All previews: click here for the full 2015 NCAA tournament schedule
Kentucky Wildcats
Seed: 1
Record: 35-0
Conference: SEC
vs.
Cincinnati Bearcats
Seed: 8
Record: 23-10
Conference: American
Date: Saturday, March 20
Time: 2:40 pm Eastern
Location: Louisville, KY
Region: Midwest
Channel: CBS
Kentucky puts their 35-0 record on the line against Cincinnati.
Kentucky Cincinnati
SportsRatings Power Ratings
Strength: #1 Strength: #56
Median play: #1 Median play: #58
Road/Neutral Rank: #1 Road/Neutral Rank: #44
Other Power Ratings
Sagarin(predictor):#1 Sagarin: #52
Pomeroy: #1 Pomeroy: #34
Offense: #5 Offense: #76
Defense: #2 Defense: #18
LRMC: #1 LRMC: #43
BPI: #1 BPI: #45
Power Rating Derivatives
2nd half/season: #2 2nd half/season: #60
Last 6 games: #4 Last 6 games: #28
Injury correction: #1 Injury correction: #56
Consistency: #275 Consistency: #287
Deep Run Rank: #1 Deep Run Rank: #48
Best Shot: #1 Best Shot: #35
Schedule Strength: #41 Schedule Strength: #99
Cincinnati's defense is what it's going to have to count on to keep this one close, and the gap between UK's offense isn't great at all. The Bearcat offense is going to need some luck to penetrate the Wildcat defense, but if the shots start to fall, who knows...
- Wins vs. tournament teams (14): Buffalo+19, =Kansas+32, Providence+20, Texas+12, North Carolina+14, =UCLA+39, @Louisville+8, Mississippi+OT, Georgia+11, @LSU+2, Arkansas+17, @Georgia+8, =Arkansas+15, =Hampton+23
- Losses to tournament teams (0): None
- Other losses (0): None
Key Info: The chart and the 13 tournament team wins—and the lack of losses, tournament or otherwise—speak for themselves. Not only is it pretty amazing, but it refutes the last possible objection to Kentucky's march to going 40-0—consistency. The team has become perhaps the most consistent team in the country over the last 9 games or so. They dipped to #4 over the last six games, but playing at that high level without variation is something else. It looks exactly like Louisville's chart before they won the tournament two years ago—except without any red in it. What else can we say about Kentucky? They have too many good players to even address, so we'll use tournament game results to highlight them.
The Hampton game was a notch down from their last 10 games—their worst since the 2-point LSU win. Against the Pirates Karl-Anthony Towns led with 21.
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- Wins vs. tournament teams (5): San Diego St.+OT, @North Carolina St.+16, SMU+6, @SMU+8, =Purdue+OT
- Losses to tournament teams (3): =Mississippi-12, VCU-21, Xavier-2
- Other losses (7): @Nebraska-OT, @Connecticut-6, @Memphis-13, @East Carolina-4, @Temple-16, Tulane-1, @Connecticut-3
Key Info: How focused on defense are the Bearcats? Only one player—Octavius Ellis—averages in double figures, and he's at 10.03125 ppg. Playing at the 11th slowest tempo in the nation doesn't help those numbers, either, but it's clear that defense is a priority for Cincy. That, and the slow tempo, hasn't helped them play more consistent basketball, as their chart is pretty spikey. But following two awful losses—75-59 to Temple, and 50-49 at home to Tulane—the Bearcats found some relative stability, winning five straight before the loss to UConn in the AAC tournament.
The 1-point overtime win over Purdue was made possible by defense, of course—they held the Boilermakers to 15% shooting on 3s and 36% overall. On offense Farad Cobb led with 14.
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Game Analysis: Teams have been able to hang with Kentucky and keep it close, and Cincinnati is another team that can do so. They play strong defense and play a very slow tempo—a recipe for a low-scoring game in most instances. It's also a good time to strike—Kentucky played their first "lackluster" game in a long time, but still won by 20+ so they might not realize they were slipping a bit. It's a thought.
Vegas Line:
Kentucky by 15 1/2
Power rating: spread
Kentucky by 17.5
Game-comparisons: % Chance to win
Kentucky: 88.0%
Cincy: 12.0%
8-seeds have had decent luck upsetting 1-seeds, winning just under 20% of matchups. We give Cincinnati a much lower chance than that, but still around 1 in 8 according to game comparisons. The line is almost as high as the Strength power rating margin in 17 1/2 points.
Bottom line: We still think Kentucky is going to win the national title; don't get us wrong. But every eventual national champ is tested along the way with a near-loss or two. This is a good time for it, against a slow-pace team that plays great defense. Kentucky will have one or two scares; this is the first.
Final prediction: Kentucky 57, Cincinnati 55
More previews: click here for the full 2015 NCAA tournament schedule.
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