Washington State v UCLA Preview

I am pretty busy today, so I am not going to update most of the stats from the earlier preview.

Washington State survived a terrible shooting night last in Vegas to beat Cal.  That's a bit unusual.  They are not a great shooting team, but they usually lose close games.  They are 5-10 in them.

Since our first game, which we won by 20, they have gotten Dishon Jackson back, but Mouhamed Gueye was out last night.  Gueye was playing really well lately, but at this point his status for tonight is unknown.  Jackson is a good player, but I wouldn't call that an even trade.

WSU has one game under their belts at T-Mobile, and we are playing our first since the Gonzaga game.  They play a lot of guys so I don't think fatigue will be a factor for them?

METRICS

Line: UCLA -9 (It was 9.5 at Pauley)

ESPN Predictor: UCLA wins 85% of the time.



Based on the computers, this game looks like a toss-up or a slight UCLA advantage.



WASHINGTON STATE'S RECORD


The Cougars are 19-13, but their have lost 10 of those games by at total of 37 points. The biggest of those was a 6-point loss to Boise State (#30 in the NET and #26 in KenPom). They lost 5 games by 3-points or less.  They just lost AT Oregon by 3.  They lost twice to USC by 2.

They are SO close to having a lot more wins.

Then again, we handed them their worst loss of the year.

They have won 4 straight, although those are over a Oregon State (twice), Cal, and a struggling Oregon Ducks team.
This will be a Quad 2 game for us.


NOTE:  I have not updated the rest of this except for the conclusion

UCLA'S OFFENSE VS WASHINGTON STATE'S DEFENSE


Washington State is a terrific defensive team.  They defend the 2.  They defend the 3.  They have the best 3-point defense in the Pac-12. 

They get a lot of turnovers.  They block a lot of shots.  

They held Arizona State to 29 and Colorado to 43.  In only 5 of 24 games has their opponent scored over 70.

This isn't a great matchup for a team that is going through an offensive slump.  Our offense is good, but it hasn't been lately.  I wouldn't predict that we have one of our highest scoring games.

Also keeping the score down will be the pace.  We are pretty slow.  They are even slower.

UCLA'S DEFENSE VS WASHINGTON STATE'S OFFENSE

If they are such a great defensive team, than why don't they have a better record? You might think they have issues on the offensive end. You would be right.

In their last 11 games, they have scored 52, 78, 77, 57, 65, 61, 70, 66, 68, 60, and 55, and 59. They have managed 70 points 3 times, and 4 times they scored in the 50's.


WSU takes and makes more 3-point shots than any other team in the Pac-12. 45% of their shots are from behind the arc. (32% of our shots are.) Quite a few are from WAY behind the arc.  

They aren't very good at either kind of basket, but they are a bit better at 3-point shooting than 2-point shots. 

The hot strategy is the Golden State Warriors approach of only shooting 3's or layups.  While Coach Smith is big on metrics, that isn't exactly how the Cougars play.  They are quite willing to pull up for the teardrop shot.

Sometimes it doesn't seem like they run much offense at all.  They seem to go one-on-one a lot.

The issue with 3-point shooting is the high variance.  You are going to have games where you get hot and score a ton.  You are also going to have games where you go cold and can't seem to score.    The Cougars have had both.  They have scored as few as 51 and as many as 109.  (Our range is 60 to 100).

OTHER FACTORS


They are a decent rebounding team.  We are a bit better.  

Their A/TO ratio isn't very good.  That is because they don't have a ton of assist.  Only 43% of their made baskets come off an assist.  This is one of the lowest rates in the nation.   They play a LOT of one-on-one ball.

As you might expect for a good defensive team, they get a lot of blocks and steals.

PLAYERS

If you are interested in my roster preview from the off season, click here.

They basically have an 8-man rotation.  They would play 9 but athletic big man Dishon Jackson has been out with an injury for over a month.  It is possible he could play a bit, but I would expect a ton of rust.

They have 1 senior and 3 juniors in the rotation.  Everyone except Flowers and Roberts were with the Cougars last season.


* 3-Pt Freq = Percent of his shots that are 3-point attempts.

Flowers, Roberts, and Williams are all good shooters.  However, they all have terrible shot selection.  The can shoot you into a game.  They can shoot you out of it.  If they are hitting tough shots, it will be a long night for the Bruins.

Flowers and Roberts like step-back 3's from several feet beyond the arc.  They want to be Steph Curry.  They aren't.  However, they still make a decent number of the shots.  If they had more discipline, they would shoot a higher percentage, but Coach Smith seems OK with tough shots and one-on-one play as long as they play defense.

Flowers leads the team in scoring and assists.   He has a good 2.0 A/TO ratio. 

Noah Williams was their leading returning scorer from last year.  He was expected to take a big step forward, but he has been worse.  His shooting percentages and minutes are down.  He likes to shoot 3's when he is off balance and fading to the side.  He thinks he is Ray Allen.  He isn't.  He does lead the team in steals.  

Abogidi and Gueye are similar players.  They are tall and VERY athletic.  The Cougars don't run a ton of plays for either, and they get most of their points on offensive rebounds and lob passes, although Abogidi will post up occasionally.  They will both shoot an occasional 3.

Abogidi is another player who hasn't progressed as much as I expected.  He was a terrific freshman but seems about the same player this season.   He leads the team in rebounds and blocks with 1.6 blocks per game.

6-11 Gueye is the second highest-rated recruit in WSU history, behind only Klay Thompson.  He is an excellent athlete who oozes potential.  He's had a good freshman year.  (He may not play against us.)

Bamba and Rodman are nice glue guys who do a little of everything, do it well and don't hurt the team.  Rodman seems like a normal human being, unlike his father.

Andrej Jakimovski is their best 3-point shooter and seems to know his role.  Unlike the guards, he wants to set up at the 3-point line and shoot the high-percentage shot.  We won't want to leave him alone out there.  He's also capable near the basket, but won't try to post up very often.

CONCLUSION

They have a great defense.  Our offense has not always been great this year.  Without Gueye, they will be without one of their shot-blockers, but Abogidi leads them by a lot and Dishon Jackson is about as good as Gueye.

In our first meeting, we did everything right.  We hit our 3's.  We killed them on the boards.  All that was without Tyger.  Jaylen Clark made up for it with a monster game.

We did turn the ball over 16 times, our worst performance of the year.  Tyger didn't play.  It showed.   

I don't expect us to shoot 50% from the arc again, but I also don't expect 16 turnovers, either.  

I don't think we will win by 20, we are clearly the better team, and we seem to be getting healthy at the right time.  

Here's the rub.  They are #23 in the nation in 3-point attempts.  11 times this year they shot over 40% from behind (and way behind) the arc.  They won 9 of those games (losing twice to SC).  If they have one of those magical nights, all bets are off.  A hot-shooting team can beat anyone.  (And a cold-shooting team can lose to any one.)

WSU is a good team.  We are much better.  However, on any given evening ....

GO BRUINS!!