2011 NCAA Tournament Sweet Sixteen Previews, Odds, and Predictions: (2) North Carolina vs. (11) Marquette

North Carolina Tar Heels
Seed: 2
Record: 28-7
Conference: ACC

vs.

Marquette Golden Eagles
Seed: 11
Record: 22-14
Conference: Big East

Date: Friday, March 25
Time: 7:15 pm Eastern
Location: Newark, NJ 
Region: East

 

The ACC, which started with 5 teams, has 3 in the Sweet Sixteen. The Big East started with 11 and only has 2 left. One conference is guaranteed to lose a team here.

Team Comparisons with SportsRatings Statistics

     North Carolina                     Marquette

Power Ratings

Strength:      #13 (#8 of 16)      Strength:      #25(#12 of 16)
Neutral court: #13                 Neutral court: #26
Injuries Adj:  #7                  Injuries Adj:  #27

Tempo-free:    #15                 Tempo-free:    #26
Offense:       #46                 Offense:       #19
Defense:       #5                  Defense:       #59

Special Analyses

2nd half of season: #13            2nd half of season: #29
Last 6 games:       #32            Last 6 games:       #39
Consistency:        #320           Consistency:        #117
 

 

Season overview: North Carolina (28-7)

• Wins vs. tournament teams (10): NC Asheville+11, Kentucky+2, Clemson+10, Florida St.+20, @Clemson+2, @Florida St.+2, Duke+14, Clemson+OT, Long Island+15, Washington+3
• Wins vs. Sweet Sixteen teams (4): Kentucky+2, Florida St.+20, @Florida St.+2, Duke+14
  
• Losses to tournament teams (5): =Vanderbilt-7, @Illinois-12, Texas-2, @Duke-6, =Duke-17
• Other losses (2): =Minnesota-5, @Georgia Tech-20

Key Info: Interestingly, North Carolina has more wins against the Sweet Sixteen than any other Sweet Sixteen team; they beat Kentucky in the pre-conference season, then beat FSU twice and Duke once.

UNC has played better with point guard Kendall Marshall, who took over from Larry Drew (since departed). Just a few weeks ago it was a significant difference, putting the Tar Heels near the top five when only the Marshall games were counted. But North Carolina's recent mediocre play has evened the score a bit; now they only get a bump from #13 overall to #12.

Harrison Barnes has been playing much better in the 2nd half of the season, too, and he had 22 in the win over Washington.

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Season overview: Marquette (22-14)

• Wins vs. tournament teams (8): Bucknell+11, West Virginia+5, Notre Dame+22, Syracuse+6, @Connecticut+OT, =West Virginia+6, =Xavier+11, =Syracuse+4
• Wins vs. Sweet Sixteen teams (1): @Connecticut+OT
  
• Losses to tournament teams (13): =Duke-5, =Gonzaga-3, Wisconsin-5, @Vanderbilt-1, @Pittsburgh-8, @Louisville-1, @Notre Dame-5, Connecticut-8, @Villanova-5, @Georgetown-9, St. John's-12, Cincinnati-7, =Louisville-25
• Other losses (1): @Seton Hall-13

Key Info: Marquette has probably lost to more tournament teams than any other tournament team. They've now won 8 games against the field, for a remarkable 21 games total. Most of the wins were over Big East teams; they beat Syracuse to get into Sweet Sixteen, and the only Sweet Sixteen team they've defeated is UConn.

The Eagles were lucky to get here, and it didn't always look likely. But they beat some big opponents down the stretch to make it happen. And a lot of those losses—7 of them to be exact—were by 5 or fewer points. Lately Marquette has been very hit and miss—two great NCAA games were preceded by a crushing loss to Louisville, preceded by 2 more big wins, which followed two terrible losses. The question is, how long before the tide turns and the Eagles have another bad game?

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Game Analysis: Marquette's two tournament games have been great, as have 4 of their last 7. The other 3 were terrible. Meanwhile North Carolina has been consistently mediocre for their last five games.

North Carolina won't have home court advantage anymore, either. So if the Golden Eagles play like they've been playing during the tournament so far, UNC will be going home. But if Marquette has a down game, they'll be thrashed themselves.

Vegas Line:

UNC by  4 1/2

Power rating spread

UNC by  3.2  
 

% Chance to win

UNC:        55% 
Marquette:  45%

On average, though, for the whole season UNC is slightly better than Marquette. And Marquette doesn't normally lose by a lot of points, so naturally the Tar Heels are a less-than-five-point favorite, according to both our power rating and the oddsmakers.

Bottom line: I think the odds above are about right; UNC wins about 11 of 20 matchups. And based on how Marquette is playing in the last month, if they lose it might not be that close. Their early losses were close but lately they've been winning big and losing big, so despite the expected close game we're going to take North Carolina by double digits.

Final prediction: North Carolina 82, Marquette 71