Looking back at the Midwest Region 1st/2d Rounds…
Best Game: undoubtedly the game of the Tourney thus far, the Ohio St.-Siena game had not one, but two, game-changing threes by the underdog Saints to keep their hopes alive.
Shocker: Wake Forest’s complete and utter failure to show up for its game against Cleveland St. last Friday night. With three first-rounders on the team, there is no excuse for a team to be this mentally out of it (which they were much of the last six weeks of the season).
Cinderella That’s Not Really One: Arizona was one of the last teams invited to the Dance, but we all knew that their talent was better than most #12 seeds if they could just put it together. They received a favorable draw in the first two rounds, playing an overrated #5 Utah team and a true Cinderella #13 Cleveland St., but if they really want to impress us, beat Louisville tomorrow night.
Region MVP (so far): Cole Aldrich, Kansas. A player who gets a trip-dub automatically wins the MVP from us. Aldrich terrorized Dayton for 13/20/10 blks on Sunday.
We’re back with the second annual review of how the major conferences are doing after one weekend of the NCAA Tournament. As we all are aware, the Dance eliminates the pretenders – that means you, Wake and Washington – so that the teams with legitimate chops remain standing. Chalk has predominantly ruled this tournament so far, but that doesn’t keep us from evaluating which conferences are performing better or worse than expectations. We review the conferences with multiple bids below…
Big East (7 bids, 5 remaining, 11-2 record)
The Big East was the most powerful conference all year and they are proving it in the postseason. West Virginia was the only first round loser, and Marquette was outlasted by a tough-as-nails Missouri team in the second round. All other Big East teams advanced to the Sweet Sixteen, setting a new record for the total number from one conference (5). What’s more is that each of these teams are F4-caliber; there isn’t a single Cinderella in the group. It wouldn’t surprise us if this league managed to get 75% of the F4 entrants this year, and we fully expect all five to play into the national quarterfinals.
Verdict: A. The Big East’s expected # of wins for the tournament is 16.2, and there’s a solid chance that the league will bust through twenty wins this season in setting another new record.
Big 12 (6 bids, 3 remaining, 9-3 record)
For the second consecutive year, the Big 12 had another great first round (6-0), culminating in their three best teams making it to the Sweet Sixteen. The league hasn’t had an upset yet, and the three losing teams – Texas, Oklahoma St., and Texas A&M, acquitted themselves nicely in five of their six games (lone exception: TAMU vs. UConn). Kansas, Missouri and Oklahoma all have tough but winnable games if they play well, and the Big 12 should reasonably expect to see one of them playing into next weekend. For a “down” year in the league, this is a great performance.
Verdict: A. The Big 12 already has nine wins against an expected performance of 10.57 wins, which basically means they’re doing really well so far.
Atlantic 10 (3 bids, 1 remaining, 3-2 record)
The A10 got three teams into the Dance and made the most of its opportunity, winning two first round games (one an upset with #11 Dayton over #6 WVU), and sending Xavier to yet another Sweet Sixteen. We don’t feel that XU has much of a chance to advance the league’s banner further against Pitt, but never count out a Sean Miller team. Xaviercruised to the Sweets against two good teams.
Verdict: A-. The league was expected to win 2.52 games and they’ve already won three, so anything beyond that is gravy. How pathetic is it that the A10 is outperforming the SEC by a country mile?
Horizon (2 bids, 0 remaining, 1-2 record)
The Horizon had a chance to make some serious noise in this Tournament, but typically-solid Butler couldn’t hold up its end of the bargain when it lost to #8 LSU (who was probably underseeded). However, Cleveland St. so far has had the upset of the Dance with its throttling of #4 Wake Forest, so we’re going to give them the benefit of the doubt here.
First Weekend Storylines. Like most of you guys, we figure we watched approximately 38 hours of basketball last weekend over the first four days of the NCAA Tournament. Since we were in Vegas taking advantage of the sportsbooks’ multiple huge-screen tvs, we pretty much saw pieces of every game on the dance card. Here are some of our thoughts and observations based on the sensory overload (speaking of sensory, that chick making bedroom eyes at the burger in the McDonald’s commercial is ridiculously difficult to remove from the internal hard drive).
Coach K, Your Filet o’ Sole Has Arrived. From our point of view, at least in terms of the elite teams of each conference, there was never any question that the Big East was much stronger than that of the ACC this year. The fact that anyone was even questioning this seemed odd. This year, the Big East had six teams (of seven bids) with a reasonable shot to make a run at the F4 – UConn, Pitt, Syracuse, Louisville, Villanova and Marquette, and the first five of that group is still standing (the most ever by a single conference in the Sweets, btw); the ACC had three (of seven bids) – Duke, UNC and Wake Forest, but only the twin towers of Tobacco Road royalty are left dancing. The simple fact of the matter is that the ACC’s middle – comprised of Clemson, Florida St., Maryland, BC and Virginia Tech (NIT) – were only “solid” teams that had significant weaknesses due to personnel or other issues. Conversely, the equivalent caliber teams from the Big East (with the notable exception of WVU) were left out of the Big Dance. This group includes Providence, Cincinnati, Georgetown and Notre Dame, and there shouldn’t be any dissent as to the fact that each of these teams would have competed for the middle of the ACC with the above group and several would have also earned bids on the basis of the occasional upset (see: Maryland and BC). Sitting where we are now, with five Big East teams a mere two wins away from the F4, it wouldn’t shock us to see all four slots filled by a BE team. This is still an unlikely scenario, but keep in mind that only Villanova is considered an underdog to reach the next round (Syracuse is a pick’em against Oklahoma), and all five of these teams are more than capable.
#1 Seeds. UConn looked absolutely dominant in its two games, and while not much can be discerned from a 56-pt dismantling of Chattanooga, the 92-66 beatdown of a Texas A&M team that was coming on strong must be viewed with awe. The Huskies will get the best team in the Big Ten next – Purdue – but we have trouble believing that the Boilers will challenge Jim Calhoun’s team at this point. Suddenly a #1/#2 matchup against Memphis in the regional finals looks very appealing. UNC bombed Radford in its first round game before riding a partisan crowd’s energy and Ty Lawson’s toe to a breakaway win over LSU in the second round, 84-70. The Heels should put away Gonzaga easily in the next round (we doubt Heytvelt will dominate Hansbrough this time around), but a regional final against either Oklahoma or Syracuse could present all kinds of problems for the Tar Heels. Louisville and Pittsburgh both struggled to put opponents away in both their first and second round games. Both of these teams sometimes have trouble scoring, and we have to wonder when a prolonged scoring drought against a good team will be enough to end their run to the title. Pitt should have a relatively easy go of it with its next game against Xavier, but we’re looking at Louisville’s next game against Arizona and wondering what might happen if the trio of Budinger, Wise and Hill are all making shots.
Continuing on into the second round of the Mascot Death Match… you can continue to vote on these throughout the early part of this week, and we’ll have the Sweet Sixteen Matchups up on Thursday.
For the 2d Round Saturday Matches, click here.
After a thrilling finish last night that made Demetri Goodson a household name for at least a few days, we think the tournament has officially begun. Even being fairly selective, we think there are at least 3 outstanding games today. Here’s a quick rundown of the games we’ll be covering tomorrow:
A couple thoughts on the scheduling: (1) It’s nice to see the early finish for those of us who have to work on Monday morning and (2) I think the NCAA and CBS might have finally figured out the spacing issue. Outside of the early game, I don’t think there should be any point during the other 2 sets of games where we have all the games at halftime. I’m guessing the NCAA and/or CBS must have hired a bunch of McKinsey consultants at $500/hr to figure out how to stagger the games. Now I’m looking at it without a fancy Excel model, but this looks like a reasonable set-up, which should get the job done, but I’ve been wrong before. . .
12:08 PM: One piece of big news from the morning: Dominic James has been cleared to play today. I’m not sure what kind of experimental medical techniques they have up at Marquette, but that’s a shocking piece of news. I’d be surprised if he could even go 10 minutes today as he was expected to be out for at least 2 months when he broke his foot (don’t remember which bone) back on Febraury 25th, but we will wait and see.
12:25 PM: This game looks like it should be fairly entertaining and competitive. Interesting back story about Jonny Flynn and James Harden. I know the old school guys won’t like it, but with the growth of AAU and all these summer camps I think it should be expected that stuff like that will happen.
12:30 PM: For those of you who questioned my earlier assertion that the arenas looked dead this year, the NCAA is backing me up. I guess it should be somewhat expected with the economy although most tickets are purchased via the lottery well in advance. The 50% in Miami is appalling though. One more thing to remember about these numbers. . .they reflect the number of tickets purchased not the attendance. I’m sure there are a lot of tickets that have been purchased by ticket brokers that have not been purchased by people who actually go to the games.
12:40 PM: As talented as Harden is, I really question his tendency to disappear for long stretches. Is he unable to play hard for 40 minutes or is he “letting the game come to him”?
12:47 PM: Arizona State is getting run out of the gym right now. I wonder how much the early start hurts the West Coast teams here. I’m not sure if any of you have data on this.
12:50 PM: We just posted the next part of our Mascot Challnege. Be sure to vote for your favorite mascots and help him/her win the national title.
12:52 PM: Rihards Kuksiks is single-handedly keeping the Sun Devils in this game with 15 of their first 30 points. Syracuse goes into half with a 41-32 lead. Harden still doesn’t have a point. If I’m a NBA GM, his tendency to do this drops him a few spots on my board.
We’d like to apologize for our coverage yesterday. We had some technical/communication issues regarding the post yesterday, but I’ll be back covering the games today so everything should be back to normal. Here’s a quick rundown of the games we’ll be covering today:
Early Games
Afternoon Games
Evening Games
Late Night Games
Quite frankly, today’s slate looks a lot more interesting than what was on yesterday. There are 3 games in each of the 4 groups that seem like they will be entertaining except for the afternoon set where only the 6/11 match-ups really catch my eyes. Feel free to leave your thoughts or questions on any of these games or the ones from yesterday in the comment section. I’ll be back around noon to cover the day’s action.
12:15 PM: Ok. We’re about to get underway. I was a little delayed by the fact that the bus to RTC East decided to pick up 3 people in wheelchairs, which slowed down my trip significantly (had to get them in/out during 6 stops). Is anybody rooting for Stephen F. Austin just because they can’t stand Eric Devendorf?
12:20 PM: “The best look the Lumberjacks have had so far”? That was only their 2nd possession of the game. The crows is awful in Miami. I know its early, but there is nobody there. I have to say the NCAA did a pretty poor job with their pod placement. I’ll have to double check, but Miami is probably the worst pod location in terms of distance from the participating schools (and the fact that they don’t care about sports in Miami).
12:30 PM: Rough start for Stephen F. Austin in Miami. Already down 10-2. Hopefully they can keep it close although this was probably the game that was the most likely to be a blowout in this group.
12:35 PM: Did anybody pick upsets in this group of games? I have North Dakota State and Utah State.
12:40 PM: Good game in Dayton (Ok State 14, Tennessee 13 with 12:20 left in the first half). In Boise, Lazar Hayward is up 7-5 on Utah State.
MIDWEST REGION PREVIEW (by Zach Hayes)
#1 Louisville vs. #16 Morehead State
For Louisville to win: It’s pretty simple for Louisville in this 1-16 matchup: do exactly what has gotten you to the point of receiving the #1 overall seed in the tournament. They shouldn’t have much problem playing their usual lockdown defense, employing their frantic press and letting the pure athletic ability of guys like Earl Clark and Terrence Williams completely overwhelm the star-struck Eagles.
For Morehead State to win: The triumphant winners of the inaugural Play-In game, Morehead State will need a God-delivered miracle to prevail over Louisville. They hope their stud big man Kenneth Faried (13.9 PPG, 13.1 RPG) can push around Clark, Williams and Samardo Samuels enough inside where it becomes a guard-oriented shooting contest. Hope that Edgar Sosa, Preston Knowles, Andre McGee and Co. reverts back to their November shooting woes and pull off the monumental upset.
#8 Ohio State vs. #9 Siena
For Ohio State to win: The Buckeyes will need to play steady, Big Ten-like team defense on Siena’s trio of scorers and run a bunch of isolation plays down the stretch for their superstar Evan Turner (17.1 PPG, 7.0 RPG). At times Turner can penetrate and score at will; Siena simply does not have that type of talent on their roster. They also need to utilize B.J. Mullens inside due to Siena’s lack of height.
For Siena to win: The Saints have been led all season by their own Big Three- Kenny Hansbrouck, Edwin Ubiles and Alex Franklin. Receive balanced scoring out of those three like they’ve perfected all season (all average between 14.8 and 13.6 PPG) and they could surely take down the Buckeyes. The Saints will also be shorthanded inside trying to box out bodies like Dallas Lauderdale and B.J. Mullens. They’ll need Ryan Rossiter and Franklin to pound the boards constantly.
#5 Utah vs. #12 Arizona
For Utah to win: Luke Nevill outplaying Jordan Hill would be nice. Seriously, this is one of the best first-round matchups in the entire tournament. If Nevill can get Hill into foul trouble, the entire complexity of this game changes. Nic Wise and Chase Budinger love shooting it from the outside and the Utes wouldn’t mind getting into a three-point contest with Shaun Green and Lawrence Borha both over 40% from downtown.
For Arizona to win: Even though Arizona is the 12-seed, not many would refute that the Wildcats have the superior talent in this game. They can escape all of the regular season’s distractions now and out-talent the Utes. Nic Wise needs to have a quality outing for Arizona to win; when he’s hitting threes and running the offense with ease, Budinger gets open shots, Hill gets touches inside and Arizona can beat anyone.
#4 Wake Forest vs. #13 Cleveland State
For Wake Forest to win: The Demon Deacons need to avoid underestimating a clearly inferior opponent. As with losses to Georgia Tech, NC State and Virginia Tech, the young Deacons have played down to their competition. The Vikings went into the Carrier Dome and won this season when Syracuse did the same thing. Hopefully Jeff Teague and James Johnson come out right away with a fire in their collective bellies.
For Cleveland State to win: One thing Wake Forest does not do well at all is make threes. Their entire offensive game is generated by penetration and mid-range jump shooting. Coach Gary Waters should pop in the game film from Wake’s latest loss to Maryland and examine how the Terps chopped up the inconsistent Deacon defense. Cedric Jackson is the perfect point guard to lead the way.
#6 West Virginia vs. #11 Dayton
For West Virginia to win: The Mountaineers simply need to play like they did last weekend in the Big East tournament. Set screens to free deadeye shooter Alex Ruoff, let DaSean Butler work his multi-faceted offensive game, continue to witness Devin Ebanks mature into an elite scorer and rebounder and hope Darryl Bryant keeps distributing like a senior.
For Dayton to win: It’s going to be awfully difficult as West Virginia seems to be picking up steam lately and you know Bob Huggins will have them prepared and intense. Not only will stars Chris Wright and Marcus Johnson need to play outstanding games, but their deep bench must contribute offensively. It’s all about keeping West Virginia off the boards and hoping Ruoff has a bad day from the outside. If that happens, the Mountaineers can look very confused offensively.
#3 Kansas vs. #14 North Dakota State
For Kansas to win: Ben Woodside is not only the Bison’ top scorer, he’s the engine behind their incredibly efficient and unselfish offensive game plan. He’s quite a task for Sherron Collins in the first game of the tournament. If Collins can shut down Woodside on the defensive end, North Dakota State should have trouble scoring with the Morris twins, Cole Aldrich and others blocking shots inside. This young Jayhawk team will live and die with the play of their junior leader Collins.
For North Dakota State to win: They need to play some semblance of tough defense. We all know the Bison can score points in bunches and have some prolific offensive options, but the only way the Bison will be fitted for Cinderella’s slipper is if they can contain slashers Collins and Tyshawn Taylor and bang bodies with the Morris twins and Aldrich. If they fall behind early, it is imperative they stick with their offense that’s gotten them this far instead of panicking.
#7 Boston College vs. #10 Southern California
For Boston College to win: The Eagles can sometimes look really crappy on defense. The Trojans have so many weapons, BC needs to play inspired defense to win this game. The most arduous task will be to contain Taj Gibson inside with Joe Trapani and Josh Southern. Gibson has an NBA-body and tremendous scoring potential. Trapani and Southern must play defense inside similar to their effort in Chapel Hill when they knocked off the Tar Heels.
For Southern California to win: Stud freshman DeMar DeRozan played like a possessed man during the Pac-10 tournament and USC finally came together to play up to their potential. If DeRozan outplays Rakim Sanders and explodes to the rim with ease, the entire USC offense improves drastically. Defending Tyrese Rice will also clearly be imperative. Should Daniel Hackett hold Rice, the Trojans will win.
#2 Michigan State vs. #15 Robert Morris
For Michigan State to win: The Spartans clearly have enough talent to win this 2-15 game easily. If only a couple of their many weapons are flowing offensively, they should be fine. Izzo’s boys are also in the top ten in defense and rebounding. Overwhelm the Colonials with the talent of Lucas, Morgan, Suton, Summers and they’ll prevail by 20+.
For Robert Morris to win: For the Colonials to pull another Duke-Belmont 2-15 scare, they’ll need to play their usually efficient offensive game. Their entire team shoots 48% from the floor and Jeremy Chappell is especially remarkable- 16.9 PPG, 6.3 RPG, 47% FG, 85% FT, 41% 3PT, 2.5 SPG as one of the most unheralded all-around players in the nation. If Chappell has a monster performance and Michigan State can’t get into any flow offensively, the Colonials have a shot.
Siena (#9, Midwest, Dayton pod)
vs. Ohio St. (#8)
Mar. 20 @ 9:40pm
Vegas Line: Siena +3
General Profile
Location: Albany/Loudonville, New York
Conference: Metro Atlantic — Tournament Champion
Coach: Fran McCaffery, hired 2005. Record at Siena = 84-43
08-09 Record: 26-7 (16-2)
Last 12 Games: 10-2, won 4
Best Win: vs Northern Iowa (Missouri Valley tournament champion), 81-75 — 2/21/09
Worst Loss: vs Wichita State, 70-72 — 11/28/08
Off. Efficiency Rating: 110.4 (48th)
Def. Efficiency Rating: 97.3 (92nd)
Nuts n Bolts
Star Player(s): Kenny Hasbrouck, 14.2 ppg, 3.2 rpg (though Edwin Ubiles has played as well, statistically)
Unsung Hero: Ryan Rossiter, 10.0 ppg, 7.8 rpg, 1.2 spg.
Potential NBA Draft Pick(s): Hasbrouck
Key Injuries: Hasbrouck fought through a calf injury in the conference title game, but it won’t be a factor for their R1 game.
Depth: 21.3% mins (329th nationally)
Achilles Heel: Free throws. 66.2% is 254th nationally. Would you want to rely on that in a close one?
Will Make a Deep Run if…: They take nothing for granted. It’s one thing to score an upset when nobody’s watching. After last year’s upset of Vanderbilt, Siena will be a popular pick for another first-round ‘upset’ win; they won’t catch any opponents by surprise.
Will Make an Early Exit if…: Their shot selection is sub-par. Siena’s defense is mediocre at it’s best so their offensive efficiency will have to be exemplary to score another upset.
NCAA History
Last Year Invited: 2008. Whipped Vanderbilt 83-62 in R1 then lost to Villanova 72-84 in R2.
Streak: Second consecutive year.
Best NCAA Finish: R32 (1-1) in both 2008 and 1989.
Historical Performance vs. Seed (1985-present): N/A
Other
Six Degrees to Detroit: None
Distance to First Round Site: 678 miles
School’s Claim to Fame: 1) Producing a bevy of politicians and priests. 2) Mariska Hargitay’s character on “Law & Order: SVU” (Olivia Benson) graduated from Siena College.
School Wishes It Could Forget: That it produces a bevy of politicians. And, the UConn Blog reference on the cheerleader article below.
Prediction: As noted above, the Saints won’t be surprising anyone this time around. But Siena is tough, confident, and they know they can play with anyone. Still not a bad squad to latch onto if you’re looking for a first round upset; after that, it’ll depend on how the draw falls for them.
Major RTC stories: Feasting On Feast Week, Do Not Boo The Cheerleaders (No Matter How Ugly They Are)
Preview written by: John Stevens, Rush The Court.
When Ben Allaire isn’t drumming up meaningless college basketball statistics, he’s writing about the Virginia Cavaliers over at Dear Old UVa. RTC appreciates having Ben stop over this week to make some numerical sense of this year’s NCAA Tournament field.
A great man once said, “Our offense is like the Pythagorean theorem: There is no answer.”
Unfortunately, that man was Shaquille O’Neil and it’s funny because he couldn’t be wronger… er, more wrong.
The Pythagorean theorem does have an answer and it’s going to help us examine which teams are most consistent on offense and defense together. Last time, I gave you a scatterplot of all 65 teams’ consistency on offense and defense. Using the Pythagorean theorem (or you might say Euclid distance), I’m calculating the distance between each point on the plot and the origin (0,0). We’ll call this distance: Pythagorean Consistency (PC for short).
This will combine the two measures into one and tell us exactly how consistent a team is. Now, remember as I said last time, this isn’t necessarily a measure of who’s best. If you want that, kenpom.com has a myriad of ways of determining it. It’s a measure of who performs according to expectation.
Let’s glance at the top and bottom ten list:
Note: Conference in parentheses; seed in brackets. Data source: kenpom.com
I find this to be a fascinating list.
Overnight 5: February 16, 2023
2021-22 Rush The Court Preseason All-America TeamsRTC 16: 2021-2022 Pre-Season Rankings
Preseason Stock Report: Buy Now
Preseason Stock Report: Bear Market
2020-21 Rush the Court All-America Teams and Yearly AwardsEight Questions for the Final FourEight Key Questions for the Sweet Sixteen16 Questions For First Round Saturday of the NCAA Tournament16 Questions for First Round Friday of the NCAA Tournament
