Week 14 Weekday Watchlist: I Love to Watch Things on TV
THIS. IS. FEBRUARY.
The Watchlist Tune o’ the Week
We’ll change this up, because these have really ballooned as of late. Each game gets one (1) Reason To Watch. Subscribe here for more. I’ll do the essay for something else, promise.
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 5
FIVE STARS
NCAAW: #18 Louisville at #13 NC State (-6.5), 6 PM ET, ESPN2. Neither one of these teams has a true star player - the leading scorer on either side, Aziaha James, sits at 15.2 PPG - but this is a pretty good matchup featuring two of the very best defenses in college basketball. Louisville sits #22 in CBB Analytics’ schedule-adjusted defensive rankings, while NC State ranks #8. NCSU’s defense in particular is disgustingly good; two teams all season have touched 1+ PPP. Great tactics battle here.
FOUR STARS
#13 Kansas (-5) at #75 Kansas State, 9 PM ET, ESPN. This is huge for some pretty obvious Big 12 title game reasons, but here’s a key one to me: did you know that Kansas’s best road win is #100 Indiana? Kansas has played six road games. They’re 3-3, with two of the losses to #69 UCF and #135 West Virginia. Away from home, Kansas’s offense goes from #10 overall on Torvik to #42. To change the narrative, Kansas really needs to bring this one home.
THREE STARS
NCAAW: #51 Minnesota at #22 Michigan State (-9.5), 6 PM ET, BTN. Easiest reason to watch imaginable: Michigan State’s offense. The Spartans rank 5th in PPG (86.5), 5th in offensive efficiency (1.149 PPP), 8th in 2PT%, 32nd in 3PT%. That being said, Minnesota rocked MSU two weeks ago by holding them to a shocking 0.717 PPP, easily their lowest of the season.
NCAAW: #27 Alabama (-3.5) at #63 Vanderbilt, 7 PM ET, SEC Network. Vanderbilt has lost four of five after a white-hot start, while Alabama has lost three of five. The key here: Vanderbilt’s ability to control the offensive boards. They’re 10-1 when posting an OREB% of 35% or above and 7-4 when they don’t, with most of those wins coming against walkovers.
#66 Miami at #57 Virginia (-4), 7 PM ET, ESPN. On paper here, Virginia has a gigantic advantage in one key area: turnovers. Virginia averages a +7.8 turnover margin per 100 possessions, while Miami sits at -0.3. Miami is a perfect 7-0 when they commit fewer than 12 turnovers, so that’s your metric to watch.
#227 Southern (-1) at #288 Jackson State, 9 PM ET, ESPN2. Rare national network opportunity for the SWAC here. Southern is tied for first; Jackson State is mid-pack. Most importantly, they have the two best scorers in the league. Southern has Tai’Reon Joseph, averaging 20.4 PPG, while JSU’s Ken Evans sits at 18.8 PPG on 42% 3PT. Here’s hoping you get to see one of the two in the First Four.
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 6
FIVE STARS
#9 BYU (-1) at #25 Oklahoma, 8 PM ET, ESPN+. As seen in the below game as well, the Big 12’s analysis of their best games drives me nuts. You chose Texas Tech/Baylor for ESPN, which is fine, but…I mean…you couldn’t take this? Or the game below? Don’t get it. Anyway, the Big 12 has three of the four best games on Tuesday night, which is pretty cool.
Again, as is the game every game now, this will come down to BYU’s efficiency from three, which is meaningful against an Oklahoma defense currently holding opponents to 28% from deep. BYU is 15-1 when shooting 35% or better from deep and 1-4 otherwise; Oklahoma is 3-3 in games where the opponent has shot 35% or better and 13-3 otherwise. More than anything else either team does elsewhere, this is what decides it.
#15 Iowa State at #26 Texas (-1), 8 PM ET, ESPN+. No one team in America may have as clear of a swing piece as Iowa State’s defense. In games where the opponent turns it over on fewer than 23% of their possessions, ISU is 2-4 and has gotten blown off the court on two of those. In every other game, they’re 14-1 with the one loss being the Saturday Baylor game where they took a fairly controversial L. Something fun to ponder as you witness an elite guard battle between Tamin Lipsey and Max Abmas. (Bonus stat: Iowa State is 9-1 when Lipsey scores 15+ points, but his season high against any Quad 1 opponent is 14.)
FOUR STARS
NCAAW: #66 Texas Tech at #28 West Virginia (-10.5), 7 PM ET, ESPN+. The reason to watch any West Virginia game: Ja’Naiya Quinerly. The junior guard sits at 19.5 PPG and 3.3 steals per game; the only other high-major player to average 15+ and 3+ is Hannah Hidalgo at Notre Dame. At least there’s one relevant March team on WVU’s campus this winter.
#38 Clemson at #8 North Carolina (-10), 7 PM ET, ESPN. UNC obviously had a huge weekend, but perhaps the biggest piece was Harrison Ingram. He scored 21 points, but he also helped out in a different, stranger way: helping UNC improve to 2-2 on the season when he scores 20+. It also is very interesting that in UNC’s biggest games, he’s been at his best. Against top-50 opponents, per Torvik, Ingram is posting a PRPG! of +4.8 (tied for second-best on the team) and is posting 15.9 PPG on 57% 2PT/53% 3PT splits. Whether that latter one can possibly hold, we’ll see, but it’s something to watch for.
#24 Dayton (-4) at #98 Saint Joseph’s, 8 PM ET, CBSSN. This one will require a serious reversal of trends under St. Joe’s HC Billy Lange to make something interesting happen. As a home dog of 3+ points, St. Joe’s is 1-10, with the lone win coming in February 2021 against…Dayton. This will largely have to rest on the shoulders of Erik Reynolds, who’s scoring 18.4 PPG on 46% 3PT over his last 10.
#32 Texas Tech at #16 Baylor (-6), 9 PM ET, ESPN. A common theme of the Baylor season: we know they can score. Can they stop anyone? Against the best offenses on their schedule, the answer has been a resounding no. This will be the eighth game Baylor has played against a top-40 KenPom offense; the previous seven averaged 84.4 PPG and 1.19 PPP. Things like shooting 42% from three aren’t repeatable but allowing a 54% hit rate on twos sure is.
#45 Boise State at #34 Colorado State (-4), 9 PM ET, Mountain West Network. The story of this Mountain West season, for the most part, has been home-court dominance. Home teams are 32-17 in MWC play, sixth-best of any conference, but that doesn’t tell the whole story for me. The six teams anyone cares about - these two, Utah State, New Mexico, San Diego State, and Nevada - have played each other a total of 11 times this season. The home team in these games is 8-3, with two of those losses being in overtime. Translation: it’s hard as hell to win on the road.
#53 Nevada at #35 Utah State (-5), 9 PM ET, Mountain West Network. Copy and paste the above here. However, this carries with it a serious air of desperation for Nevada, who needs this to save their resume. Since January 9, they’ve gone from a Wins Above Bubble of +1.9 to just +0.4, thanks to a 2-4 stretch that included a road loss to Wyoming.
THREE STARS
NCAAW: #39 Nebraska at #40 Michigan (-4.5), 7 PM ET, BTN+. Hope you like games where players on heaters, because Michigan’s Laila Phelia is ON ONE. Phelia has scored 20 PPG over Michigan’s last five, thanks to shooting 7-13 from three.
#63 Ole Miss at #44 South Carolina (-5), 6:30 PM ET, SEC Network. I don’t have a specific reason to watch this game, which might be by design. Ole Miss has played five Quad 1 opponents and South Carolina four. In these games, neither team has a player cracking 14 PPG. Whoever finds their necessary lead scorer should win what’s functionally a toss-up.
#47 Butler at #3 UConn (-13), 8:30 PM ET, FS1. This is not worth watching. Source: me, because I’ve watched UConn home games this year. Adjusted for competition, UConn has been ~3 points better at home than on the road and far better defensively. If Butler goes over 60 in this game they’ve exceeded my expectations.
#17 Michigan State (-4) at #76 Minnesota, 9 PM ET, Peacock. Minnesota has whiffed on all three Quad 1 opportunities they’ve had so far despite having a perfectly fine 5-3 record against Quad 2 teams. If this is their chance, they probably need to find success inside the perimeter rather than outside of it. MSU is just 3-5 when opponents shoot better than 50% on twos this year, which isn’t ideal when you’re playing the 17th-best 2PT% team in America.
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 7
THE SIX-STAR GAME OF THE WEEK
#7 Alabama at #5 Auburn (-3), 7 PM, ESPN2. I’ll be putting a longer preview of this game up on Twitter on Wednesday, so wait around for that. Until then: the projected score of this game is 84-81, which feels like bad news for Alabama. They’ve allowed 85+ points in every loss they’ve taken this season and the only wins they’ve managed in games where they’ve allowed 80+ have come either at home or on a neutral court.
FIVE STARS
The above game twice. It’s so much better than anything else on this night. Apologies to all other games.
FOUR STARS
#119 High Point (-1) at #166 UNC Asheville, 6:30 PM ET, ESPN+. This is a post that’s coming between now and the end of the month, but we need to have a discussion about how good High Point’s pick-and-roll initiations are. High Point has the third-best pick-and-roll offense in all of college basketball, per Synergy, which is a pretty huge deal when so many defenses are reliant on stopping the pick-and-roll to stop other offenses. The problem with all this: High Point’s defense ranks 292nd nationally.
NCAAW: #56 TCU at #44 Oklahoma (-8.5), 7 PM ET, ESPN+. No new news on Sedona Prince’s status, which means TCU may continue their tailspin. Still, I have a couple reasons to watch here: Oklahoma starts Nevaeh Tot, a 5’3” point guard who is an excellent defender. They also start Skylar Vann, averaging 55% on twos that have largely come from just inside the free throw line.
#18 Creighton (-1) at #56 Providence, 8:30 PM ET, FS2. After Providence’s offensive performance the other night, it probably makes sense that this got shoved to FS2. Still, there’s reason to buy back in, which is likely already priced into the spread here. Providence’s outing last night against Villanova was the ninth game of the season where a team posted an eFG% of 37% or worse, a TO% of 20% or greater, and an OREB% of 30% or lower. In the games immediately following, those teams averaged 1.03 PPP, or a projected 69 points for Providence here.
#46 Nebraska at #49 Northwestern (-3), 9 PM ET, BTN. Speaking of unusual events! Nebraska followed what has generally been a stable script to upset Illinois yesterday, posting an eFG% of 50% or higher and a TO% of 12% or lower. That specific combo has gone 88-24 in high-major vs. high-major games this year. It did not work for Nebraska, who lost in overtime. We’ll see if they can get back on track here.
THREE STARS
#39 Villanova at #37 Xavier (-3), 7 PM ET, FS1. Every year, there are a couple of teams that ‘break’ KenPom by way of having a healthy number of blowout victories, a lot of close losses, and a tough schedule. Rarely, if ever, are they in the same conference. Welcome to 2024, where Villanova and Xavier are the only teams inside the KenPom top 40 with nine losses, let alone 10. (Bonus: St. John’s is lurking right behind in 41st at 13-9.)
#13 Wisconsin at #101 Michigan, 7 PM ET, BTN. Every Michigan game is a must-watch now for a very nasty reason: seeing if they lead at halftime. The Wolverines have led at the break in an astounding 10 of their 11 Big Ten games. They’re 2-8 and 2-9 overall. Eventually, you gotta bring one home, but you probably would’ve said that four or five games ago.
#68 Pitt at #74 NC State (-3), 7 PM ET, ESPNU. Intriguing for a few reasons, but one of which is Pitt’s horrific free throw “defense.” That doesn’t exist, obviously, but teams are shooting a shocking 77% from the line against the Panthers this year, the ninth-highest rate in America.
#94 UMass at #78 St. Bonaventure (-5), 7 PM ET, NBC Sports. I think this is online-only but I’m having a hard time figuring it out. USA Network, maybe? Regardless, welcome to the St. Bonaventure experience of “did you make threes.” The Bonnies are a perfect 8-0 when they make 40% or more of their deep balls and 10-1 when they shoot 35% or better. Below that 35% number? 3-7.
#79 LSU at #6 Tennessee (-15), 7 PM ET, SEC Network. Mostly on here in the event Tennessee messes something up, but it’s probably worth noting that Tennessee has become a deeply watchable basketball team. Since December 1, the Vols rank 4th overall in Torvik with the #16 offense.
#111 Southern Illinois at #54 Drake (-8), 8 PM ET, ESPN+. After the loss to Indiana State, the new goal for Drake is to not drop games like this one, which could be a huge hit to their Tournament hopes. In the first matchup, they dominated Southern Illinois on the boards, holding them to a 12% OREB%. When Drake holds opponents below a 29% OREB%, they’re 14-1, with the lone loss coming to Indiana State on Saturday.
#73 Georgia at #42 Mississippi State (-7), 9 PM ET, SEC Network. As sets the standard now, every Mississippi State game’s interest level depends on how much Josh Hubbard plays. With Hubbard in the lineup, State’s offense ranks out as a borderline top-50 unit with particular dominance at getting to the free throw line thanks to the space he opens up.
NAIA: #4 Oklahoma Wesleyan at #9 Southwestern (KS), 8 PM ET, streaming. I know nothing of this one beyond both having very different strengths, but it seems quite enjoyable. Southwestern averages 90.2 PPG and makes 11 threes a game, while Oklahoma Wesleyan allows just 62.2 PPG with the #3 eFG% defense in NAIA.
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 8
FIVE STARS
NCAAW: #11 Notre Dame at #18 Louisville (-1.5), 6 PM ET, ESPN. Love seeing this one get the national spotlight. There are many reasons to give this one a shot, but #1 by a mile will always be Notre Dame’s speed demon Hannah Hidalgo. I have never in my life seen a player average 24.8 PPG, 6.4 RPG, 5.7 APG, and 5 steals per game. If Louisville can slow her down at all on both ends, they can win, but it’s a tall task.
NCAAW: #12 Virginia Tech at #14 NC State (-6.5), 8 PM ET, ACC Network. The ACC is a tightly-packed, frenetic conference this year, which makes it that much more impressive that five of the ~15 best players in the ACC are represented here. This is going to be a heavy Elizabeth Kitley game, as Virginia Tech is undefeated in games where they’ve shot 51% or better on twos. That will be very tough versus NCSU, who’s given up that figure just twice all season.
FOUR STARS
NCAAW: #20 Michigan State at #8 Indiana (-8.5), 7 PM ET, Peacock. I’ve been evangelizing for Michigan State’s offense as one of the most watchable things going this year, but it’s worth going back to the well once more for both teams involved. Indiana ranks #2 in eFG% this season, while Michigan State is #9. As it stands, the quadrant of MSU, Indiana, Iowa, and Penn State represent the only conference games of the season where two top 10 eFG% teams will play one another. That’s always worth attention.
NCAAW: #33 Tennessee (-1.5) at #27 Alabama, 7 PM ET, ESPN+. Time to jump back on the Tennessee bandwagon, I guess. Tennessee has won 10 of 12 and sits all alone in second place in the SEC after a disastrous non-conference campaign that saw them drop a game to Middle Tennessee. The predominant reason for this: a two-headed attack of Rickea Jackson and Jewel Spear, who are combining to average 35.4 PPG over Tennessee’s last 10 on 58% 2PT/37% 3PT shooting splits.
#4 Arizona (-5) at #40 Utah, 8 PM ET, Pac-12 Network. Huge game for both teams here. Arizona is likely going to win the Pac-12, but I’m alarmed that they’ve dropped three games already against a field they are way better than. A 17-3 record for all of conference play would have been acceptable, but 14-6 or 15-5 is worrisome. Utah badly needs a second signature home win to go along with beating BYU in December.
D2: #8 Minot State at #4 Moorhead State (-4.5), 8:30 PM ET, streaming. Our final non-D1 game of the weekday slate, these are two serious title contenders with differing strengths. I like Minot’s defense more, but Moorhead has begun to really figure things out on offense.
NCAAW: #38 Penn State at #4 Iowa (-14.5), 9 PM ET, BTN. Recall that stat from earlier and apply it here: this is the other conference game possible tonight between two top 10 eFG% teams. As always, the story will be about Caitlin Clark, who is now just 66 points shy of the all-time scoring record in women’s hoops, long held by Kelsey Plum. I don’t think she scores 66 here, but…would 37 hold you over?
NCAAW: #7 LSU (-10.5) at #62 Vanderbilt, 9 PM ET, SEC Network. If Vandy cannot beat Alabama earlier in the week, this likely becomes a must-win to stay inside the Tournament field.
THREE STARS
#84 Samford (-1) at #130 UNC Greensboro, 7 PM ET, ESPNU. Massive game in the SoCon title race and one that probably should be in the four-star bracket. Samford is 20-3 and 9-1 SC; UNCG 17-6 and 8-2. Key difference-maker: if Samford can handle UNCG on the boards. The Spartans are a cool 9-0 when posting an OREB% of 34% or above.
NCAAW: #60 Texas A&M at #42 Ole Miss (-6.5), 7:30 PM ET, ESPN+. Numerous interesting pieces in these games, but I like Endyia Rogers for A&M a lot. Current averages: 12.7 PPG, 4.2 RPG, 4 APG, 1.3 SPG at the tall height of 5’7”. Very fun player.
#23 Florida Atlantic (-7) at #129 UAB, 9 PM ET, ESPN2. UAB showed it can really get up for a game with that Memphis win, but I’m unsure they can do the same thing twice. Would be fun to be proven wrong here.
NCAAW: #13 Ohio State (-8.5) at #52 Minnesota, 9 PM ET, Peacock. Minnesota is the first team out in ESPN’s bracketology section, which makes this a game they really, really need. Meanwhile Ohio State could use a win here to jump to the 2 line.
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 9
FIVE STARS
#20 San Diego State (-1) at #53 Nevada, 8 PM ET, CBSSN. Frankly a very boring and bad night of hoops, but this is the clear winner among the lot. As was discussed earlier, it has been nigh-impossible for the six MWC teams that matter to win on the road. SDSU is favored here, but until I see one of these teams blow a home game that truly matters to the title race, I can’t get there myself.
FOUR STARS
#24 Dayton (-3) at #88 VCU, 7 PM ET, ESPN2. While I think Dayton is pretty clearly the best team in the A-10, credit must be given to VCU, who has pretty much turned its season around after an 8-7, 0-2 A10 start. They’ve won six of seven. Have they done anything special during that time? Well, they’re the #1 eFG% defense in America over the last month…because opponents are shooting 19% from three. Enjoy this while it lasts.
NCAAW: #26 Oregon State at #6 Utah (-8.5), 9 PM ET, Pac-12 Network. Another great game buried on a channel no one gets, but nothing new. This should be the post battle of the night, though. You have Utah’s Alissa Pili (20.3 PPG in last 10) taking on Oregon State’s Raegan Beers (17.8 PPG, 10.9 RPG in last 10) beating up on one another for as long as the two of them can take it.
THREE STARS
NCAAW: #64 Belmont (-2.5) at #128 Missouri State, 7:30 PM ET, ESPN+. Hugely paramount game in the MVC race. Belmont is tied for first at 9-1; Missouri State lurks just one game behind at 8-2.
NCAAW: #2 Stanford (-14.5) at #61 Washington, 10 PM ET, Pac-12 Network. Speaking of great posts, Kiki Iriafen is a special one. Last ten games: 21.9 PPG, 11.8 RPG, and 87% from the foul line.