Week 11 Weekend Watchlist: Positional Value
Several good ones and a 3.5-hour Anxiety Watch for the writer
The Watchlist Tune o’ the Weekend
Happy Saturday, everyone. I gotta get in a run, but I did have time to scribble this out. In lieu of an essay, here’s the first big piece I wrote this week (paid):
And the second (free):
I think you should read both because in my biased opinion, they’re both pretty good. On with the show.
SATURDAY, JANUARY 18
THE FIRST A+ GAME OF THE WEEK (yes, there’s two)
Alabama at Kentucky, 12 PM ET, ESPN. I imagine any game with a 90-88 projected score needs no sell, but I’ll try.
First is the SEC race factor. Per Torvik, an Alabama win not only puts them back in the race for second behind Auburn, it puts them on near-equal footing with Tennessee. It would also shove Kentucky to a projected seventh place, which I assume they do not want. Meanwhile, a UK win turns the SEC race into a projected two-team event between Auburn and Tennessee, dropping Alabama to fifth and jumping UK to fourth. This is important, I promise.
Secondary is the actual national factor. If the season ended today, Alabama would be the top 2 seed and Kentucky a solid 3. You’re getting what’s functionally a Sweet Sixteen matchup in a true home court environment, one that should be pretty salty if students are back in session. Rupp’s blue hairs usually don’t get up for games but I’d advise they do for this one.
A GAMES
Arizona at Texas Tech, 2 PM ET, ESPN2. Two teams that deserve to have better records. Combined, they’re 4-7 in games decided by six or fewer points, both having experienced some horrific 3PT% swings in these games. It’s also two elite offensive rebounding teams. This is the best OREB% team left on either’s schedule not named Houston, and only TTU (who lost to Texas A&M by five) has had a tougher test on the boards. Very interested to see if home court holds.
Purdue at Oregon, 3 PM ET, NBC. Purdue passed the first test of their West Coast swing by beating a bad Washington team, although they played with their food for 25 minutes. I would advise not doing that here. Per Hoop-Explorer, in 12 games against top-200 competition, Oregon is almost 7 points better per 100 possessions in the second half compared to the first. If Oregon enters this one within a possession or even leading at the break, watch out.
Washington Football Team at Lions, 8 PM ET, FOX. Please pray for my soul. And for the death of the WFT, a team I do really enjoy watching.
B GAMES
Clemson at Pittsburgh, 12 PM ET, The CW. So: can we Start a Conversation about the loser of this game? Clmeson would be 14-5, around 40th in Wins Above Bubble, and would move to 4-5 against top 100 competition. Pitt, meanwhile, would be 12-6 with four straight losses and a 3-6 record against the top 100. Neither is nearly as locked into the Tournament as they’d like to be.
Creighton at UConn, 12 PM ET, FOX. Creighton, meanwhile, is a little better off than most think. 5-6 versus top 100 teams, but averaging 37th in the three predictive metrics the committee uses and 40th in the resume rankings.
Auburn at Georgia, 1 PM ET, SEC Network. I think the win over Mississippi State was a great Ewing Theory one-game sample. This is the proof in the pudding. Auburn, sans Broome, is actually a net-negative on the boards and is far more jumper-reliant, taking about seven more threes per 100 possessions. Against UGA, this could possibly be meaningless and result in a blowout. It also might result in an all-time upset for the Bulldogs.
Xavier at Marquette, 2 PM ET, FOX. My concern with Xavier has been the same one for a while now: can these guys move the ball well enough offensively to win big games? When their Assist% dips below 60% they’ve posted an Offensive Rating of 102.7 points per 100. 60% or above: 120.3.
Tennessee at Vanderbilt, 3:30 PM ET, SEC Network. Here is an interesting Vanderbilt trend of note: on surface value, they’re about 3 points better per 100 possessions in the first half than the second. Not that interesting. Dig deeper and you’ll see some wild stuff: their offense gets 11 points better…and the defense 14 points worse. This could all be small-sample theater, but you very rarely see splits like that at the high-major level. Unique team, these Commodores!
Texas at Florida, 4 PM ET, ESPN2. I don’t know, I kinda think Texas is shooting themselves out of being a better team. Against quality competition (i.e., top 100), they’ve taken 32% of all shots from the midrange…where they hit 41%. Great! That’s 0.82 points per shot, while you shoot 1.106 points per shot at the rim and 0.93 from three. I wonder why you guys play like a top-75 team against good competition and top-15 against bad groups.
Texans at Chiefs, 4:30 PM ET, ABC. Jesus, I’ve seen what you’ve done for others. Can you do it for CJ Stroud?
Iowa State at West Virginia, 5 PM ET, ESPN+. West Virginia has an intoxicating thing going on where they’re actually better offensively against quality competition, and winning at WVU has been hard since basketball was invented. Can ISU’s opponents continue running cold from three?
Ole Miss at Mississippi State, 6 PM ET, ESPN. I do love the basketball Egg Bowl. I’m not above it. Two things to watch for, from EvanMiya: can MSU protect the boards and the perimeter at the same time? Under Chris Jans, they’re 44-9 when opponents either shoot <30% from three or rebound less than 24% of their misses. When both happen, MSU’s 16-0 with an average margin of victory of 16.8 points.
Arkansas at Missouri, 6 PM ET, SEC Network. Arkansas has officially entered Crisis Mode, which is perhaps not how I would personally want to be when I am facing the most annoying high school defense in the SEC. Such is life. Arkansas’s rebounding woes shouldn’t be a problem here, but at what point do they plan on figuring out they need to build their frontcourt around the pairing of Adou Thiero and Big Z? It sounds absurd, but they’re +36.2 per 100 together and produce a far more efficient, intelligent shot profile than any lineup with Aidoo at center. Alternately, play Brazile more at the 5. It’s worth the defensive tradeoff.
C GAMES
Houston at UCF, 12 PM ET, CBSSN. In the back of my head I had this memory of Houston/UCF games generally being unusually close. Sort of! Post-COVID, they’ve played eight times. Houston is 8-0, but the margin of victory has only ranged from 6-18 points.
George Washington at George Mason, 12:30 PM ET, USA Network. Huge game for Mason’s title odds here; per Torvik, with a win and a VCU loss, they become the favorite to win the conference title.
Kansas State at Kansas, 1 PM ET, CBS. KJ Adams is out for KU, which makes this really interesting, because KU with Dickinson/without Adams the last two years has been around 4-5 points better per 100 offensively. Could this be the secret sauce?
Yale at Columbia, 2 PM ET, ESPN+. Big swing game in the Ivy in each direction: a Yale win gives them a big edge in the title race, while a Columbia win puts them back on pace to finish fourth and gain entry to the four-team Ivy tournament.
Arizona State at Cincinnati, 2 PM ET, CBSSN. If you watch this over the other games at this time and aren’t a fan of one of the two teams, please go to a doctor.
Wisconsin at USC, 3 PM ET, BTN. Same though with a note that a USC win quietly puts them in a projected 8th place in the B1G standings above Iowa/UCLA/Indiana.
NCAAW: Belmont at Northern Iowa, 3 PM ET, ESPN+. Two-way conference battle: a Belmont win keeps them on pace to win the MVC, while a UNI win staves off a likely elimination from the title battle.
Miami (OH) at Kent State, 3:30 PM ET, ESPN+. With a win here, Miami will become the MAC title favorite. Huh!
Bradley at Murray State, 4 PM ET, ESPN+. Every Drake/Bradley game that doesn’t involve the other is becoming a need-to-win. Neither team seems interested in taking that many bad losses, so it’s going to come down to their battle on February 16.
South Carolina at Oklahoma, 4 PM ET, ESPN2. Hi! You should read this from my friend Jon, on why the Oklahoma team certain individuals lost their minds over now sucks.
UMass Lowell at Bryant, 4 PM ET, ESPN+. UML bungled a huge opportunity to put Vermont away for good, leaving Bryant to take the reigns as the conference favorite. This is where they could steal it back.
ETSU at Samford, 6 PM ET, CBSSN. Decent SoCon game. With Bucky at the reigns Samford’s really had ETSU’s number, going 6-1 overall with six straight wins.
UC San Diego at UC Riverside, 8 PM ET, ESPN+. After a (perfectly reasonable) home loss to UC Irvine, UCSD probably has to go 5-0 over their next five to keep pace in the Big West with a UCI team that looks like a juggernaut. Not easy!
UNLV at San Diego State, 8 PM ET, CBSSN. San Diego State is a putrid watch, but they’re undeniably effective. Quad 1-3 opposition is shooting just 44% from two against them. Hope you like a lot of missed shots, because SDSU certainly provides it.
LSU at Texas A&M, 8:30 PM ET, SEC Network. God, don’t you love it when a game is on? This one is certainly going to be on.
Santa Clara at Gonzaga, 9 PM ET, ESPN+. Noticing a lot of people jumping off the Gonzaga bandwagon! Very interesting. I assume it won’t end like all the other times we’ve done this.
BYU at Utah, 9 PM ET, ESPN+. BYU is quietly entering gotta-have-it territory. 11-5 (2-3 B12) doesn’t seem bad on the surface, but they own two wins over top-100 opponents: NC State (neutral) and Arizona State (home).
Oregon State at San Francisco, 10 PM ET, ESPN+. Fun, light, airy.
HALFTIME!
Completely, completely stupid to have not put this on the best list. What was I thinking?
SUNDAY, JANUARY 19
THE SECOND A+ GAME OF THE WEEK
Illinois at Michigan State, 12 PM ET, CBS. We have two of the eight best games of the regular season so far, per KenPom, on back-to-back days at noon Eastern. There are far worse ways of living.
Michigan State’s defense is going to create an interesting matchup no matter what happens on the other end. The Illini want to run everything through ball screens, either with KJ or Kylan Boswell as the ball-handler and Tomislav Ivisic as the screener. Unlike the average offense, though, the Illini use these screens to create open jumpers rather than get to the rim. I find this interesting because MSU has mostly operated at the level on screens this year, which could theoretically take away these pull-up threes Illinois loves.
Then again, on offense, MSU’s modus operandi is “get to the paint and figure everything else out.” They don’t take or hit much in the way of wing or top-of-the-key threes, and the offense itself calls back to pre-Izzo days in that it runs out on misses all the time and wants to score fast, lest it get bogged down in half-court. Illinois frankly isn’t very good at transition denial, though in half-court they’re spectacular. Fascinating game. Oddly enough, I imagine MSU wants this played in the 80s.
A GAME
NCAAW: Tennessee at Vanderbilt, 3 PM ET, SECN+. This is a perfect matchup. We know that Tennessee wants to run and gun for 40 minutes. Vanderbilt is happy to do the exact same thing, although they’re much more rim-oriented than the Vols. As such, this wonderful matchup comes down to two things other than shooting variance: who wins the boards, and who gets to the foul line more often?
Ravens at Bills, 6:30 PM ET, CBS. Look, I know this is a basketball blog, but c’mon. You’re gonna deny me the pleasure of watching Lamar Jackson and Josh Allen play football?
B GAMES
Nebraska at Maryland, 12 PM ET, BTN. We’ve all seen it, and we all want to know: was Maryland a mirage the entire time? My argument: eh, probably not. The offense has graded out as functionally the same over the last month as the first two, but the defense has experienced brutal shooting luck: 35% on 3PT (fine) and 45% (!!) on midrange jumpers. The rebounding issues they have are concerning, but that also makes this a potential get-right game because Nebraska themselves are quite poor at protecting the boards.
NCAAW: USC at Indiana, 12 PM ET, NBC. I gave up on the Hoosiers a little too soon. A home loss to Illinois is ugly, but they’re 12-5 (4-2 B1G) and have played much better offensively over the last month. It may not matter, because USC has been otherworldly on defense this year.
Northwestern at Michigan, 2 PM ET, BTN. Well, I take no pleasure in sharing this news, but Michigan’s probably due for some regression to the mean. They’ve shot 38.4% from deep in their last 10 to their opponents’ 29.6%. The good news: they are also producing what might be the very best two-point shot quality in the sport right now. May not matter.
NCAAW: Oklahoma at South Carolina, 3 PM ET, ESPN. This is going to get buried because of other things going on at this time, but it’s a great test for the sport’s best team at home. Oklahoma wants to play at a pace that SoCar basically never sees at this level, and it could cause some problems if they don’t get back in transition. But: USC has a significant edge in turnovers, never fouls, and could win this going away if Oklahoma can’t hit threes.
NCAAW: Michigan State at Illinois, 3 PM ET, BTN+. Michigan State at the rim: 60.8% FG%. Michigan State everywhere else on the floor: 32.8%. Until that latter number ticks up a bit, they’re hard to take too seriously for March purposes.
NCAAW: Ole Miss at Mississippi State, 3 PM ET, SEC Network. Egg Bowl II! Ole Miss projects to have a gigantic edge in the turnover department (anywhere from +7-10) and a likely edge on the boards. How does MSU steal this one at home, then? Easy: drive at Ole Miss. Against top-150 competition, Ole Miss has the 11th-highest foul rate in the sport and doesn’t protect the rim all that well otherwise.
Rams at Eagles, 3 PM ET, NBC. Potentially blasphemous, but the Eagles play a style of ball not that conducive for watchability. This doesn’t mean they are bad, not by any means; just that the average viewer probably doesn’t get off on watching what’s functionally 2022 Michigan football. The case for a fun three hours rests solely on the arm of one Matthew Stafford. (Eagles 24, Rams 16)
NCAAW: Iowa at Oregon, 5 PM ET, BTN+. Iowa’s edging their way towards being in real trouble Tournament-wise. They’ve lost four in a row, have dropped to 35th in Wins Above Bubble, and need to split the next two at minimum (this and a road game at Washington) to get back on track.
C GAMES
NCAAW: LSU at Florida, 1 PM ET, SEC Network. LSU is still undefeated and 19-0, which there’s no crime against, but the scoring margin and the wins don’t match up. You’d expect this team to be 17-2 based on MOV so far.
NCAAW: Ohio State at Penn State, 1 PM ET, BTN+. The Penn State dream is officially dead, as they’re now 0-7 in conference play. OSU, meanwhile, is one of three undefeateds (UCLA, USC) still left kicking in the Big Ten. They’re all 6-0 in league play.
NCAAW: Stanford at Duke, 1 PM ET, ESPN. Stanford’s hopeful NCAA Tournament campaign in Year One of the post-Tara era is flagging hard; they’re now 10-7, 2-4 ACC. To get back on track I’d argue you may have to go 3-3 in this stretch.
NCAAW: Iowa State at West Virginia, 1 PM ET, ESPN+. Potentially huge mismatch incoming. ISU has a -4.4 turnover margin per 100 against top-100 competition (11 games); WVU, meanwhile, is +10.1.
NCAAW: Louisville at Virginia Tech, 4 PM ET, ACC Network. Huge credit to Jeff Walz, who has resuscitated Louisville’s season in a way that didn’t look very likely when they were 6-5. Seven straight wins and a 6-1 ACC record, though this will be a tough test.
TCU at Baylor, 5 PM ET, ESPN. Considering TCU could barely score against BYU and Utah’s middling defenses, I have my doubts it’ll suddenly get better against Baylor.