Post by mhbruin on Feb 26, 2021 12:40:15 GMT -8
Welcome to The Gauntlet. We now face three Quad 1 challenges in a row. Or are those Quad 1 opportunities? We should be underdogs in all three games.
The toughest seems to be the next game, at Colorado.
Going into our final 3 games, I said I would be happy if we won 3 of the 6. We have already won 3. Am I happy? I am a Bruin fan. This is not the path to happiness.
METRICS
Line: Colorado -6½
ESPN Predictor: UCLA wins 23% of the time.
Torvick Predictor: UCLA wins 25% of the time.
The computers think this is the toughest game left on our schedule.
COLORADO'S RECORD
This is a Quad 1 game for UCLA and a Quad 2 game for Colorado.
Right away, you can see the mystery of Colorado's record. They have three Quad 1 wins which is tied for the most in the Pac-12. However, they have three Quad 3 losses. In the Pac-12, only California and Washington have three or more losses in the bottom 2 quads.
Their good wins are over SC (twice) and at Stanford. One bad loss is just weird. They blew a 19-point lead with less than 9 minutes to go against Utah at home. Then we get to the unexplainable. They lost to the two worst teams (and two of the three worst team in power 5 conferences) Washington and California.
Long ago and far away, we beat they by 3 in Pauley.
OFFENSE
Ranks in the Pac-12
The computers think they are a little better on offense than we are. However, most of the stats are pretty even.
We are equal on how we shoot the three, but they shoot a few more of them. Hence the slightly better points per shot.
They are the best free-throw shooting team in the country, but they don't get to the line as often as we do. As a result, we both score around 14 points a game from the line.
I would conclude that we are pretty even on offense.
DEFENSE
Mick Cronin will see the defense he wants at UCLA on Saturday. Unfortunately, Colorado will be playing it.
Here is Colorado's big advantage over us. They are an excellent defensive team. We are not. Almost every player plays excellent individual defense and they play good help defense when they need to.
OTHER FACTORS
The teams look pretty even here, too. They should be able to keep up with us on the boars.
You might think that with the altitude advantage, Colorado would want to play a fast pace to get their opponents winded. They do not.
Colorado likes to play their offense until they get a good shot. They frequently run it for the full shot clock. The Bruins need to be prepared to play defense for the full 30 seconds.
PLAYERS
Tad Boyle has always like to play a lot of players. As a result, he has a very experienced roster. In his 10-man rotation he has 5 seniors and 2 juniors. And unlike a lot of teams these days, his seniors and juniors are not mostly transfers. Only Jeriah Horne is a transfer. All the rest have come up through his program. It almost seems quaint these days. Where does Boyle think he is coaching? Stanford?
Even one of his freshmen has 2 years in the system. Barthelemy is a red-shirt freshman.
Boyle has 3 promising freshmen. The best, Jabari Walker, is just returning from an injury.
Speaking of injuries, after a career plagued by them, Dallas Walton is doing a nice job of playing center for the Buffs.
McKinley Wright leads them in scoring and has 42% of their assists. He is a great on-ball defender and can be lightning quick on his drives to the basket. If he has a weakness, it is outside shooting.
You want outside shooting? Look no further than Tulsa transfer Jeriah Horne. Howver, he can also score inside the arc and he leads them in rebounding.
His 24 points against SC was not a fluke. He did it earlier in the season and has scored in double figures in 15 games.
Evan Battey is a basketball miracle. He has never committed a personal foul. Just ask him.
Battey doesn't look like a basketball player, and he should win an Oscar for the look of shock on his face every time he is called for a foul. However, he can play. He has a great motor and has some nice moves around the basket.
The Schwartz is with the Buffaloes. He's not a great offensive player, but he is one of several glue guys on this team that play good defense and rebound. The same is true of Eli Parquet.
Jabari Walker is an uber-talented freshman who could be playing in the NBA in a year or two. He is one of those hidden gems that Tad Boyle seems to find. He had to beat out California and CSUN to sign him. He has only been playing 15 minutes a game, but he stuffs the stat sheet. However, he is foul prone.
Dallas Walton is finally healthy and doing a nice job at center. He has an effective hook shot and he can block shots.
Maddox Daniels is a 3-point specialist. Almost 70% of his shots are threes.
Barthelemy mostly plays to give Wright a rest. He is an good backup PG.
Tristan da Silva is the younger brother of the Stanford star. He could be a very good player in a couple of years.
CONCLUSION
There aren't a lot of reasons to pick UCLA in this game. They are as good as we are at most things and they are significantly better than we are at defense. And they are very good at home. They only team they lost to in Boulder was Utah another team from high altitude.
It helps that we already played one game at altitude on this road trip, and that should help up. However, 4,200 feet is not 5,300 feet.
So is there hope? To paraphrase Lady Gaga.
I've got a hundred million reasons to pick Colorado.
But, baby, I just need one good one, good one
Tell me that you've got the good one, good one
Baby, I just need one good one to pick the Bruins
Here's my one good reason: UCLA is 17-5. Colorado is 18-7. We win games. And we win close games. Colorado has lost several.
It's not much to hang my blue UCLA hat on, but it's the best I can come up with.
The toughest seems to be the next game, at Colorado.
Going into our final 3 games, I said I would be happy if we won 3 of the 6. We have already won 3. Am I happy? I am a Bruin fan. This is not the path to happiness.
METRICS
Line: Colorado -6½
ESPN Predictor: UCLA wins 23% of the time.
Torvick Predictor: UCLA wins 25% of the time.
Colorado | UCLA | |
NET | 96 | 42 |
KenPom Rank | 36 | 45 |
Sagarin Rank | 25 | 38 |
SOS | 72 | 73 |
Record | 18-7 | 17-5 |
The computers think this is the toughest game left on our schedule.
COLORADO'S RECORD
QUAD 1 | QUAD 2 | QUAD 3 | QUAD 4 | |
UCLA | 2-3 | 3-2 | 8-0 | 4-0 |
Colorado | 3-4 | 6-0 | 5-3 | 4-0 |
This is a Quad 1 game for UCLA and a Quad 2 game for Colorado.
UCLA on the Road | 5-3 |
Colorado at Home | 9-1 |
Right away, you can see the mystery of Colorado's record. They have three Quad 1 wins which is tied for the most in the Pac-12. However, they have three Quad 3 losses. In the Pac-12, only California and Washington have three or more losses in the bottom 2 quads.
Their good wins are over SC (twice) and at Stanford. One bad loss is just weird. They blew a 19-point lead with less than 9 minutes to go against Utah at home. Then we get to the unexplainable. They lost to the two worst teams (and two of the three worst team in power 5 conferences) Washington and California.
Long ago and far away, we beat they by 3 in Pauley.
OFFENSE
Ranks in the Pac-12
Colorado | UCLA | |||
KP Off Efficiency Rank | 17 | 21 | ||
Torvick Off Efficiency Rannk | 16 | 24 | ||
Points Per Shot | 3 | 1.29 | 5 | 1.27 |
Scoring Offense | 4 | 73.8 | 5 | 73.8 |
FG Attempts | 7 | 57.0 | 5 | 57.7 |
FG Percent | 4 | 45.7% | 3 | 45.8% |
3-Pt Percent | 3 | 36.9% | 2 | 37.0% |
3-Pt Attempts Per Game | 6 | 21 | 8 | 19 |
FT Percent | 1 | 83.1% | 6 | 72.1% |
FT Attempts Per Game | 8 | 16.8 | 7 | 19.1 |
Assists Per Game | 6 | 13.9 | 4 | 14.0 |
Fewest Turnovers | 4 | 11.4 | 1 | 10.8 |
The computers think they are a little better on offense than we are. However, most of the stats are pretty even.
We are equal on how we shoot the three, but they shoot a few more of them. Hence the slightly better points per shot.
They are the best free-throw shooting team in the country, but they don't get to the line as often as we do. As a result, we both score around 14 points a game from the line.
I would conclude that we are pretty even on offense.
DEFENSE
Colorado | UCLA | |||
KP Defensive Efficiency Rank | 31 | 74 | ||
Torvick Def Efficiency Rank | 95 | 84 | ||
Scoring Defense | 1 | 63.1 | 5 | 67.4 |
FG Percent Defense | 4 | 41.5% | 8 | 43.0% |
3-Pt Percent Defense | 3 | 32.4% | 9 | 34.9% |
Steals Per Game | 9 | 5.4 | 10 | 5.4 |
Blocks Per Game | 10 | 2.9 | 11 | 2.7 |
Mick Cronin will see the defense he wants at UCLA on Saturday. Unfortunately, Colorado will be playing it.
Here is Colorado's big advantage over us. They are an excellent defensive team. We are not. Almost every player plays excellent individual defense and they play good help defense when they need to.
OTHER FACTORS
Colorado | UCLA | |||
Rebound Margin | 4 | 4.0 | 3 | 4.9 |
Offensive Rebounds | 7 | 9.5 | 5 | 10.0 |
Defensive Rebounds | 6 | 25.6 | 5 | 25.7 |
Assist-Turnover Ratio | 4 | 1.2 | 2 | 1.3 |
Tempo (National Rank) | 244 | 321 |
The teams look pretty even here, too. They should be able to keep up with us on the boars.
You might think that with the altitude advantage, Colorado would want to play a fast pace to get their opponents winded. They do not.
Colorado likes to play their offense until they get a good shot. They frequently run it for the full shot clock. The Bruins need to be prepared to play defense for the full 30 seconds.
PLAYERS
Tad Boyle has always like to play a lot of players. As a result, he has a very experienced roster. In his 10-man rotation he has 5 seniors and 2 juniors. And unlike a lot of teams these days, his seniors and juniors are not mostly transfers. Only Jeriah Horne is a transfer. All the rest have come up through his program. It almost seems quaint these days. Where does Boyle think he is coaching? Stanford?
Even one of his freshmen has 2 years in the system. Barthelemy is a red-shirt freshman.
Boyle has 3 promising freshmen. The best, Jabari Walker, is just returning from an injury.
Speaking of injuries, after a career plagued by them, Dallas Walton is doing a nice job of playing center for the Buffs.
Games | Minutes | Points | FG % | 3-Point Percent | Rebounds | Assists | ||
McKinley Wright | Sr | 25 | 33 | 15 | 48% | 28% | 4 | 6 |
Jeriah Horne | Sr | 25 | 25 | 12 | 51% | 46% | 6 | 1 |
Evan Battey | Jr | 25 | 25 | 10 | 59% | 13% | 5 | 1 |
D'Shawn Schwartz | Sr | 23 | 28 | 9 | 39% | 35% | 4 | 1 |
Jabari Walker | Fr | 19 | 15 | 8 | 54% | 50% | 5 | 0 |
Dallas Walton | Sr | 19 | 16 | 8 | 57% | 47% | 3 | 0 |
Maddox Daniels | Sr | 25 | 19 | 6 | 37% | 38% | 2 | 1 |
Eli Parquet | Jr | 24 | 28 | 6 | 51% | 46% | 2 | 1 |
Keeshawn Barthelemy | Fr | 23 | 13 | 4 | 33% | 27% | 1 | 2 |
Tristan da Silva | Fr | 17 | 10 | 3 | 50% | 23% | 1 | 0 |
McKinley Wright leads them in scoring and has 42% of their assists. He is a great on-ball defender and can be lightning quick on his drives to the basket. If he has a weakness, it is outside shooting.
You want outside shooting? Look no further than Tulsa transfer Jeriah Horne. Howver, he can also score inside the arc and he leads them in rebounding.
His 24 points against SC was not a fluke. He did it earlier in the season and has scored in double figures in 15 games.
Evan Battey is a basketball miracle. He has never committed a personal foul. Just ask him.
Battey doesn't look like a basketball player, and he should win an Oscar for the look of shock on his face every time he is called for a foul. However, he can play. He has a great motor and has some nice moves around the basket.
The Schwartz is with the Buffaloes. He's not a great offensive player, but he is one of several glue guys on this team that play good defense and rebound. The same is true of Eli Parquet.
Jabari Walker is an uber-talented freshman who could be playing in the NBA in a year or two. He is one of those hidden gems that Tad Boyle seems to find. He had to beat out California and CSUN to sign him. He has only been playing 15 minutes a game, but he stuffs the stat sheet. However, he is foul prone.
Dallas Walton is finally healthy and doing a nice job at center. He has an effective hook shot and he can block shots.
Maddox Daniels is a 3-point specialist. Almost 70% of his shots are threes.
Barthelemy mostly plays to give Wright a rest. He is an good backup PG.
Tristan da Silva is the younger brother of the Stanford star. He could be a very good player in a couple of years.
CONCLUSION
There aren't a lot of reasons to pick UCLA in this game. They are as good as we are at most things and they are significantly better than we are at defense. And they are very good at home. They only team they lost to in Boulder was Utah another team from high altitude.
It helps that we already played one game at altitude on this road trip, and that should help up. However, 4,200 feet is not 5,300 feet.
So is there hope? To paraphrase Lady Gaga.
I've got a hundred million reasons to pick Colorado.
But, baby, I just need one good one, good one
Tell me that you've got the good one, good one
Baby, I just need one good one to pick the Bruins
Here's my one good reason: UCLA is 17-5. Colorado is 18-7. We win games. And we win close games. Colorado has lost several.
It's not much to hang my blue UCLA hat on, but it's the best I can come up with.