2011 NCAA Tournament Round of 64 Previews, Odds, and Predictions: (1) Ohio State vs. (16) Texas San Antonio

Ohio State Buckeyes
Seed: 1
Record: 32-2
Conference: Big Ten

vs.

Texas San Antonio Roadrunners
Seed: 16
Record: 20-13
Conference: Southland

Date: Friday, March 18
Time: 4:40 pm Eastern
Location: Cleveland, OH 
Region: East

 

As if being the top overall seed wasn't good enough, the Buckeyes are playing in-state, too.

Team Comparisons with SportsRatings Statistics

     Ohio St.                           Texas San Antonio

Power Ratings

Strength:      #1 (#1 of 68)       Strength:      #235 (#67 of 68)
Neutral court: #1                  Neutral court: #235
Injuries Adj:  #1                  Injuries Adj:  #231

Tempo-free:    #1                  Tempo-free:    #231
Offense:       #1                  Offense:       #210
Defense:       #9                  Defense:       #255

Special Analyses

2nd half of season: #1             2nd half of season: #224
Last 6 games:       #1             Last 6 games:       #188 

Consistency:        #226           Consistency:        #7
Deep Run Potential: #2             Deep Run Potential: #201
Upset Potential:    #1             Upset Potential:    #266

 

Season overview: Ohio St. (32-2)

• Wins vs. tournament teams (16): @Florida+18, Morehead St.+19, @Florida St.+14, NC Asheville+47, Oakland+29, @Michigan+4, Penn St.+3, @Illinois+5, Purdue+23, Michigan+9, Michigan St.+10, Illinois+19, @Penn St.+21, Wisconsin+28, =Michigan+7, =Penn St.+11
• Losses to tournament teams (2): @Wisconsin-4, @Purdue-13
• Other losses (0):none

Key Info: Ohio State just keeps winning, like an unstoppable machine, beating an outrageous total of 16 games against tournament teams. Sure, they dropped two games on the road—to 4-seed Wisconsin and 3-seed Purdue, both of whom played their best games of the season—but in general the team seems to have no flaws, or its flaws just don't matter.

The Buckeyes were faulted for not having a true point guard, but no one's exploited that yet. Jared Sullinger, a freshman, gets most of the attention but the Buckeyes are loaded with experience: Starters Jon Diebler, Dallas Lauderdale, and David Lighty are all seniors, and William Buford is a junior. Some say the wealth of supporting talent kept Sullinger from winning Big Ten player of the year, but in reality it's exactly what made him Big Ten Freshman of the year. Sullinger averages 17.2 points and 10.1 rebounds per game.

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Season overview: Texas San Antonio (20-13)

• Wins vs. tournament teams (1): =Alabama St.+9
• Losses to tournament teams (0): none
• Other losses (13): @Evansville-4, @UC Riverside-7, Samford-1, @Tulsa-25, @Bowling Green-11, @Oklahoma St.-16, Sam Houston St.-3, Stephen F. Austin-9, @Sam Houston St.-21, @Southeastern Louisiana-6, @Stephen F. Austin-4, @Nicholls St.-2, @Texas St.-2

Key Info: One bright spot for UTSA is that they haven't lost to any teams in the NCAA field. Of course that's because they hadn't played any until they beat Alabama State—all 13 of their losses are to non-tourney teams (though some are in the lesser tournaments). The Roadrunners were consistently mediocre all year until they won five straight at the end, including the Southland Conference title game. Now they've added an NCAA tournament victory to that.

Devin Gibson leads a team with three double-figure scorers and only one senior—Gibson himself. The point guard averages 17.0 points per game and over 5 rebounds and assists. But on Wednesday night it was Melvin Johnson III who led the team to victory with 29 points in the 70-61 win.

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Game Analysis: Look at the two charts, and tell me UTSA has a chance. Note that every single Ohio State game rates higher than every single UTSA game. So if each one is compared, game by game, Ohio State's performance was superior. For UTSA to win, it would not only have to do something that hasn't happened in 104 attempts, it would have to do something that hasn't happened in 1,122 cross-compared hypothetical games.

Vegas Line:

Ohio State by 23 1/2

Power rating spread

Ohio St. by  28.6 (32.0 w/home court)   
 

% Chance to win

Ohio St.:   100% 
UTSA:         0% 

Since nothing is 100%, let's figure out UTSA's real odds. Ohio State's worst game was a point better than UTSA's best. Let's be lenient and say that OSU has a 1 in 35 (#games +1) chance of having a worse game, and UTSA has a 1 in 34 chance of having their new best game. That's a 1 in 1,190 chance, or 0.084% chance for UTSA to pull off the upset. OSU has a 99.916% chance of winning. Using standard deviations from the average would make for a more "proper" estimate, but who wants to do that shit.

The oddsmakers think the Buckeyes will take it easy on UTSA, relatively speaking.

Bottom line: The Buckeyes win. I'll use the no-home-court-advantage numbers to be nice.

Final prediction: Ohio State 85, UTSA 56