Post by mhbruin on Jan 4, 2024 11:03:13 GMT -8
I am pretty demoralized, and I'm not going to spend a lot of time on this preview.
California is a really bad team. Worse than us. Will it matter?
METRICS
The computers think this game is one of the few left on our schedule we are likely to win.
We are bad, but Cal is worse.
RECORDS
Cal has three Quad 4 losses. I don't think any other Pac-12 team has more than one.
OTOH, Cal doesn't get blown out. They only game they lost by more than 10 is a 19-point loss to Arizona. They took two very good teams, San Diego State and Butler, to overtime.
Cal's best wins are over Santa Clara and Saint Thomas.
They have lost to Pacific who are #357 in the NET out of 352 teams. 0-13 Mississippi Valley State took Pacific to overtime.
UCLA'S OFFENSE VS CALIFORNIA'S DEFENSE
What's the opposite of an irresitable force and an imovable object? I don't know but here a horrible offense is meeting and even worse defense.
We are a terribe three-point shooting team, and they can't defend the three.
What will happen? Who knows?
Cal has the worst defense in the Pac-12 and one of the worst among all Power 6 teams. Cal isn't terrible at defending the two-point shot. They are only poot at it.
Can we score against Cal? If not, there is no other team left on our schedule we should be able to score on.
Advantage: UCLA (If you can believe it.)
UCLA'S DEFENSE VS CALIFORNIA'S OFFENSE
Cal is consistently mediocre at offense. They aren't terrible at most things. They just aren't good at anything. They don't shoot the ball well. They don't get offensive rebounds. They turn it ove quire a bit.
At 33%, Cal is not a pretty poor 3-point shooting team, but that doesn't discourage them. 44% of their shots are threes, which is the highest rate in the Pac-12, and one of the highest in the nation.
When you play terrible defense you have to score a lot to have a chance to win, Defending the three may be the key to the game. When they shoot less thab 42% from the arc, they are 1-11, When they shoot less than 36%, they are 0-7.
Maybe missing Askew and Bowser isn't that bad. They were shooting 14% and 17% from the arc.
Honestly, it is hard to see how their offensive efficiency numbers aren't worse.
Their offense is better than ours, but our defense continues to be very good.
Advantage:UCLA
OTHER FACTORS
We have a slight edge on the boards.
Cal is terrible at taking care of the ball. Their 13 turnovers per game is #274 in the country. Their A/TO ratio is really bad, too.
They play at a moderate speed. We are still SLOW.
The Cardinal start three 5th-year seniors, a 4th-year senior, and a junior. Four of them were with the team last season. That is maturity and continuity.
PLAYERS
The Bears don't have much of a bench. Their depth has been hurt by the loss of three roation players to injury, ND Okafor, Devin Askew, and Monty Bowser. Askew and Bowser were part-time starters.
They are a mature team with 3 fifth-year seniors and two juniors, but only 3 of the 7 current rotation players were on the team last season.
* 3-Pt Freq = Percent of his shots that are 3-point attempts.
Texas Tech must not like Mark Madsen much, since his two leading scorers were both playing for the Red Raiders last season.
Jaylon Tyson leads the team in points, assists, and steals. He is having an All-Pac-12 kind of season on a bad team. He has scored in double figures in every game and goes over 20 in most games.
Lot of big time scorers do it by shooting a ton of shots while making a low percentage. (See Mack, Sebastian.) Tyson is not one of those guys. He shoots a good percentage. He has had four double-doubles this season. Tyson is a three-level scorer. He can drive to the hoop, pull up for the midrange, or shoot the three. He will beat his defender off the dribble or post him up.
25-year-old Fardaws Aimaqis a double-double machine. That doesn't mean he works at In-n-Out. He has 8 double-doubles in 14 games. He leads the Bear in rebounds and blocks and is their second-leading scorer.
Jalen Cone is the third part of their three-headed monster. He hasn't been a great shooter, but he still isn't shy and it's mostly three-pointers. A stunning 78 PERCENT of his shots are threes. He attempts more than twice as many as Tyson, and more than four times as many as anyone else on the team. He only makes 33% of them (which would make him one of UCLA's best shooters). I don't think we need to fear the Cone, but we need to defend him at the arc.
Tyson, Aimaq, and Cone take 63% of the Bears' shots.
Keonte Kennedy is their best ball handler. ad their worst shooter,
Jalen Celestine and Rodney Brown Jr. have both been deadly outside shooters on a low volume of shots. Between them, they have only taken 25 three-pointers in 14 games, but both need to be guarded on the arc.
CONCLUSION
The computers say Cal is a little better than CSUN. The computers say we are better than both of them. The computers say we are going to win.
However, we need to win this on the court. We need to play good offense against their terrible defense.
Cal's hasn't done a good job of winning games, but they keep things close while losing. Sound familiar?
UCLA is 1-7 in close games. The Bears are 2-6.
I expect a close game. Who will pull it out in the final minutes? Beats me.
However, if we can't beat Cal at home, there are few wins left on our schedule.
Go Bruins!
California is a really bad team. Worse than us. Will it matter?
METRICS
UCLA Predicted Win % | Predicted Score | |
KenPom | 78% | 73-64 |
Torvick | 73% | 71-65 |
Warren Nolan | 75-59 | |
ESPN | 78% |
The computers think this game is one of the few left on our schedule we are likely to win.
California | UCLA | |
NET | 217 | 159 |
KenPom Rank | 157 | 89 |
Torvick Rank | 146 | 122 |
SOS | 102 | 76 |
Record | 4-10 | 6-8 |
We are bad, but Cal is worse.
RECORDS
QUAD 1 | QUAD 2 | QUAD 3 | QUAD 4 | |
UCLA | 0-4 | 0-1 | 1-3 | 4-0 |
California | 0-3 | 0-2 | 2-2 | 2-3 |
Cal has three Quad 4 losses. I don't think any other Pac-12 team has more than one.
OTOH, Cal doesn't get blown out. They only game they lost by more than 10 is a 19-point loss to Arizona. They took two very good teams, San Diego State and Butler, to overtime.
Cal's best wins are over Santa Clara and Saint Thomas.
They have lost to Pacific who are #357 in the NET out of 352 teams. 0-13 Mississippi Valley State took Pacific to overtime.
UCLA Home | 4-3 |
California Road / Neutral | 0-6 |
UCLA'S OFFENSE VS CALIFORNIA'S DEFENSE
California Defense | UCLA Offense | |
KenPom Rank | 231 | 188 |
Torvick Rank | 247 | 211 |
Points per game (allowed / scored) | 78 | 67 |
FG Percent | 45% (294) | 42% (298) |
Effective FG Percent | (266) | (326) |
3-Pt Percent | 37% (330) | 29% (307) |
3-Pt Rate | 38% (210) | 26% (353) |
2-Pt Percent | 51% (186) | 45% (318) |
FT Percent | 73% (123) | |
Offensive Rebound Percent | 26% (61) | 33% (81) |
Assist Percent | 38% (210) | 48% (227) |
Turnovers (created / committed) | 16% (295) | 18% (188) |
Block Percent | 8% (237) | 6% (9) |
What's the opposite of an irresitable force and an imovable object? I don't know but here a horrible offense is meeting and even worse defense.
We are a terribe three-point shooting team, and they can't defend the three.
What will happen? Who knows?
Cal has the worst defense in the Pac-12 and one of the worst among all Power 6 teams. Cal isn't terrible at defending the two-point shot. They are only poot at it.
Can we score against Cal? If not, there is no other team left on our schedule we should be able to score on.
Advantage: UCLA (If you can believe it.)
UCLA'S DEFENSE VS CALIFORNIA'S OFFENSE
UCLA Defense | California Offense | |
KenPom Rank | 33 | 113 |
Torvick Rank | 56 | 98 |
Points per game (allowed / scored) | 62 | 76 |
FG Percent | 39% (32) | 44% (248) |
Effective FG Percent | (80) | 56% (152) |
3-Pt Percent | 33% (176) | 33% (174) |
3-Pt Rate | 45% (347) | 44% (49) |
2-Pt Percent | 47% (72) | 51% (140) |
FT Percent | 72% (141) | |
Offensive Rebound Percent | 27% (84) | 32% (103) |
Turnovers (created / committed) | 19% (78) | 19% (236) |
Block Percent | 12% (83) | 9% (155) |
Cal is consistently mediocre at offense. They aren't terrible at most things. They just aren't good at anything. They don't shoot the ball well. They don't get offensive rebounds. They turn it ove quire a bit.
At 33%, Cal is not a pretty poor 3-point shooting team, but that doesn't discourage them. 44% of their shots are threes, which is the highest rate in the Pac-12, and one of the highest in the nation.
When you play terrible defense you have to score a lot to have a chance to win, Defending the three may be the key to the game. When they shoot less thab 42% from the arc, they are 1-11, When they shoot less than 36%, they are 0-7.
Maybe missing Askew and Bowser isn't that bad. They were shooting 14% and 17% from the arc.
Honestly, it is hard to see how their offensive efficiency numbers aren't worse.
Their offense is better than ours, but our defense continues to be very good.
Advantage:UCLA
OTHER FACTORS
California | UCLA | |
Rebound Margin | 3.3 | 5.5 |
Turnover Margin | -2.3 | 0.6 |
Assist-Turnover Ratio | 0.9 (285) | 1.0 (231) |
Tempo | 172 | 332 |
D-1 Experience | 37 | 320 |
Continuity | 289 | 290 |
Average Height | 43 | 40 |
Bench Minutes | 247 | 292 |
We have a slight edge on the boards.
Cal is terrible at taking care of the ball. Their 13 turnovers per game is #274 in the country. Their A/TO ratio is really bad, too.
They play at a moderate speed. We are still SLOW.
The Cardinal start three 5th-year seniors, a 4th-year senior, and a junior. Four of them were with the team last season. That is maturity and continuity.
PLAYERS
The Bears don't have much of a bench. Their depth has been hurt by the loss of three roation players to injury, ND Okafor, Devin Askew, and Monty Bowser. Askew and Bowser were part-time starters.
They are a mature team with 3 fifth-year seniors and two juniors, but only 3 of the 7 current rotation players were on the team last season.
Class | Size | Recruiting | Games | Minutes | Points | Rebounds / 40 Min. | Assists | Blocks / 40 Min. | FG % | 3-Pt % | 3-Pt Freq * | A/TO Ratio | Notes | |
Jaylon Tyson G | Jr | 6-7 | 4-star 36 | 13 | 35 | 20 | 9 | 3.3 | 49% | 34% | 34% | 0.9 | Transfer from Texas Tech | |
Fardaws Aimaq F | Sr 5 | 6-11 | Unranked | 14 | 32 | 16 | 13 | 2.1 | 1.2 | 51% | 33% | 14% | 0.8 | Transfer from Texas Tech |
Jalen Cone G | Sr 5 | 5-11 | 4-star 102 | 14 | 36 | 14 | 2.4 | 35% | 33% | 78% | 1.4 | Transfer from Northern Arizona | ||
Keonte Kennedy G | Sr 5 | 6-5 | 3-star 247 | 7 | 34 | 11 | 7 | 2.9 | 41% | 27% | 44% | 2.9 | Transfer from Memphis | |
Jalen Celestine G | Jr | 6-7 | #88 JUCO | 9 | 22 | 8 | 0.8 | 52% | 52% | 56% | 1.4 | |||
Grant Newell F | So | 6-9 | 3-star 299 | 14 | 24 | 6 | 5 | 0.4 | 43% | 31% | 41% | 0.2 | ||
Rodney Brown Jr. G | Fr | 6-6 | 3-star 174 | 14 | 14 | 4 | 0.5 | 50% | 50% | 61% | 0.5 | |||
. |
* 3-Pt Freq = Percent of his shots that are 3-point attempts.
Texas Tech must not like Mark Madsen much, since his two leading scorers were both playing for the Red Raiders last season.
Jaylon Tyson leads the team in points, assists, and steals. He is having an All-Pac-12 kind of season on a bad team. He has scored in double figures in every game and goes over 20 in most games.
Lot of big time scorers do it by shooting a ton of shots while making a low percentage. (See Mack, Sebastian.) Tyson is not one of those guys. He shoots a good percentage. He has had four double-doubles this season. Tyson is a three-level scorer. He can drive to the hoop, pull up for the midrange, or shoot the three. He will beat his defender off the dribble or post him up.
25-year-old Fardaws Aimaqis a double-double machine. That doesn't mean he works at In-n-Out. He has 8 double-doubles in 14 games. He leads the Bear in rebounds and blocks and is their second-leading scorer.
Jalen Cone is the third part of their three-headed monster. He hasn't been a great shooter, but he still isn't shy and it's mostly three-pointers. A stunning 78 PERCENT of his shots are threes. He attempts more than twice as many as Tyson, and more than four times as many as anyone else on the team. He only makes 33% of them (which would make him one of UCLA's best shooters). I don't think we need to fear the Cone, but we need to defend him at the arc.
Tyson, Aimaq, and Cone take 63% of the Bears' shots.
Keonte Kennedy is their best ball handler. ad their worst shooter,
Jalen Celestine and Rodney Brown Jr. have both been deadly outside shooters on a low volume of shots. Between them, they have only taken 25 three-pointers in 14 games, but both need to be guarded on the arc.
CONCLUSION
The computers say Cal is a little better than CSUN. The computers say we are better than both of them. The computers say we are going to win.
However, we need to win this on the court. We need to play good offense against their terrible defense.
Cal's hasn't done a good job of winning games, but they keep things close while losing. Sound familiar?
UCLA is 1-7 in close games. The Bears are 2-6.
I expect a close game. Who will pull it out in the final minutes? Beats me.
However, if we can't beat Cal at home, there are few wins left on our schedule.
Go Bruins!