Post by mhbruin on Mar 14, 2022 14:49:18 GMT -8
I like this matchup. The two things that scare me about double-digit seeds are teams that shoot the three really well or teams that have a star who can take over a game. I don't think Akron has either.
METRICS
Line: UCLA -15
ESPN Predictor: UCLA wins 93% of the time.
All the computers predict an easy win, except for Nolan who sees a close game. Strange!
According to KenPom, Akron is about as good as UC Santa Barbara, Hofstra, Seattle, and Rhode Island. He rates them higher than Boston College, Louisville, NC State, and Georgia Tech. The ACC sucked this season.
He also rates them higher than Cal, and Oregon State. The Pac-12 sucked, too.
AKRON'S RECORD
Akron's best win was over #75 Toledo. Their worst losses are to #293 Northern Illinois and #328 Western Michigan. I don't know anything about any of these opponents.
However, their best game may have been a 1-point loss to Ohio State in their season opener. This is not exactly the same team. 2 of the nine players who played in that game are no longer playing for the Zips.
Here are some highlights of one of their games.
If you want to watch a full game, check this out.
UCLA'S OFFENSE VS AKRON'S DEFENSE
We play fairly slowly. They are one of the slowest teams in D1. It's a total misnomer to call this team the "Zips". Their mascot should be a snail or a turtle.
Akron keeps the other team's score down, largely because they play so slowly. It's not like their defense has great numbers.
However, all indications are that they pack the lane. They defend the two better than the three. Opposing teams shoot a lot of threes against them.
They don't seem to pressure the ball much. They don't generate a lot of turnovers. That's probably a good strategy, since we don't turn the ball over.
Their only impressive defensive stat is that teams don't get a lot of assisted baskets against them. I guess that means they are good at getting in the passing lanes. That shouldn't bother us much since we rely on isolations so much. (It's kind of remarkable that Tyger gets so many assists, when you realize we don't get that many as a team.)
They don't block a lot of shots. We don't get a lot blocked. Jaime could have a field day.
They seem to play mostly man. They will pressure the guy bringing the ball up the floor a little, but that seems mostly to slow things down.
It's hard to see how they are going to slow us down on offense much, other than literally slowing things down. This will be a low-possession game.
UCLA'S DEFENSE VS AKRON'S OFFENSE
They look like a pretty good offensive team. Scoring 71 per game for such a slow team is pretty good. One stat stands out: The 3-Point Rate. Almost 42% of their shots are from behind the arc and they shoot them pretty well.
They also shoot the two pretty well. They don't get a ton of assists, so it seems they depend on a lot of one-on-one plays, too.
They are not a great FT shooting team. I hope it doesn't come down to that.
They aren't big. I imagine that much of the time they spread the floor and let their wings go to work. For a LOOONNNGG time. We will need to be disciplined and be ready to play 30 seconds of defense every time.
OTHER FACTORS
After playing uber-tall SC and Arizona, this should be a delight. We should dominate the boards.
We also have better PG play than they do. Their two best guys have A/TO ratios of 1.8 and 1.5, and we have three guys who are over 3.
PLAYERS
Akron played 9 players in most games, but they are down to 8. This might look like an inexperience team with no seniors. However, this is COVID time. A sophomore is in his third season. Any other year he would be classified as a junior. All the guys listed as juniors have the experience of a senior. It's just that they can come back for a fifth season.
Every player was with the program last season.
In case you have trouble with names, you might have been troubled by a Trimble and a Tribble. However, Trimble has taken "a leave of absence" from the team, and hasn't played in a month. He had replaced KJ Walton in the starting lineup, who only played in 6 games.
Here's a story about it.
* 3-Pt Freq = Percent of his shots that are 3-point attempts.
Apparently Ali Ali's parents weren't creative enough to come up with a second name, but he can play. He is very thin. On our team only Tyger is less than 200 lbs, and our players of comparable height are 210 to 225 lbs. He might have some problems if he has to guard Jaimie.
Ali (I don't think he is related to Prince Ali), is their only real dual threat. He is their best three-point shooter, and shoots well inside the arc too. He went off for 32 in one game this season.
Otherwise, you want to guard Castanada, Dawson, and Clarke at the arc. They clearly understand what side of the three point line to shoot from. I don't recall the last time I say someone who shoots 60% from beyond the arc, let along 83%.
You worry about Freeman, Tribble, Bandago, and Wynn inside the arc. That's if Bandango plays.
Freeman is an athletic guy with a lot of athletic moves around the basket. He likes to post up for the lob or to work for a hook shot.
Tribble and Castaneda are their best ball-handlers, so I imagine they split the PG duties.
Bandago and Freeman are the only real shot-blockers. Bandago is their only real size, but he hasn't played more than a few minutes recently. Their recent success has come from playing small. i
n their conference tournament, they had to play 3 games in 3 days. Bandango played a grand total of 2 minutes. He hasn't played for 10 minutes in a game in the last month. They seem to have settled on a small-ball, 7-man roster.
CONCLUSION
Honestly, I think we got a pretty good matchup in our first game. We are clearly the better team however you look at it. Our big challenge will be to defend for the full shot clock. We also need KYO. Know your opponent. Know who are the outside shooters and who are the inside threats. Mick is good for preparing our guys for that.
As for defending a small team, we can always go small, with Clark at the 5. However, when Cody is in there, they will have to match up with him.
Finally, there is the place and time. The game will start around 10 pm, Akron time and would end around midnight, assuming it starts on time.
Can they win? Of course they can, but only if we don't play well. In their last game they went with a 7-man small rotation. If the refs don't stop us, we should physically overwhelm them and wear them down with our size, bulk, and depth.
I expect a lot of upsets in this tournament. I don't think this will be one of them.
Go Bruins!
METRICS
Line: UCLA -15
ESPN Predictor: UCLA wins 93% of the time.
Torvick Predictor: UCLA wins 91% of the time. 70-57
Nolan Prediction: UCLA wins 69-63 .
KemPom: UCLA wins 88% of the time. 71-58 (Thanks again, Born2BeBruin)
KemPom: UCLA wins 88% of the time. 71-58 (Thanks again, Born2BeBruin)
All the computers predict an easy win, except for Nolan who sees a close game. Strange!
| AKRON | UCLA | |
| NET | 127 | 10 |
| KenPom Rank | 131 | 8 |
| Sagarin Rank | 132 | 10 |
| Torvick Rank | 136 | 10 |
| SOS | 280 | 37 |
| Record | 22-9 | 25-7 |
According to KenPom, Akron is about as good as UC Santa Barbara, Hofstra, Seattle, and Rhode Island. He rates them higher than Boston College, Louisville, NC State, and Georgia Tech. The ACC sucked this season.
He also rates them higher than Cal, and Oregon State. The Pac-12 sucked, too.
AKRON'S RECORD
| QUAD 1 | QUAD 2 | QUAD 3 | QUAD 4 | |
| UCLA | 5-4 | 8-2 | 8-1 | 4-0 |
| ARKON | 0-2 | 2-1 | 4-4 | 16-2 |
Akron's best win was over #75 Toledo. Their worst losses are to #293 Northern Illinois and #328 Western Michigan. I don't know anything about any of these opponents.
However, their best game may have been a 1-point loss to Ohio State in their season opener. This is not exactly the same team. 2 of the nine players who played in that game are no longer playing for the Zips.
| UCLA Road / Neutral | 11-6 |
| AKRON Road / Neutral | 12-6 |
Here are some highlights of one of their games.
If you want to watch a full game, check this out.
UCLA'S OFFENSE VS AKRON'S DEFENSE
Akron Defense | UCLA Offense | |
| KenPom Rank | 166 | 15 |
| Torvick Rank | 184 | 15 |
| Points per game (allowed / scored) | 63 | 76 |
| Tempo (Rank in US) | 352 of 358 | 248 |
| FG Percent | 42% | 45% |
| Effective FG Percent | 49.3% (130) | 50.5% (142) |
| 3-Pt Percent | 34.7% (237) | 35.2% (84) |
| 3-Pt Rate | 35.3% (96) | 31.5% (312) |
| 2-Pt Percent | 47.8% (97) | 49.6% (186) |
| FT Percent | 74% | |
| Offensive Rebound Percent | 26,3% (99) | 31.9% (59) |
| Assist Percent | 40.3% (9) | 49.4% (197) |
| Turnovers (created / committed) | 17.6% (225) | 13.4% (5) |
| Block Percent | 8.7% (170) | 7.9% (87) |
We play fairly slowly. They are one of the slowest teams in D1. It's a total misnomer to call this team the "Zips". Their mascot should be a snail or a turtle.
Akron keeps the other team's score down, largely because they play so slowly. It's not like their defense has great numbers.
However, all indications are that they pack the lane. They defend the two better than the three. Opposing teams shoot a lot of threes against them.
They don't seem to pressure the ball much. They don't generate a lot of turnovers. That's probably a good strategy, since we don't turn the ball over.
Their only impressive defensive stat is that teams don't get a lot of assisted baskets against them. I guess that means they are good at getting in the passing lanes. That shouldn't bother us much since we rely on isolations so much. (It's kind of remarkable that Tyger gets so many assists, when you realize we don't get that many as a team.)
They don't block a lot of shots. We don't get a lot blocked. Jaime could have a field day.
They seem to play mostly man. They will pressure the guy bringing the ball up the floor a little, but that seems mostly to slow things down.
It's hard to see how they are going to slow us down on offense much, other than literally slowing things down. This will be a low-possession game.
UCLA'S DEFENSE VS AKRON'S OFFENSE
UCLA Defense | Akron Offense | |
| KenPom Rank | 12 | 113 |
| Torvick Rank | 16 | 111 |
| Points per game (allowed / scored) | 65 | 71 |
| FG Percent | 42% | 46% |
| Effective FG Percent | 47.7% (73) | 52.8% (57) |
| 3-Pt Percent | 32.2% (93) | 35.6% (73) |
| 3-Pt Rate | 37.8% (185) | 41.7% (93) |
| 2-Pt Percent | 47.3% (77) | 52.4% (73) |
| FT Percent | 69.2% (268) | |
| Offensive Rebound Percent | 24.8% (53) | 29.1% (146) |
| Assist Percent | 51,1% (186) | 48.8% (230) |
| Turnovers (created / committed) | 19.7% (92) | 17.7% (123) |
| Block Percent | 9.5% (138) | 7.2% (43) |
They look like a pretty good offensive team. Scoring 71 per game for such a slow team is pretty good. One stat stands out: The 3-Point Rate. Almost 42% of their shots are from behind the arc and they shoot them pretty well.
They also shoot the two pretty well. They don't get a ton of assists, so it seems they depend on a lot of one-on-one plays, too.
They are not a great FT shooting team. I hope it doesn't come down to that.
They aren't big. I imagine that much of the time they spread the floor and let their wings go to work. For a LOOONNNGG time. We will need to be disciplined and be ready to play 30 seconds of defense every time.
OTHER FACTORS
| Akron | UCLA | |
| Rebound Margin | 3.4 | 4.1 |
| Assist-Turnover Ratio | 1.0 to 1 | 1.5 to 1 |
After playing uber-tall SC and Arizona, this should be a delight. We should dominate the boards.
We also have better PG play than they do. Their two best guys have A/TO ratios of 1.8 and 1.5, and we have three guys who are over 3.
PLAYERS
Akron played 9 players in most games, but they are down to 8. This might look like an inexperience team with no seniors. However, this is COVID time. A sophomore is in his third season. Any other year he would be classified as a junior. All the guys listed as juniors have the experience of a senior. It's just that they can come back for a fifth season.
Every player was with the program last season.
In case you have trouble with names, you might have been troubled by a Trimble and a Tribble. However, Trimble has taken "a leave of absence" from the team, and hasn't played in a month. He had replaced KJ Walton in the starting lineup, who only played in 6 games.
Here's a story about it.
| Class | Size | Games | Minutes | Points | Rebounds / 40 Min. | Assists | Blocks / 40 Min. | FG % | 3-Pt % | 3-Pt Freq * | |
| Ali Ali F | So + | 6-8 196 | 33 | 34 | 14 | 4 | 3 | 47% | 41% | 33% | |
| Xavier Castaneda G | Jr + | 6-0 188 | 33 | 32 | 14 | 5 | 2 | 40% | 38% | 59% | |
| Enrique Freeman F | So (RS) | 6-7 206 | 33 | 29 | 13 | 15 | 1 | 2 | 66% | ||
| Greg Tribble G | So + | 6-1 195 | 32 | 26 | 7 | 4 | 2 | 45% | 23% | 15% | |
| Mikal Dawson F | So + | 6-5 222 | 33 | 24 | 6 | 6 | 1 | 39% | 37% | 83% | |
| Aziz Bandaogo C | Fr (RS) | 7-0 215 | 32 | 12 | 3 | 11 | 0 | 4 | 49% | ||
| Garvin Clarke G | Fr + | 6-0 185 | 33 | 14 | 3 | 7 | 1 | 34% | 33% | 63% | |
| Michael Wynn F | Jr + | 6-6 204 | 22 | 10 | 3 | 7 | 1 | 50% | 29% | 39% | |
* 3-Pt Freq = Percent of his shots that are 3-point attempts.
Apparently Ali Ali's parents weren't creative enough to come up with a second name, but he can play. He is very thin. On our team only Tyger is less than 200 lbs, and our players of comparable height are 210 to 225 lbs. He might have some problems if he has to guard Jaimie.
Ali (I don't think he is related to Prince Ali), is their only real dual threat. He is their best three-point shooter, and shoots well inside the arc too. He went off for 32 in one game this season.
Otherwise, you want to guard Castanada, Dawson, and Clarke at the arc. They clearly understand what side of the three point line to shoot from. I don't recall the last time I say someone who shoots 60% from beyond the arc, let along 83%.
You worry about Freeman, Tribble, Bandago, and Wynn inside the arc. That's if Bandango plays.
Freeman is an athletic guy with a lot of athletic moves around the basket. He likes to post up for the lob or to work for a hook shot.
Tribble and Castaneda are their best ball-handlers, so I imagine they split the PG duties.
Bandago and Freeman are the only real shot-blockers. Bandago is their only real size, but he hasn't played more than a few minutes recently. Their recent success has come from playing small. i
n their conference tournament, they had to play 3 games in 3 days. Bandango played a grand total of 2 minutes. He hasn't played for 10 minutes in a game in the last month. They seem to have settled on a small-ball, 7-man roster.
CONCLUSION
Honestly, I think we got a pretty good matchup in our first game. We are clearly the better team however you look at it. Our big challenge will be to defend for the full shot clock. We also need KYO. Know your opponent. Know who are the outside shooters and who are the inside threats. Mick is good for preparing our guys for that.
As for defending a small team, we can always go small, with Clark at the 5. However, when Cody is in there, they will have to match up with him.
Finally, there is the place and time. The game will start around 10 pm, Akron time and would end around midnight, assuming it starts on time.
Can they win? Of course they can, but only if we don't play well. In their last game they went with a 7-man small rotation. If the refs don't stop us, we should physically overwhelm them and wear them down with our size, bulk, and depth.
I expect a lot of upsets in this tournament. I don't think this will be one of them.
Go Bruins!
