Quote of the night from Ad: "If only we still had Dragicevich." Never thought I'd hear that.
9:50 PM
Wow.
For the second time in the last five years, Georgetown got run off the court by a significantly lower seed. FGCU got undeniably hot, but they almost made a handful of plays that were more impressive than anything Georgetown did all night. I don't know if their performance tops the 1997 Coppin State squad for the best 15-seed of all time, but it is at the very least close. Neither SDSU or Oklahoma are particularly great, so I would give the Eagles a decent chance of playing until next weekend.
I forget where I heard it from, but I heard a theory a few years ago about JTIII that I'm getting closer and closer to believing. He's a great coach with a unique system that he implements well with the top talent that he recruits. However, if a team comes at him with something challenging then he seems to have trouble adjusting. Georgetown pretty consistently had trouble creating scoring opportunities out of the half-court offense and looked dynamic when they ran the floor, but they never emphasized the fast break and as a result came up several three point buckets short. It's entirely possible that the Hoyas have just been unlucky to run into a few buzzsaws over the years, but at this point we have to start wondering about JTIII's ability to live up to his father's reputation.
Now, GO IRISH!
7:45 PM
In between ridiculous Aaron Craft plays, I thought I would rank the announcing duos/trios:
#8: Kevin Harlan/Reggie Miller/Len Elmore - I've already discussed this, but I don't like these guys. It's a shame too, because this used to be Gus Johnson's crew. Gus isn't perfect like they hype surrounding him would have you believe, but March Madness was his literal forte.
#7: Spero Dedes/Doug Gottlieb - I like Gottlieb more than I dislike him, but he talks way too much. Once he gets settled in to announcing a little more, I think he could be an asset, but he's just a mess right now.
#6: Tim Brando/Mike Gminski - Meh.
#5: Ian Eagle/Jim Spanarkel - Slightly less meh.
#4: Marv Albert/Steve Kerr - I like these two a lot, but their lack of college experience hurts a bit, especially with Kerr.
#3: Brian Anderson/Dan Bonner - I'm probably a little biased towards Anderson from my time in Wisconsin (in a good way), but I do objectively like this crew. Anderson is a great jack of all trades.
#2: Jim Nantz/Clark Kellogg - Nantz clearly doesn't watch a ton of college basketball either, but he's so skilled at play by play duties that I don't think it matters. Kellogg isn't an all time great by any measure, but he's been an improvement over Billy Packer. These guys handle the big moments with aplomb.
#1: Verne Lundquist/Bill Raftery - Verne seems to be losing a step, but this crew still wins by a mile. Raftery combines personality and expertise so well, and the two share a great camaraderie.
7:15 PM
So Greg McDermott now has the same number of tournament wins at Creighton as Dana Altman does, except he did it in a quarter of the time. There's a lot of mitigating factors in there (Creighton's budget is higher now, Dana didn't have his progeny in tow, etc...), but I'm pleased with the job he's done.
I got back from a food run with about 6 minutes left in the Illinois-Colorado game. Colorado didn't score until there was 16 seconds left. So that went poorly for them.
This Georgetown-FGCU is an interesting test of the hypothesis I laid out earlier. Georgetown has a similar profile to Pitt and Wisconsin in that they are a defense-first team that plays at a very slow tempo. FGCU isn't quite the test that the other saw, but it'll be interesting to follow the Hoyas to see if they can buck the trend. The committee did no favors putting Florida in their half of the bracket, so we probably shouldn't be expecting an Elite Eight run anyway. Georgetown would have the best player in that potential matchup, but that's about the only advantage they would have.
They really shouldn't have Kevin Harlan and Marv Albert announce on the same day. It's too confusing. Also Kevin Harlan is terrible.
4:00 PM
Creighton goes into the half up 5. Here are some halftime thoughts:
- Well, that was far from flawless, but Creighton was at least able to show that their shooting prowess translates to games against mediocre Big East teams (12 for 19 shooting from the field). Grant Gibbs was pretty much worthless (0 points, 1 assist, 4 turnovers, 2 fouls), but everyone else brought something to the table offensively. The defense gave up a few too many open looks on the perimeter, but they mostly seemed to be trying to avoid doing stupid things like getting into foul trouble. On that front, they succeeded well only committing three fouls. Cincinnati had only three layups and no dunks, which confirms the hypothesis that this is the rare super-athletic jump shooting team.
- Echenique is getting some good opportunities down low largely because Cincinnati isn't bringing a help defender when he posts up. The nice thing about being such a good shooting team is that it frees up guys like Echenique. Hopefully, he can keep it up.
- Fun fact: Ethan Wragge is 77 for 173 from three on the season. He is also 5 for 11 from two. Announcers never fail to mention this imbalance, but it's so fascinating that I can't help but repeat it.
- I've always disliked Reggie Miller as an announcer, and he's doing nothing to change that today. He said a lot of dumb things during the first half, but the worst was his assertion that Creighton would see more physical play when they moved to the Big East. Yes, there will undoubtedly be more athletes in the Big East, but the Valley is as physical of a conference as there is in basketball (This is in large part because Valley refs seem to enjoy inflicting pain on others). I enjoy the pairing of Steve Kerr and Marv Albert, but in general I don't like bringing NBA people in to announce/commentate on the tournament.
2:50 PM
One last tweet before Creighton tips:
@eamonnbrennan FWIW, team with better AdjO is 14/18 so far (using pre-tourney kenpom stats). Team with better AdjD is 9/18.This tweet is far from a conclusive statement, but it points to a theory I've had for a while. We've seen strong defensive programs like Wisconsin and Pitt underperform in the tournament a lot. I had always written it off to random variation in the past, but I'm starting to think that defense might "peak" a bit in the regular season. That is, it's a lot easier to try harder on defense in the tournament than it is to improve one's offense. Wisconsin and Pitt are often two of the best teams during the regular season, so it might be hard for them to raise their games in the tourney. Maybe I'll look into this more in the offseason.
— Josh Whiteside (@RookTakesPwn) March 22, 2013
2:40 PM
Wisconsin: 7-30 on threes, 8-28 on twos. Ole Miss wasn't much better, but they were better enough. My previous analysis was probably a little off. The fact that Wisconsin was playing at their speed and only winning by six left the window wide open for Ole Miss to pull off the upset. So we've now had three 5-seeds lose and the other one win by the largest margin ever for a 5-seed. Madness indeed.
Time to gear up for the Jays. I'll post at the half.
2:00 PM
Wisconsin has the fourth slowest tempo of all the teams in the tournament, while Ole Miss has the second fastest. That Wisconsin has been able to dictate the flow of the game makes me feel confident in their chances the rest of the way.
Interesting fact I learned when looking up the numbers for that last paragraph: The three slowest tempos in the tourney are Pitt, ND, and Georgetown. It's not like the entire Big East is like that, as Villanova and Louisville play much faster, but it's interesting that a clump of teams like that come from a power conference. If you look a little further up the list, Florida plays at the 5th slowest tempo of all tourney teams. I don't necessarily think this means that there's some sort of correlation between success and slow tempos since there are a lot of terrible non-tourney teams in between those five, but it's interesting at the very least.
1:15 PM
Text from Fro: "Wisconsin is easily the most frustrating team to watch." Yes, yes they are.
Not even counting his personality, Marshall Henderson is a fascinating player. His 35% average from long range is good but not great, but he's an incredibly efficient player because that's pretty much all he does. His turnover rate is a low 13.3% and he's great when he gets to the line (88%). I still don't like the matchup for him, but Henderson is such a wildcard that I wouldn't put the upset past him. It helps that he has teammate Reginald Buckner making a bunch of insanely good plays down low.
I've talked about Florida a lot the last week, but I want to take a moment to recognize their opponent today, Northwestern State. You'll undoubtedly hear the announcers talk about how they lead the nation in scoring. While they appear to be a fine offensive team, a lot of stat that can be attributed to their weak conference and their fastest in the nation tempo (they average almost 73 possessions per game). As someone who always rooted for those ridiculous VMI teams to make the tourney, I'm excited to see what a team like this can do. It's too bad they got such a tough draw.
12:00 PM
Let's do this again. Today shouldn't be as "sexy" of a day of basketball, but my two teams will be in action, so it will definitely be a more nerve-wracking day. First, a couple quick thoughts about last night:
- I didn't post much last night for two reasons. One, I had a pretty significant post-Chipotle lull where I didn't feel like doing anything. Two, I spent a large portion of the evening simply in awe of Colorado State's offensive dominance. That sort of performance is the kind you expect (but don't always get) from five senior starters. I was a little nervous that the Rams' rebounding dominance would shrink against the athletic front line of Missouri, but instead they had probably their best game of the year on the glass (43% of offensive boards and 91% of defensive boards). Some slight imperfections, such as their 14 turnovers, don't bode well for an opponent as ruthless as Louisville, but for one night the Rams showed that there is some truly great basketball being played out west.
- Gonzaga held on for the win, but 1-seeds that struggle in their opener tend not to do too well later on in the tournament. 10 of the 13 1-seeds to beat the 16 by less than 10 failed to reach the Final Four. The regular rate of 1-seeds winning their region is less than 50%, so that isn't the most shocking stat in the world. Additionally, simply measuring final point spread isn't the best way to measure the closeness of a game. Still, I would be concerned if I were a Gonzaga fan.
And now, on to today:
- There's a lot of angles to the Creighton-Cincinnati game. As a Creighton fan, I have pored over every single one of them. On the plus side is the fact that Creighton is just a better team than Cincinnati (21 spots higher in Sagarin, 23 spots higher in Pomeroy, and 37 spots better in LRMC). Another positive is the fact that the Irish, who are similarly an all-offense team, beat Cincinnati twice during the regular season. Rationally, I feel about as confident as I can in the Jays' chances given the situation at hand.
Of course there are also reasons, both rational and irrational, to doubt their chances. Creighton may be the best shooting team in the nation, but Cincinnati counters with the 9th best eFG% defense (just 43%), which suggests that they may be able to effectively counter Creighton's biggest strength. Also, we saw a prime example yesterday of how teams with superior athleticism can have an advantage over smaller, more efficient teams with Memphis' win over St. Mary's. Creighton does have Echenique to counter that, but they are still clearly less athletic overall.
In the end, Creighton finds itself up against a bit of a bizarro team. Cincinnati is one of the most physical teams in the nation and sports a lot of size all across the court. Then on offense, they shoot threes over 37% of the time, which is well above the national average. That unusual combination of methods of attack may very well match up poorly against the Jays. I know the Jays have the ability to outplay the Bearcats, but they're going to have to be really careful not to fall into the traps that I know Mick Cronin will have set for them.
- We get to see a lot of 2-seed action today, with all four of them facing off against their first round opponents. We don't have quite the likelihood of seeing upsets on this line as we did on the 3 and 4 lines, but Pomeroy still gives us a 34% chance of seeing at least one of them fall. If you can only choose one of them to watch, pick the Ohio State-Iona matchup, which features the best 15-seed and arguably the best 2-seed.
- Florida starts their run at a title today. They will probably be the SEC's last bullet unless Marshall Henderson works some magic, but it's a hell of a bullet to have. Even though nerds like me are picking them to win it all, it's important to remember that they're probably going to lose a close game at some point. Still, I like their chances of making it out of their region. The South has the weakest 1-seed, 2-seed, and 6-seed, so a lot less stands in their way to Atlanta than one would typically expect.
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