Tuesday, March 16, 2010

NCAA First Round Preview: Midwest Region

7:10 Thursday, Oklahoma City60.3 possessions
TeamWIN%PTSeFG%TO%OR%FTM:FGA
9 Northern Iowa46.8%59.445.518.427.233.3
8 UNLV53.2%60.350.017.625.620.5
I hate 8-9 games. They're always games between evenly-matched teams, but they hardly ever turn out to be memorable contests. Usually one or both teams just completely fails to show up, probably because they know that even if they win they'll run into a buzzsaw in the second round.

7:25 Thursday, Providence68.1 possessions
TeamWIN%PTSeFG%TO%OR%FTM:FGA
14 Ohio18.2%65.344.317.726.928.8
3 Georgetown81.8%76.657.020.736.627.6
Ohio's DJ Cooper was the best player in the Mid-American Conference and the most valuable freshman in America, according to PAPER.

9:40 Thursday, Oklahoma City70.4 possessions
TeamWIN%PTSeFG%TO%OR%FTM:FGA
16 Lehigh2.1%62.341.318.125.522.8
1 Kansas97.9%88.259.215.245.525.0
Other games in this time slot include Wake Forest-Texas, Montana-New Mexico, and San Diego State-Tennessee.

9:55 Thursday, Providence65.8 possessions
TeamWIN%PTSeFG%TO%OR%FTM:FGA
11 San Diego St.46.7%64.848.124.339.429.3
6 Tennessee53.3%65.847.818.334.920.9
If San Diego State can take care of the ball against Tennessee's press--no easy task, mind you--they should win this game. The Aztecs, led by freshman Kawhi Leonard, are second-best in the country in adjusted offensive rebounding rate.

7:15 Friday, Milwaukee69.3 possessions
TeamWIN%PTSeFG%TO%OR%FTM:FGA
10 Georgia Tech52.2%70.852.121.731.525.3
7 Oklahoma St.47.8%70.148.218.031.026.9
Turnovers will be the story in this game as well. Mike Gminski said it best during the ACC Tournament: "Georgia Tech just manufactures turnovers for themselves sometimes."

7:20 Friday, Spokane71.4 possessions
TeamWIN%PTSeFG%TO%OR%FTM:FGA
12 New Mexico St.17.3%71.449.918.824.926.4
5 Michigan St.82.7%83.754.318.157.421.2
That's not a misprint. The Spartans should rebound nearly 60% of their own misses against New Mexico State.

9:45 Friday, Milwaukee65.6 possessions
TeamWIN%PTSeFG%TO%OR%FTM:FGA
15 UCSB7.1%57.347.926.223.427.2
2 Ohio St.92.9%75.056.516.632.728.5
What's the difference between a 1 seed and a 2 seed? Not much for Ohio State. While most years there's a dropoff between the 15 and 16 seeds, there were so many upsets in the single-bid league tournaments this year that all 7 of the 9 teams at the bottom of the S-curve are pretty similar (Wofford and Arkansas-Pine Bluff are a fair measure worse than the others).

9:50 Friday, Spokane74.7 possessions
TeamWIN%PTSeFG%TO%OR%FTM:FGA
13 Houston13.8%75.242.812.432.319.1
4 Maryland86.2%89.956.418.249.129.9
Houston takes care of the ball better than any team in the country. Unfortunately for the Cougars, that's about the only thing they do well.

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