All previews: click here for the full 2015 NCAA tournament schedule
West Virginia Mountaineers
Seed: 5
Record: 23-9
Conference: Big Twelve
vs.
Buffalo Bulls
Seed: 12
Record: 23-9
Conference: MAC
Date: Friday, March 20
Time: 2:10 pm Eastern
Location: Columbus, OH
Region: Midwest
Channel: TNT
Buffalo is in their first NCAA tournament, and West Virginia is looking for its first NCAA win since 2011.
West Virginia Buffalo
SportsRatings Power Ratings
Strength: #20 Strength: #59
Median play: #12 Median play: #57
Road/Neutral Rank: #25 Road/Neutral Rank: #56
Other Power Ratings
Sagarin(predictor):#21 Sagarin: #59
Pomeroy: #25 Pomeroy: #54
Offense: #33 Offense: #47
Defense: #47 Defense: #94
LRMC: #28 LRMC: #46
BPI: #22 BPI: #55
Power Rating Derivatives
2nd half/season: #41 2nd half/season: #69
Last 6 games: #15 Last 6 games: #49
Injury correction: #18/#28 Injury correction: #59
Consistency: #285 Consistency: #40
Deep Run Rank: #30 Deep Run Rank: #31
Best Shot: #18 Best Shot: #51
Schedule Strength: #15 Schedule Strength: #94
A good match: Buffalo's offense and West Virginia's defense, both ranked #47 by Ken Pomeroy. That the Mountaineers' offense outclasses Buffalo's defense #33 to #94 explains why they're ahead in every other aspect of every other power rating, ranking in the 20s while Buffalo ranks in the 50s. West Virginia's lack of consistency suggests they're a potential upset victim but Buffalo's lack of inconsistency suggests they aren't a great upset pick...more on that later. Another reason WVA might be upset is that two of their key guards might be out, or not, resulting in the alternate #18 or #28 Injury Correction ranking.
- Wins vs. tournament teams (8): Lafayette+27, =North Carolina St.+14, Wofford+33, Oklahoma+21, Kansas+1, @Oklahoma St.+10, Texas+7, Oklahoma St.+9
- Losses to tournament teams (9): LSU-1, Iowa St.-2, @Texas-27, @Oklahoma-19, Baylor-18, @Iowa St.-20, @Baylor-12, @Kansas-OT, =Baylor-10
- Other losses (0): none
Key Info: West Virginia started out strong at 14-1, but a lot of that was their #256 non-conference schedule. When the Big Twelve started, losses followed, some of them blowouts: Texas by 27, Oklahoma by 19, Iowa State by 20. But other than LSU, they never lost to a team ranked worse than 20th in Pomeroy, and they didn't lose to a single non-NCAA tournament team. The Mountaineers finished losing three of their last four—twice to Baylor, once to Kansas—but they were missing injured point guards Juwan Staten (leading scorer with 14.5) and Gary Browne (7.0 ppg). Even without crucial parts to their turnover-creating defensive pressure they forced Kansas into overtime. Bob Huggins says his players will be back for Friday's game.
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- Wins vs. tournament teams (1): @Robert Morris+15
- Losses to tournament teams (2): @Kentucky-19, @Wisconsin-12
- Other losses (7): @St. Bonaventure-9, @Western Michigan-10, @Central Michigan-11, @Ohio-2, @Akron-3, Toledo-4, Central Michigan-1
Key Info: Buffalo played a pretty easy non-conference schedule—no teams in the top 100, except two big exceptions: Kentucky and Wisconsin, both on the road. The Bulls lost both games by double digits, but it's probably fair to say that nobody is going to scare Buffalo. The Bulls were 6-6 in the MAC when they embarked on an 8-game winning streak that would take them all the way to the championship. Justin Moss is the team's key player, a 6-7 junior who leads the team in both scoring (17.7 points) and rebounding (9.3).
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Game Analysis: We mentioned that West Virginia's lack of consistency suggests they're a potential upset victim while Buffalo's lack of inconsistency suggests they aren't a great upset pick. Interestingly the Giant Killers Blog at ESPN says that's backwards—Buffalo is a great "giant killer" but they're paired with the Mountaineers, who are not vulnerable to upset. A main reason is that West Virginia forces a lot of turnovers (#1 in steals), so they won't be victims of a bad ratio. They also play at a fast pace like Buffalo so that won't rattle them.
But West Virginia is also fighting against a post-season "jinx" that has plagued them for 4 years, where they've exited in the first round of a post-season seven straight times. The players have been interviewed about it so it's clearly in their heads. Will it be a self-fulfilling prophecy?
Most important for the Mountaineers is the return of point guards Juwan Staten and Gary Browne. According to recent reports the two are going to play; having the game on Friday has to help.
Buffalo is playing in its first-ever NCAA tournament. In previous cases of this, it seems that a team is overwhelmed by its first appearance and doesn't perform well. I call this the "getting there is a victory" syndrome, where a team had a goal of making the tournament....and now they've accomplished that goal. Just playing in a tournament game is enough. These teams tend to not win the game.
Over Buffalo's 8-game winning streak they were just one point worse than West Virginia. Some of that, of course, covers the span the Mountaineers were without their injured players, but there's no guarantee those guys will be 100% by Friday.
Vegas Line:
West Virginia by 4 1/2
Power rating: spread
West Virginia by 6.1
Game-comparisons: % Chance to win
West Virginia: 68.7%
Buffalo: 31.3%
As always, the Vegas line is essentially equal to the Strength power rating's spread, minus a few points. The game-comparison system favors the Mountaineers about 2 to 1, just a bit higher than the 63% historical winning percentage for 5-seeds vs. 12-seeds.
Bottom line: Another game where we're not going to pick the upset. If WVA were going to be missing Staten and Browne again, that might allow Buffalo to disrupt them enough to win. Still, it's not clear exactly how healthy they'll be, so this one's still possibly in play.
Final prediction: West Virginia 76, Buffalo 74
More previews: click here for the full 2015 NCAA tournament schedule.
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