimes boards—becomes intensely focused on keeping discount rate low. On paper, this sounds wise – disciplined, efficient, responsible.
But discount rate is not the scoreboard.
Net tuition revenue is.
A lower discount rate that suppresses enrollment and produces less revenue is not a win. It may look cleaner. It may satisfy board interests. But if enrollment and revenue missed the mark, what exactly was protected?
This kind of thinking shows up elsewhere:
A surge in applications can look like momentum. But if yield declines and enrollment drops, was demand actually stronger or was the top of the funnel merely wider?
Adding academic programs feels like progress and implies modernization. But if new programs don’t produce additive enrollment, has the institution benefitted or simply re-shuffled headcount?
Higher open rates on email campaigns can feel like marketing success. But if inquiry-to-app conversion or app-to-enroll conversion doesn’t move, the scoreboard remains unchanged.
This doesn’t mean those metrics don’t matter, but they should be used differently.
Wheat | Chaff
Some metrics are diagnostic. They help explain performance.
Others are outcomes. They define performance.
Confusing the two can lead to bad strategy – focusing on things that feel like progress without actually improving results.
The Knicks didn’t need to lead for most of the Finals. They just needed to lead when the clock hit zero.
The same is true in higher education.
Track the supporting metrics. Study them. Learn from them.
But more importantly, align on what success means—the “hero metric”—and then optimize for it.
That’s how you win where it counts.