UCLA Bruins
Seed: 7
Record: 22-10
Conference: Pac-10
vs.
Michigan State Spartans
Seed: 10
Record: 19-14
Conference: Big Ten
Date: Thursday, March 17
Time: 9:20 pm Eastern
Location: Tampa, FL
Region: Southeast
A good 7-10 matchup between Big Ten and Pac-10 representatives.
Team Comparisons with SportsRatings Statistics
UCLA Michigan St.
Power Ratings
Strength: #56 (#46 of 68) Strength: #38 (#35 of 68)
Neutral court: #53 Neutral court: #38
Injuries Adj: #51 Injuries Adj: #48
Tempo-free: #53 Tempo-free: #40
Offense: #87 Offense: #63
Defense: #34 Defense: #38Special Analyses
2nd half of season: #44 2nd half of season: #53
Last 6 games: #40 Last 6 games: #48
Consistency: #222 Consistency: #186
Deep Run Potential: #59 Deep Run Potential: #37
Upset Potential: #51 Upset Potential: #43
- Wins vs. tournament teams (4): Brigham Young+7, Southern California+14, St. John's+7, Arizona+22
- Losses to tournament teams (7): =Villanova-12, =Virginia Commonwealth-4, @Kansas-1, Washington-11, @Southern California-11, @Arizona-11, @Washington-7
- Other losses (3): Montana-9, @California-OT, Oregon-17
Key Info: Will the real UCLA please stand up? The Bruins were 3-3 after losing to Kansas by just a point on the road, and the disappointment carried over to a terrible home loss to Montana three days later. But they recovered to beat BYU. In conference play, UCLA was suddenly very consistent, win or lose, though they might be good one half and bad the other. Still, that translated into a lot of wins and they found themselves tied for first place after beating Arizona. They still hadn't played a truly bad game all conference season until the tournament, when 7th place Oregon cleaned their clocks.
Somewhat of a throwback, the Bruins play a fairly tall lineup, with just one guard among their top four scorers. The other three all average well over 5 rebounds per game. In contrast, three of Michigan State's four top scorers are guards.
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Season overview: Michigan St. (19-14)
- Wins vs. tournament teams (6): =Washington+5, =Oakland+1, Wisconsin+OT, Penn St.+18, Illinois+4, =Purdue+18
- Losses to tournament teams (13): =Connecticut-3, @Duke-5, @Syracuse-14, Texas-12, @Penn St.-4, @Illinois-9, @Purdue-10, Michigan-4, @Wisconsin-26, @Ohio St.-10, Purdue-20, @Michigan-7, =Penn St.-13
- Other losses (1): @Iowa-20
Key Info: They were supposed to be the #2 team in the country, a fact I'm sure they're sick of hearing. But the AP poll had the Spartans just behind Duke, and therefore an odds-on favorite to threepeat as Final Four participants. It's not out of the question yet, but the odds are considerably more against them now that they drew a 10-seed. For a long while, it looked like getting back to the tournament was doubtful, but behind last year's familiar faces Kalin Lucas, Draymond Green, Durrell Summers, etc., the Spartans squeezed in with some big late wins.
The late January dismissal of Korie Lucious had some effect on the team, as they hit bottom right afterwards; perhaps it was emotionally destabilizing, as they recovered thereafter to have some of their best efforts, but on the whole they average about 3 points worse without him. They've certainly become more erratic since he's been gone, losing to Iowa by 20 only to beat them by 19 later, and to beat Purdue in their best game of the year before falling to Penn State in one of their worst.
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Game Analysis: Both teams are coming off terrible games, among their worst of the season (for UCLA, it was their worst). Not long before that, each team had their best game of the season (for MSU, it was immediately before). So who knows what will happen when these teams meet?
Michigan State hit bottom and then bounced back after purging Korie Lucious. But they still have their bad moments. UCLA seemed to be putting it all together, but clearly they're still vulnerable to the inexplicable bad game. The power rating numbers add everything up for the whole year:
Vegas Line:
Michigan State by 1 1/2
Power rating spread
Michigan State by 2.0
% Chance to win
UCLA: 43%
Michigan St.: 57%
7-10 seeds are often "upsets" by seed number, with 10-seeds winning 40% of the time, so it's not surprising to see a 10-seed favored by Vegas and by various power ratings.
Bottom line: Since I don't know how to sort out the various factors I've discussed in this overview and don't have a strong feeling for this game either way, I'll just look for a sign: the power ratings score estimate comes out to exactly 66.00 to 64.00, so that's what I'm going with.
Final prediction: Michigan State 66, UCLA 64
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