Post by mhbruin on Jan 10, 2023 12:11:51 GMT -8
Now comes the trap game. We got our big win over one-Carlson Utah. Next week comes the toughest road trip of the Pac-12 season. In between we have 7th-place Colorado, who is 1-4 on the road. Easy win, right? Ask USC about that. They only led by 1 with under 2 minutes in the game. The final margin of 7 was SC's biggest lead of the second half.
Which Colorado team will come into Pauley Pavilion? Good Colorado has arguably the best OOC win of any Pac-12 team over Tennessee. Bad Colorado has some terrible losses to Grambling, UMass and California.
We need good UCLA to show up.
METRICS
Estimated Line: UCLA -11.5
Line: UCLA -11.5 (11.5 point favorites win 95% of the time.)
ESPN Predictor: UCLA wins 94% of the time
Nolan Prediction: UCLA wins 69-62
KemPom: UCLA wins 87% of the time, 75-63.
Average prediction: UCLA wins 91% of the time, 73-62.
How much of that win percent is the result of playing at home? When we play at Colorado, KenPom gives us 70%, which is 17% less than our chance of winning in Pauley. KenPom also says Colorado has the 4th best home court advantage in college basketball. They have 5,318 feet of advantage.
The computers like us. They really, really like us. They think Colorado is pretty good. Beating Tennessee on a neutral court will do that for you.
UTAH'S RECORD
After alternating wins and losses to start the season, they are a hot team winning 7 of their last 9 games. Then again, the only decent team they beat in that stretch is Oregon, and that game was in Boulder.
How schizo are the Buffs? I think they join Texas A&M as the only two teams with wins and losses in all four quads.
The Buffaloes are not road warriors. Their only road win is at Stanford.
They have doae better on neutral courts, with that win over Tennessee and another over Texas A&M.
This will be a Quad 2 game for us and a Quad 1 game for the Buffaloes.
UCLA'S OFFENSE VS COLORADO'S DEFENSE
This end of the floor will be where great offense meets great defense.
Utah plays mostly man defense, but they will throw in a little bit of zone.
Colorado is another very good defense, although not as good as Utah's. They are very good at defending the two-point shot, but not so good at defending the three. We don't shoot a lot of threes, so this is a pretty good matchup for Colorado. However, we are quite capable of shooting three-point shots if the jam the lane and leave us open from the outside.
Their best stat is they don't give up a lot of baskets off assists. To put it another way, they may be vulnerable to one-on-one play. That's a good thing for the Bruins.
Colorado is very good on their defensive boards.
Colorado plays a very fast tempo. Arizona is the only Pac-12 team that plays faster. That makes a lot of sense if you play at altitude. You want to make the other team run. The Bruins will probably do better to not run with the Buffs.
Advantage: UCLA. Our offense is better than their defense.
UCLA'S DEFENSE VS COLORADO'S OFFENSE
Colorado is a fair offensive team. They don't excel at anything, but they are pretty bad at some things.
As you might expect for a fast-paced team, they turn the ball over quite a bit. Jaylen Clark, Jaimie Jaquez, and Company would like to welcome them to Pauley Pavilion.
They are not a good outside shooting team, but inside they get quite a few of their shots blocked.
The big surprise is they are a poor free-throw shooting team. A couple of years ago, they led the nation, but this year they are in the bottom 15%.
Advantage: UCLA.
OTHER FACTORS
Colorado is the has the second-highest rebound margin in the Pac-12. They are #38 in rebound margin, #45 in defensive rebounds, and #86 in offensive rebounds. Playing a fast tempo will increase the number of rebounds you get.
Advantage: Mixed
PLAYERS
Colorado lost 4 of their top 6 rotation players off of last season's team, including 3 starters. However Tad Boyle has always played a lot of players so he is bringing back 6 players who played more than 10 minutes per game last season.
He continues to play a lot of guys this season. They are #26 in the country in bench minutes.
* 3-Pt Freq = Percent of his shots that are 3-point attempts.
Part of the problem for Colorado is they are a mis-matched roster. The guy who are good at scoring are mostly not that good at rebounding, while the best rebounders and shot blockers aren't very good scorers. The one exception seems to be Javon Hadley who is pretty good at everything.
They also don't have a true point guard, with no one having a great A/TO ratio.
The Buffs have three good players and then a bunch of pretty good to fair players.
KJ Simpson is the "star" of the team and leads the team in scoring and assists. However, he doesn't have a stellar A/TO ratio, and he only shoots 44% from the field. He can go off for big scoring games, including twice going over 30.
Tristan da Silva was named Pac-12 Player of the Week after scoring 47 points against the Oregon schools on 67% shooting. He's Colorado's poor-man's version of Jaimie Jaquez (or Oscar da Silva). He is skilled at scoring around the basket, he has good footwork, and leads the team in steals.
J'Vonne Hadley does everything well. He has the highest shooting percentage, leads the team in rebounds, and blocks shots. The only thing he doesn't do is shoot the three. He's only attempted one all season. Of course, if you don't shoot from the outside, your FG% should be high.
Lawson Lovering is there only true center. He's never lived up to his lofty recruiting rating. He had a double-double at USC. He's never come close to playing that well in his career. I'll be shocked if he repeats the performance against us.
Freshman Javon Ruffin is their best three-point shooter and looks like he will be a really good player for them.
Jalen Gabbidon and Ethan Wright are transfers from the Ivy League. The Pac-12 is tougher than the Ivy League.
I have no idea why Nique Clifford starts for them and plays 22 minutes a game. He doesn't do anything very well.
Luke O'Brien (who still is no relation to Luke Bryan) plays hard and rebounds well. Other than that, I am not impressed.
CONCLUSION
Colorado hasn't been very good on the road. I would say this was an easy win, if they hadn't played so well at Galen on Thursday.
Frankly I think Coach Boyle should shrink his rotation and play his best five players a lot more. The more he goes to his bench, the happier I will be. He goes to his bench a lot.
Clearly Colorado is capable of beating almost anyone. But we have more talent, we are better on offense, we are better on defense, and we handle the ball better.
Cronin needs to keep them from looking ahead to the Arizona schools.
I see this game as a 6 on the nail-biting scale. (0=I finish the game with all my nails intact. 10=All my nails are trashed by the end of the game.)
Go Bruins!
Which Colorado team will come into Pauley Pavilion? Good Colorado has arguably the best OOC win of any Pac-12 team over Tennessee. Bad Colorado has some terrible losses to Grambling, UMass and California.
We need good UCLA to show up.
METRICS
Line: UCLA -11.5 (11.5 point favorites win 95% of the time.)
ESPN Predictor: UCLA wins 94% of the time
Torvick Predictor: UCLA wins 91% of the time 76-62.
Nolan Prediction: UCLA wins 69-62
KemPom: UCLA wins 87% of the time, 75-63.
Average prediction: UCLA wins 91% of the time, 73-62.
How much of that win percent is the result of playing at home? When we play at Colorado, KenPom gives us 70%, which is 17% less than our chance of winning in Pauley. KenPom also says Colorado has the 4th best home court advantage in college basketball. They have 5,318 feet of advantage.
| Colorado | UCLA | |
| NET | 62 | 7 |
| KenPom Rank | 49 | 3 |
| Sagarin Rank | 54 | 3 |
| Torvick Rank | 55 | 3 |
| SOS | 61 | 48 |
| Record | 11-7 | 15-2 |
The computers like us. They really, really like us. They think Colorado is pretty good. Beating Tennessee on a neutral court will do that for you.
UTAH'S RECORD
| QUAD 1 | QUAD 2 | QUAD 3 | QUAD 4 | |
| UCLA | 2-2 | 4-0 | 4-0 | 5-0 |
| Colorado | 1-2 | 1-2 | 6-2 | 3-1 |
After alternating wins and losses to start the season, they are a hot team winning 7 of their last 9 games. Then again, the only decent team they beat in that stretch is Oregon, and that game was in Boulder.
How schizo are the Buffs? I think they join Texas A&M as the only two teams with wins and losses in all four quads.
| UCLA Home | 10-0 |
| Colorado Road / Neutral | 3-6 |
| Colorado True Road Games | 1-4 |
The Buffaloes are not road warriors. Their only road win is at Stanford.
They have doae better on neutral courts, with that win over Tennessee and another over Texas A&M.
This will be a Quad 2 game for us and a Quad 1 game for the Buffaloes.
UCLA'S OFFENSE VS COLORADO'S DEFENSE
This end of the floor will be where great offense meets great defense.
Utah plays mostly man defense, but they will throw in a little bit of zone.
Colorado Defense | UCLA Offense | |
| KenPom Rank | 25 | 10 |
| Torvick Rank | 25 | 12 |
| Points per game (allowed / scored) | 67 | 78 |
| Tempo (Rank in US) | 40 of 363 | 210 |
| FG Percent | 41% | 48% |
| Effective FG Percent | 46.9% (57) | 53.0% (58) |
| 3-Pt Percent | 32.8% (135) | 37.0% (47) |
| 3-Pt Rate | 32.8% (77) | 27.2% (353) |
| 2-Pt Percent | 45.7% (45) | 52.1% (101) |
| FT Percent | 74% (91) | |
| Offensive Rebound Percent | 22.7% (25) | 32.5% (71) |
| Assist Percent | 42.4% (18) | 49.4% (217) |
| Turnovers (created / committed) | 19.8% (116) | 13.8% (4) |
| Block Percent | 10.8% (98) | 6.1% (24) |
Colorado is another very good defense, although not as good as Utah's. They are very good at defending the two-point shot, but not so good at defending the three. We don't shoot a lot of threes, so this is a pretty good matchup for Colorado. However, we are quite capable of shooting three-point shots if the jam the lane and leave us open from the outside.
Their best stat is they don't give up a lot of baskets off assists. To put it another way, they may be vulnerable to one-on-one play. That's a good thing for the Bruins.
Colorado is very good on their defensive boards.
Colorado plays a very fast tempo. Arizona is the only Pac-12 team that plays faster. That makes a lot of sense if you play at altitude. You want to make the other team run. The Bruins will probably do better to not run with the Buffs.
Advantage: UCLA. Our offense is better than their defense.
UCLA'S DEFENSE VS COLORADO'S OFFENSE
UCLA Defense | Colorado Offense | |
| KenPom Rank | 6 | 92 |
| Torvick Rank | 6 | 111 |
| Points per game (allowed / scored) | 61 | 74 |
| FG Percent | 42.7% | 45.4% |
| Effective FG Percent | 47.5% (84) | 51.0% (140) |
| 3-Pt Percent | 28.9% (22) | 32.4% (340) |
| 3-Pt Rate | 40.4% (273) | 34.1% (271) |
| 2-Pt Percent | 50.3. (188) | 52.2% (95) |
| FT Percent | 66.1% (310) | |
| Offensive Rebound Percent | 32.5% (71) | 31.9% (89) |
| Assist Percent | 51.8% (194) | 51.2% (162) |
| Turnovers (created / committed) | 24.3% (12) | 19.3 (218) |
| Block Percent | 10.9% (81) | 10.7% (293) |
Colorado is a fair offensive team. They don't excel at anything, but they are pretty bad at some things.
As you might expect for a fast-paced team, they turn the ball over quite a bit. Jaylen Clark, Jaimie Jaquez, and Company would like to welcome them to Pauley Pavilion.
They are not a good outside shooting team, but inside they get quite a few of their shots blocked.
The big surprise is they are a poor free-throw shooting team. A couple of years ago, they led the nation, but this year they are in the bottom 15%.
Advantage: UCLA.
OTHER FACTORS
| Colorado | UCLA | |
| Rebound margin | 8.8 | 3.3 |
| Assist-Turnover Ratio | 1.0 to 1 | 1.6 to 1 |
Colorado is the has the second-highest rebound margin in the Pac-12. They are #38 in rebound margin, #45 in defensive rebounds, and #86 in offensive rebounds. Playing a fast tempo will increase the number of rebounds you get.
Advantage: Mixed
PLAYERS
Colorado lost 4 of their top 6 rotation players off of last season's team, including 3 starters. However Tad Boyle has always played a lot of players so he is bringing back 6 players who played more than 10 minutes per game last season.
He continues to play a lot of guys this season. They are #26 in the country in bench minutes.
| Class | Size | Recruiting | Games | Minutes | Points | Rebounds / 40 Min. | Assists | Blocks / 40 Min. | FG % | 3-Pt % | 3-Pt Freq * | A/TO Ratio | |
| KJ Simpson G | So | 6'2" 177 | 4-star 86 | 17 | 30 | 18 | 4 | 44% | 35% | 1.4 | |||
| Tristan da Silva F | Jr | 6'9" 217 | Unranked | 18 | 29 | 15 | 6.9 | 1 | 53% | 36% | 0.7 | ||
| J'Vonne Hadley G | Jr | 6'6" 215 | JUCO | 16 | 26 | 9 | 9.5 | 2 | 1.0 | 56% | 1.4 | ||
| Julian Hammond III G | So | 6'3" 181 | 3-star 234 | 18 | 18 | 6 | 2 | 44% | 35% | 1.0 | |||
| Nique Clifford G | Jr | 6'6" 191 | 4-star 116 | 18 | 22 | 6 | 7.2 | 2 | 1.2 | 39% | 23% | 1.1 | |
| Jalen Gabbidon G | Sr | 6'5" 195 | Unranked | 14 | 20 | 6 | 1 | 1.1 | 42% | 30% | 1.4 | ||
| Javon Ruffin G | Fr | 6'5" 191 | 3-star 201 | 18 | 14 | 6 | 1 | 43% | 39% | 1.1 | |||
| Luke O'Brien G | Jr | 6'8" 213 | 3-star 419 | 16 | 18 | 5 | 9.5 | 1 | 41% | 24% | 0.6 | ||
| Ethan Wright G | Sr | 6'3" 190 | Unranked | 18 | 14 | 3 | 1 | 25% | 33% | 0.9 | |||
| Lawson Lovering C | So | 7'1" 225 | 4-star 58 | 17 | 21 | 4 | 8.8 | 1 | 2.2 | 49% | 0.8 |
* 3-Pt Freq = Percent of his shots that are 3-point attempts.
Part of the problem for Colorado is they are a mis-matched roster. The guy who are good at scoring are mostly not that good at rebounding, while the best rebounders and shot blockers aren't very good scorers. The one exception seems to be Javon Hadley who is pretty good at everything.
They also don't have a true point guard, with no one having a great A/TO ratio.
The Buffs have three good players and then a bunch of pretty good to fair players.
KJ Simpson is the "star" of the team and leads the team in scoring and assists. However, he doesn't have a stellar A/TO ratio, and he only shoots 44% from the field. He can go off for big scoring games, including twice going over 30.
Tristan da Silva was named Pac-12 Player of the Week after scoring 47 points against the Oregon schools on 67% shooting. He's Colorado's poor-man's version of Jaimie Jaquez (or Oscar da Silva). He is skilled at scoring around the basket, he has good footwork, and leads the team in steals.
J'Vonne Hadley does everything well. He has the highest shooting percentage, leads the team in rebounds, and blocks shots. The only thing he doesn't do is shoot the three. He's only attempted one all season. Of course, if you don't shoot from the outside, your FG% should be high.
Lawson Lovering is there only true center. He's never lived up to his lofty recruiting rating. He had a double-double at USC. He's never come close to playing that well in his career. I'll be shocked if he repeats the performance against us.
Freshman Javon Ruffin is their best three-point shooter and looks like he will be a really good player for them.
Jalen Gabbidon and Ethan Wright are transfers from the Ivy League. The Pac-12 is tougher than the Ivy League.
I have no idea why Nique Clifford starts for them and plays 22 minutes a game. He doesn't do anything very well.
Luke O'Brien (who still is no relation to Luke Bryan) plays hard and rebounds well. Other than that, I am not impressed.
CONCLUSION
Colorado hasn't been very good on the road. I would say this was an easy win, if they hadn't played so well at Galen on Thursday.
Frankly I think Coach Boyle should shrink his rotation and play his best five players a lot more. The more he goes to his bench, the happier I will be. He goes to his bench a lot.
Clearly Colorado is capable of beating almost anyone. But we have more talent, we are better on offense, we are better on defense, and we handle the ball better.
Cronin needs to keep them from looking ahead to the Arizona schools.
I see this game as a 6 on the nail-biting scale. (0=I finish the game with all my nails intact. 10=All my nails are trashed by the end of the game.)
Go Bruins!