2024 NCAA Tournament Watchlist: Sweet Sixteen (Thursday)
Hope you're sweating your survivor pool picks less than I am
The Watchlist Tune o’ the Day
First, a note of thanks. We are now nearing 3,000 subscribers, a number I genuinely never believed possible. It is wild to me that you people care this much, but I’m sure glad you do. Thanks to everyone who has spread the word, given people a peek into the world here, and helped me build a real second job. If you’d like to make it the first job in my life, well:
$18/year. Pretty easy.
Secondly, here is the schedule for the next few days:
TODAY (Wednesday): Sweet 16 preview, Thursday
TOMORROW (Thursday): Creighton/Tennessee preview
FRIDAY: Sweet 16 preview, Friday (both men’s and women’s)
SATURDAY: Elite Eight preview, Saturday; women’s Sweet 16 preview, Saturday (also, an abbreviated look at the D-2 men’s title game)
SUNDAY: Elite Eight preview (both men’s and women’s, the latter of which will include both remaining days of games)
One additional thing that may get thrown in here but only happens if Tennessee wins would be an Elite Eight preview of Tennessee versus the winner of Purdue/Gonzaga. We’ll see if that comes to fruition, but if you sign up, you’re getting six (!) articles of 2,000+ words, all of which will have videos and analysis and stats in them, for $18/year. I kinda think that’s an insane deal.
Anyway, same pattern as in the past. First quarter (AKA, the first game) is free as a teaser, the rest are paid.
(2) Arizona (-7.5) vs. (6) Clemson, 7:09 PM ET, CBS
KenPom: Arizona by 5, 70% to win
Torvik: Arizona by 6, 72% to win
Since February 1 (Torvik): Arizona by 5.5, 70% to win
EvanMiya: Arizona by 5.5, 71% to win
If both offenses deliver, this may be the game of the night. Both are capable of scoring 80+ in this one, and I’m not 100% sold on either defense to the point that either could truly motor away. I trust Arizona a bit more for reasons we’ll get into but on paper, this has sky-high potential. On the other hand, the offenses most similar to Clemson’s all lost by the same rough margin of 10-15 points, so maybe this is your standard Arizona outing of Crockpotting an opponent.
The way Arizona attacks Clemson in the pick-and-roll will be pretty telling. Clemson doesn’t hedge ball screens often, generally preferring to drop or sometimes switch. They want to force the ball-handler to take pull-up jumpers or floaters, which are fine in theory. Once the ball actually gets to the rim PJ Hall has been quite good at defending it; the problem is that it rarely gets to the rim.
Clemson ranks in the 11th-percentile in dribble jumper defense and in the 9th-percentile in defending ball handlers in general, which could be an unsolvable problem in a game where Arizona has four legitimate options to handle the ball. Love is the headliner, but I think Pelle Larsson could be the real matchup problem here: a 6’6” SF who can take on more when needed (four games of 20+ points) and has been fantastic as a ball-handler in limited action.
On the other side of the ball, everything will run through Hall for Clemson, who is one of the very best post producers in America, but you can’t double him because he’s been excellent in finding spot-up shooters on the perimeter. Going one-on-one isn’t all that advisable either, but here, Ballo can be a good one-on-one matchup if he’s into it defensively. It then falls on Schieffelin (and/or Godfrey) to also produce in the post. If Clemson enjoys the same absurd 3PT luck they’ve received so far (New Mexico/Baylor combined to shoot 9-47 from 3) then they’ll be in the Elite Eight. If not, and Arizona hits pull-up Js, this could be a long night.
Pick: Arizona 80, Clemson 72. A crucial piece here: Arizona is going to have a significant advantage on the boards, and unless Clemson can either solve that or really outshoot the Wildcats, the path feels slim.