Cross-posted from HackTheBracket.

This should look a whole lot like the previous round games for these teams. UCLA is playing the best defense in the tourney, and will try to slow down Kansas, just like Southern Illinois did.

The efficiency predictions look quite sensible. UCLA has played slightly better in the three NCAA Tournament games but Kansas was playing slightly better at the end of the regular season/during the conference tournament.

If Kansas can return to their normal levels of turnovers committed and defensive rebounds garnered, they’ll be dangerous for UCLA. Despite an outstanding defensive performance overall from Southern Illinois, Kansas did shoot 60.7 eFG% and that was their worst shooting performance of the tournament so far. UCLA (70.4 DR% on the season) should, however, be able to keep Kansas off the offensive glass when the Jayhawks do miss a shot.

The biggest problem UCLA will pose for Kansas is deciding which of Arron Afflalo or Josh Shipp Brandon Rush will guard down the stretch. Shipp’s numbers are certainly helped by the attention Afflalo draws from opposing defenses, but they aren’t really that different.

If it comes down to free throw shooting, expect both fan bases to be covering their eyes. Kansas and UCLA both shoot 66.3% from the line on the year.

FIRST 3 GAMES ADJ. EFFICIENCY

EFFICIENCY PREDICTIONS

• Full Season Prediction … Kansas 65, UCLA 63
• Last 10 Prediction … Kansas 68, UCLA 63
• Vs. Good Prediction … Kansas 67, UCLA 66
• Trendline Prediction … Kansas 66, UCLA 61
• Tourney So Far Prediction … UCLA 62, Kansas 60

UPDATED GRAPHS

Kansas team capsule
UCLA team capsule

Contrary to popular perception (or at least my perception of popular perception), Tubby Smith’s 2006-07 Kentucky team is an excellent shooting team that struggles to guard their opponents. Of course, Kentucky went out and beat Villanova in atypical fashion last night. A solid defensive performance made up for their field goal shooting being merely adequate rather than outstanding.

The 0.94 points per possession Kentucky allowed last night marked the first good defensive performance (less than one point allowed per possession) from the Wildcats since they held Florida to 0.95 points per possession in Rupp Arena ten games ago. Extending Kentucky’s defensive slump, in the two games preceding that Florida game, the Wildcats allowed 1.24 points per possession to South Carolina, and 1.09 points per possession @Arkansas. (It should also be noted that when Kentucky visited Florida, the Gators shot 73 eFG% and rebounded half of their misses en route to scoring 1.29 points per possession.)

KENTUCKY DEFENSE v. KANSAS OFFENSE

(at-risk games only)

Kentucky’s at-risk profile includes home wins over Miami, OH, Eastern Kentucky, Indiana, and Tennessee (without Chris Lofton), neutral court wins over DePaul, Chattanooga, Alabama, and Villanova, road wins over Louisville, Ole Miss, South Carolina, and Arkansas, home losses to Vanderbilt and Florida, neutral court losses to UCLA, Memphis, and Mississippi State, and road losses to North Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, Vanderbilt, and Florida.

With the exception of the game against Tennessee (again, without Lofton) at home, Kentucky’s outstanding defensive performances (less than 0.9 points per possession allowed) in at-risk games all occurred in mid-January or earlier: Miami, OH, vs. Chattanooga, Indiana, @Louisville, and @South Carolina.

Kentucky’s defensive numbers have been helped by their opponents’ poor free throw shooting. They allowed 1.04 points per possession in SEC play despite their conference opponents shooting just 62.7% from the free throw line. This is the rare instance where a typical performance at the free throw line from the Jayhawks could hurt their opponent.

It may not matter, though, as Kentucky’s performance in the other three factors are what have kept them slightly below average defensively. Kansas’s penchant for making a good percentage of their field goal attempts and rebounding a high percentage of their missed shots should trouble a Kentucky team who isn’t very good at forcing misses and just adequate at protecting their defensive glass. Against Kansas these tendencies may be magnified if Kentucky continues to struggle to force turnovers.

KENTUCKY OFFENSE v. KANSAS DEFENSE

(at-risk games only)

Kentucky’s offense performed quite similarly to Kansas’s in at-risk games. The Wildcats make a few more shots and rebound a lower percentage of their misses. The frequency with which they turn the ball over will necessitate that they make a typical percentage of their field goals. That’s extremely difficult to do against Kansas. Kentucky has a shot at doing so, though, as Sheray Thomas is the only player in the Wildcat rotation to shoot less than 50 eFG% or score less than 1.07 PPWS.

There’s littel doubt that NBA free agent Randolph Morris will test Sasha Kaun defensively. If Kaun continues to establish good defensive position and let the double-teamer harass the opposition’s best post scorer, Kansas can be expected to limit Morris’s effectiveness. Though he’s Kentucky’s best scorer (both in terms of volume and efficiency) Morris is not a particularly good passer (2.4 A/100 against 4.7 TO/100) so effective double-teams in the post could cause Kentucky’s offense to stagnate.

On the perimeter, Kansas’s guards will need to refrain from gambling for turnovers against Kentucky’s guards, instead forcing them into the heart of the KU defense for difficult field goal attempts. Ramel Bradley (5.0 TO/100) and Derrick Jasper (6.0 TO/100), especially, will probably turn the ball over often enough due to the basic ball pressure and swarming interior defense Kansas typically musters.

Bradley, Joe Crawford, and Jodie Meeks combine to take half their shots from beyond the three-point arc, making 37.2, 35.3, and 36.5% of those shots respectively. The guard trio troubles defenses because they are quite good at converting the two-point shots they attempt as well. Crawford shoots 52.6% inside the arc, Meeks makes 50.5% of his two-point shots, and Bradley converts on 49% of his attempts.

Kentucky’s balanced and efficient offense will test Kansas’s outstanding defense. The Wildcats are capable of getting hot enough that the opposing defense can effectively cease to be relevant for stretches of a game. What should encourage Kansas fans is that the Jayhawks have survived such performances from Texas each of the last two weekends. For all Kevin Durant did in the first halves of those games, Kansas held Texas 2% below their season average offensive efficiency in Lawrence, and 8% below their season average offensive efficiency in Oklahoma City.

Kentucky isn’t as good offensively as Texas (though they’re probably an equal amount better defensively than the Longhorns) so supressing their offense by 6-8% would put them far enough behind Kansas’s expected offensive efficiency against a mediocre defense to keep the game from coming down to the final possessions.

Prediction: Kansas 73 Kentucky 62

David’s excellent efficiency preview available here and at HackTheBracket (along with 31 other previews of equal quality).

Niagara is better than a typical 16-seed and their offensive efficiency is their clear strength. Unfortunately for the Purple Eagles, their offensive efficiency is a clear strength in part due to their defensive efficiency being a clear weakness.

Considering that Niagara’s three toughest games consisted of (with efficiency margins in the parentheses) hosting Akron (-25), hosting St. John’s (-33), and playing Holy Cross (+13) at neutral site, their performance in at-risk games (admittedly impacted by leading scorer Charron Fisher missing 7 of Niagara’s 25 at-risk games, including the losses to Akron and St. John’s) doesn’t suggest they can expect to compete with Kansas for 40 minutes.

NIAGARA OFFENSE v. KANSAS DEFENSE

(at-risk games only)

Niagara will likely shoot even worse than normal from the field against Kansas’s defense and it’s even more unlikely that Niagara will be able to match their usual offensive rebounding rate. Even with his outstanding shooting performance Tuesday night in Dayton, Clif Brown is just a 46.4 eFG% shooter on the season. Charron Fisher (50.9 eFG%), Tyrone Lewis (50.2 eFG%), and JR Duffey (51.4 eFG%) all shoot better than Brown, but none of them would rank higher than 7th in eFG% on Kansas’s stat sheet. If they’re struggling to create easy shots against the 288th rated defensive schedule in the country, then Kansas should cause them fits.

Let me make this clear: Kansas is an oustanding defensive team. There are other important factors for the team entering the NCAA Tournament: pace of play (Niagara should cooperate with that in the first round), field goal shooting (just 49.1 eFG% in the Big 12 Tournament), and health (I’d rather they not have to try and win six games in a row without one or more members of the eight-man rotation) but any prolonged success they have in this tournament will be due first and foremost to their defense.

In Ken Pomeroy’s adjusted defensive efficiency rankings, Kansas is 2.8 points per 100 possessions better than the second-placed team. The difference between first and second is greater than the difference between the second- and twelfth-ranked teams.

Kansas emerged as a national title contender because their offense improved over the course of the season but the underlying, constant reason for Kansas’s recent success has been the team’s defensive play. (Again, David represents this excellently in graph form.)

(more…)

(Thoughts prior to and following the first meeting between these teams.)

UPDATE: Michael Neal expects to play. Darrell Arthur may play limited minutes due to a stomach virus. Ken Pomeroy looks at the effect of playing on consecutive days against a team which is rested.

The effort exerted to get past Iowa State this afternoon will only exacerbate the quick turnaround Oklahoma must complete before facing Kansas. The Sooners only go eight deep (though, if Jeff Capel wants to give Chris Walker some minutes I don’t think any Kansas fans will protest) and rely on Nate Carter (31.3 Pts/100) for the bulk of their scoring. If Michael Neal is again unable to play due to illness and with Longar Longar appearing to have fallen out of favor (or at least fallen to the end of the rotation), Tony Crocker would be the Sooners’ only realistic second scoring option on the court much of the time.

OKLAHOMA OFFENSE v. KANSAS DEFENSE

(Big 12 games only)

Even with all their free throw attempts and a meaningless three at the buzzer, Oklahoma only scored 0.92 points per possession in the first meeting. It seems to me far more plausible that Kansas (0.96 points per possession @Oklahoma) improves their offensive performance in the rematch. Kansas is the only one of Oklahoma’s last eight opponents to fail to score at least one point per possession against the Sooners (a stretch that includes two Oklahoma/Iowa State games).

OKLAHOMA DEFENSE v. KANSAS OFFENSE

(Big 12 games only)

The danger for Oklahoma is that Kansas could conceivably convince themselves that they have something to prove in this game. The second half of the game in Norman 10 days ago saw the Jayhawks completely befuddled by the Sooners’ three-quarter court pressure in the second half en route to giving up every bit of a seventeen-point lead.

Even more than their poor free throw shooting, Kansas’s penchant for turning the ball over in bunches worries me as we approach the single elimination portion of the season. Kansas turned the ball over on 23% of their possessions in Norman, on 24% of their possessions @Kansas State, and on 25% of their possessions against Texas A&M. Each of those turnover rates is at least 15% higher than Kansas’s season average. (Worse than that, really, as I haven’t put in the time to figure the season average without those games as a comparison.)

That being said, Kansas is a lot better than Oklahoma, there are no injury or illness worries for Kansas, and Kansas won’t be playing their second game in 24 hours. The Jayhawks should win handily. If the game is even nearly as close as it was in Norman, it will be a credit to the Sooners.

Prediction: Kansas 72 Oklahoma 58

The Big 12 tourney starts in a couple days. Here’s the schedule if you haven’t already seen it. Now let’s get right to the numbers. First, here’s how all the teams have been playing over the last 10 games:

stats glossary

Hey, Colorado’s 1st in something? What the… oh, tempo. OK. Looking at the Pythagorean rating, the top 3 teams here are no surprise. What might surprise you is that if I made this same chart for ALL of Division I NCAA basketball, those three would be ranked 1st, 5th, and 8th. Texas has officially joined the party. Even more surprising is that all three are top 5 in offense. I haven’t actually run the numbers on ALL teams, so the ranks in this next table are where they rate among the 78 that I have looked at. Any team with an outside shot at a 12-seed or better in the big dance was included, along with all Big 12 teams.

I’d be shocked if somebody outside that group cuts down the nets in Oklahoma City. That said, if it happens, it’s bound to be a team out of the KU side of the bracket. Any dark horse from the other side will have to take down KU, A&M, and Texas. Sorry, but nobody’s winning a tournament by beating all three top-10 rated Big 12 powers in consecutive games. That’s impossible.

I’m talking a lot about the top seeds here because I’m not going to have time to do individual game previews of the later rounds. Don’t worry, we’ll get to everyone else right after this page break. (more…)

Click here for the preview that actually gives you some ideas about how this game’s going to be played. Read on for the one with pretty graphs and hand waving. Format is the same as last time, so you can skip the next paragraph unless you need a refresher. (And for reference, here is the original post that kind of explains what I’m doing).

After the break, for both teams I’ve included a graph that charts the offensive and defensive ratings for each game of the season. Keep in mind that for the defensive rating, lower is better. For both offense and defense, I’ve included a trendline showing roughly how each unit has progressed over the year. The dotted line shows the national average efficiency. I’ve also included the average ratings for their last ten games, to give a snapshot of how the team is playing right now. To give these numbers some context, I show where this would rank in the full-season stats, and what team’s full-season rating is the closest. (more…)

I attended the de-facto conference championship game against Oklahoma State in the Fieldhouse on March 5, 1995. Two guys played the games of their respective lives. Randy Rutherford scored 45 points for Oklahoma State and Greg Ostertag, on Senior Day and with an assist from Scot Pollard, held Bryant Reeves scoreless. (My memory had conflated Greg Gurley’s five made three-pointers against Colorado the previous season with his 13 point, 12 minute performance against the Cowboys in this game. Considering the stakes, if you want to include Gurley with Rutherford and Ostertag, I won’t argue.) It was a great game. Rutherford was spectacular and a Kansas partisan could enjoy his performance because the rest of his teammates only scored 17 points and the Jayhawks won by 16.

On that day in 1995, the hoary maxim, “One guy can’t beat you,” held true. I think the validity of that sentiment could be relevant tomorrow as well.

Kevin Durant is so good that, if I may continue to write primarily in cliches, you can’t stop him you can only hope to contain him. to wit:

stats glossary

He scores a ton and he scores efficiently. He gets a block or steal on almost 6% of Texas’s defensive possessions. He dominates the defensive glass, and his offensive rebounding numbers may be artificially deflated by his own excellence (i.e. Texas probably misses more shots than average when Durant is off the floor).

Now, Texas will at times help their opponent in containing Durant. DJ Augustin and AJ Abrams will look for their own shots (as they should considering how frequently they make shots) and Durant can become too reliant on the three-point shot (see Texas’s losses @Oklahoma State and @Villanova).

Considering that Durant should be able to shoot over whichever Jayhawk is guarding/attempting to guard him, I contend that Kansas should live with whatever offensive damage Durant can inflict and focus on denying Abrams and Augustin open looks.

Regardless of the strategy employed by the Jayhawks, I am extremely excited to see how Kansas’s defense will perform against an outstanding offensive team.

TEXAS OFFENSE v. KANSAS DEFENSE

(Big 12 games only)

If tomorrow’s game splits the difference between the two team’s average performances, Texas will post the third most efficient offensive performance of a Big 12 team facing Kansas (1. @Texas Tech: 1.06 points per possession, 2. Texas A&M: 1.04) Kansas’s worst (unadjusted) defensive performance of the year came against Florida in Las Vegas. In that game, the Jayhawks allowed 1.12 points per possession.

To further put Texas’s offensive prowess in perspective. Their average performance in Big 12 play is equal to Kansas’s offensive performance against Florida in Vegas or @Missouri.

Texas has scored more efficiently at home than on the road. In their near-losses @Nebraska and @Baylor, they scored only 1.02 and 1.05 points per possession, respectively. In their January visit to Villanova, they scored just 0.93 points per possession. On the other hand, Texas scored 1.10 (in College Station) and 1.22 (in Austin) points per possession in their two matchups against Texas A&M’s fine defense.

Texas has to play well offensively because they don’t play very good defense.

TEXAS DEFENSE v. KANSAS OFFENSE

(Big 12 games only)

Suffice to say that, as much as Durant and Augustin have brought to the Texas offense, neither they nor any other of the Longhorns’ newcomers have replaced LaMarcus Aldridge or PJ Tucker’s skills as defenders. Prior to their game @Oklahoma, Texas had not held an opponent to less than one point per possession in a game played outside of Austin since their November 16th game against Michigan State in Madison Square Garden.

Texas primarily plays a 2-3 zone where neither Augustin nor Abrams gamble much in the passing lanes. If Kansas is patient in the half-court, they should find plenty of space to operate on the wings, at the top of the key, and in the high post. If Kansas finds a way to turn the ball over despite relatively lax defensive pressure, Texas’s defense will be aided immensely.

At times, I have seen Texas switch to a 3-2 zone with Durant at the top. Durant does not seem especially comfortable defending at the top of the key and in the Texas games I’ve seen, Rick Barnes has used this strictly as a change of pace defense, never for more than two or three possessions in a row.

The teams’ season averages and the location of the game suggest that Kansas should be a fairly comfortable favorite in this game. (This Texas team is a better version of the offense-yay!, defense-meh 2005 squad that got blown out in their visit to Lawrence. I doubt anyone would argue that this Kansas team isn’t superior to their 2005 edition as well.) However (with the exception of the Big 12 South teams), every time Kevin Durant steps on the court this year he presents a problem the opposing team hasn’t faced before. I don’t know how Kansas is going to defend him or how their defensive strategy will impact their ability to also defend Augustin and Abrams effectively.

Texas will most likely play at Kansas’s pace. Texas will most definitely play at Kansas. Under those conditions Kansas wins this game 8 out of 10 times by my estimation. To finish where this preview began, they only play this game once. And you don’t play games on paper. You can throw the records out (though, please throw them someplace nearby so we can determine the conference champion at game’s end) and anything can happen.

Prediction: Kansas 77 Texas 71

Burnt Orange Nation has awiggo’s excellent preview.

Seth Davis agrees = Hoopinion’s initial pangs of discomfort.