Cincinnati Bearcats
Seed: 6
Record: 25-8
Conference: Big East
vs.
Missouri Tigers
Seed: 11
Record: 23-10
Conference: Big Twelve
Date: Thursday, March 17
Time: 9:50 pm Eastern
Location: Washington, DC
Region: West
Another difficult-to-call 6 vs. 11 matchup; even the oddsmakers are in disarray on this one.
Team Comparisons with SportsRatings Statistics
Cincinnati Missouri
Power Ratings
Strength: #26 (#25 of 68) Strength: #27 (#26 of 68)
Neutral court: #25 Neutral court: #33
Injuries Adj: #25 Injuries Adj: #25
Tempo-free: #25 Tempo-free: #36
Offense: #53 Offense: #29
Defense: #14 Defense: #57Special Analyses
2nd half of season: #34 2nd half of season: #28
Last 6 games: #18 Last 6 games: #67
Consistency: #322 Consistency: #270
Deep Run Potential: #38 Deep Run Potential: #32
Upset Potential: #19 Upset Potential: #24
- Wins vs. tournament teams (6): Xavier+20, @St. John's+2, Louisville+9, @Georgetown+12, @Marquette+7, Georgetown+22
- Losses to tournament teams (8): @Villanova-11, @Syracuse-15, @Notre Dame-8, West Virginia-11, @Pittsburgh-12, St. John's-2, Connecticut-8, =Notre Dame-38
- Other losses (0): none
Key Info: Cincinnati was one of several undefeated teams that made it past 10-0, and 12-0, before most started falling by the wayside with their first loss. Even at 12-0 the Bearcats weren't afforded much respect due to their weak non-conference schedule, but when they won their first two Big East games and beat Xavier, they foreshadowed that they were at least somewhat for real. Losses ensued, but Cincy finished a respectable 9-7 in the tough Big East and scored big late wins against Marquette, Georgetown, and South Florida before being destroyed in their worst performance of the year against Notre Dame.
Cincinnati features balanced scoring, with Yancy Gates and Dion Dixon both just barely above 10 ppg. Gates missed one game, but otherwise their top 9 players played all 33 games, all averaging more than 10 minutes. Cincy's defense is among the best in the country.
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Season overview: Missouri (23-10)
- Wins vs. tournament teams (4): Vanderbilt+OT, =Illinois+11, Old Dominion+23, Kansas St.+16
- Losses to tournament teams (7): Georgetown-OT, @Texas A&M-OT, @Texas-13, @Kansas-17, @Kansas St.-10, Kansas-4, =Texas A&M-15
- Other losses (3): @Colorado-13, @Oklahoma St.-6, @Nebraska-11
Key Info: Missouri also started off hot and cooled once in conference play. The Tigers were 14-1 but finished 9-9 including 4 out of 5 losses at the end. Most of those losses were to tournament teams, and the three that weren't were to bubble-level teams, all with winning records.
Missouri has five scorers in double figures, but the real story of the team has been its defense the last several years. The Tigers play a "40 minutes of Hell" style defense where pressure is applied start to finish at all points of the court. This creates turnovers and easy buckets for the offense, in theory, and that seems to hold given the scoring numbers. But good teams find a way to beat the press and get their own easy buckets.
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Game Analysis: This game might come down to psychology. The Bearcats were blasted by nearly 40 points in their last game, which can't be good for a team's confidence. Likewise, Missouri was manhandled by Texas A&M in their last contest, and dropped four of the last five; guard Kim English said that the team "quit." Is it possible for both teams to lose this game?
This is a great matchup of teams with strong defensive identities. Missouri's defense is used to control the game and create opportunities for their offense. Cincinnati just wants to shut down its opponents and force them into bad shots, keeping their shooting percentage at a minimum. Whose gameplan will dominate?
Vegas Line:
Missouri by PICK
Power rating spread
Cincinnati by 0.01
% Chance to win
Cincinnati: 50.05%
Missouri: 49.95%
Well, the oddsmakers can't make up their (odd) minds. Earlier the books ranged from Cincy by 1 to Mizzou by 1 1/2; now most are giving it a pick'em with a couple favoring the Tigers by 1. What do you do when even the oddsmakers don't have a clear favorite? Look at power ratings, and just get a mathematical answer, of course.
D'oh! The Strength power rating spread for the full season's numbers are amazingly close. Cincinnati is favored by 1/100 of a point, and out of 1,089 game cross-comparisons Cincy win 545, Mizzou 544.
Bottom line: With both teams equally psychologically damaged, I'm not looking for an answer there. Given the "tie" in the power rating, it's interesting to note that Missouri's Neutral Court rating is much lower than their overall rating. The Neutral Court rating balances a team's home and away games so they affect a team equally; otherwise a team that plays well at home and has an outsized number of home games is unfairly inflated. Apparently Missouri is such a team.
It's not that I'm downgrading them for poor relative road performance, but I am taking into account that to have a true neutral court rating, you can't add 19 home games and 10 roads games and call that a neutral court score. Like most teams, Cincinnati's Neutral Court score doesn't change much, as apparently they have a normal home advantage/road disadvantage despite also playing a lot more home games.
I'm still calling for a close game, however.
Final prediction: Cincinnati 89, Missouri 88 Double OT
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