All previews: click here for the full 2019 NCAA tournament schedule
VCU Rams
Seed: 8
Record: 25-7
Conference: Atlantic 10
vs.
UCF Knights
Seed: 9
Record: 23-8
Conference: American
Date: Friday, March 22
Time: 9:40 pm Eastern
Location: Columbia, SC
Region: East
Channel: CBS
It's the battle of the acronyms as 8-seed Virginia Commonweather takes on 9-seed Central Florida.
VCU UCF
Power Ratings
Strength: #44 Strength: #47
Pomeroy: #37 Pomeroy: #46
Offense: #172 Offense: #58
Defense: #7 Defense: #36
BPI: #36 BPI: #42
LRMC: #35 LRMC: #55
Other Measures:
Tempo (Pomeroy): #136 Tempo: #313
Schedule Strength: #89 Schedule Strength: #78
Consistency: #230 Consistency: #233
Consist. Modifier: #43 Consist. Modifier: #48
2nd half season: #32 2nd half season: #48
Last 6 games: #76 Last 6 games: #92
Road Strength: #43 Road Strength: #44
Injury Modifier: #43 Injury Modifier: #47
The power ratings are clear that they favor VCU, across the board. But the magnitude varies from 3 rungs at Strength, to 20 rungs at LRMC! More interesting is the offense/defense comparison. VCU is a very unbalanced team, favoring defensive effort over offensive production. Their top ten defense will probably stifle Central Florida's mediocre offense; meanwhile when VCU has the ball, their inept offense will be thwarted by UCF's decent D. In short, look for a low-scoring game. It will be interesting, though, given VCU's pressing defensive "Havok" style, and UCF's 7-6 center Tacko Fall defending the middle.
Another thing to note is that both teams faltered near the end of the season. We'll look at those cases individually.
- Wins vs. tournament teams (4): (16)Gardner Webb+12, =(11)Temple+6, (16)Iona+29, (13)Saint Louis+6
- Losses to tournament teams (3): @(11)St. John's-OT, @(14)Old Dominion-10, @(1)Virginia-8
- Other losses (4): Charleston-4, @Davidson-7, @Rhode Island-6, =Rhode Island-5
Overview: VCU suffered four early losses, three to tournament teams: 11-seed St. John's, 14-Old Dominion, and 1-seed Virginia; they also beat three tourney-bound teams: Gardner-Webb, Temple, and Iona. Two of those were 16-seeds, and one was among the last four in. From there the wins started racking up, and Davidson and Rhode Island were the only teams to beat the Rams from there on. Three big wins stand out on the chart: beating St. Bonaventure 85-55 on the road; beating Rhode Island 76-42; and beating George Mason 71-36 on the road. After those games, it was quite a shock that Rhode Island could beat the Rams again, but it happened in the first round of the Atlantic 10 tournament.
VCU is pretty bad at shooting the three, ranking #330 nationally. They're great at 3-point defense and 2-point defense, and they still get lots of turnovers like they did in the Shaka Smart days, but it's clear the defensive play wears them down for offense, as the discrepancy in efficiency was never this stark under Shaka. Marcus Evans—who has an injured knee but is expected to play—is the team's leading scorer at 13.8 ppg. If he's out it only makes VCU's offense more futile.
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- Wins vs. tournament teams (4): (14)Northern Kentucky+13, (11)Temple+5, @(3)Houston+5, (7)Cincinnati+3
- Losses to tournament teams (3): (3)Houston-9, @(7)Cincinnati-5, @(11)Temple-5
- Other losses (5): Florida Atlantic-1, @Missouri-OT, @Wichita St.-8, @Memphis-20, @Memphis-24
Overview: UCF won a lot of games early but never looked that incredible. They beat 14-seed Northern Kentucky and play-in 11-seed Temple. They lost to Houston and Cincinnati as expected. But then, late in the season, things changed. First, they beat SMU 95-48, a stunning blowout like nothing they'd achieved all season. Then, in game 28, they upset Houston on the road...and followed that by beating Cincinnati, too. The Knights finally had some signature wins under their belt and...they promptly lost their next two games, falling to Temple and then getting beat by Memphis 79-55. Did they short burst of success go to their heads? Within a 2 week span they played their best games and their worst game, leaving people guessing as to what comes next.
Guards BJ Taylor (16.0) and Aubrey Dawkins (15.2) are the team's leading scorers, but their main attraction is 7 foot 6 inch center Tacko Fall. Fall scores in low double digits and garners 7.3 rebounds per game, as well as 2.5 blocks (11th in nation). One weird thing: UCF gets to the line a lot (#2 in the nation per attempt) but shoots only 64.5% from the charity stripe.
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Game Analysis: This is looking like a low scoring game, like no other in the tournament. VCU's defense is going to confound UCF, as it does most of their foes. And on offense the Rams aren't very potent. Despite VCU's hurry-up on offense, they force slowness on defense, and so does UCF.
UCF will probably get to the line a lot, as they are wont to do, against VCU's defense. But the Knights are a terrible free throw shooting team, so it evens out. VCU's best bet is usually the 2-point shot, but with a 7-6 center in the middle that becomes more difficult; they'll have to go to the 3 more often, and they don't shoot it well. In short, both teams have problems on offense to overcome.
Vegas Line:
UCF by 1
Power rating: spread
VCU by 0.4
Game-comparisons: % Chance to win
VCU: 47.4%
UCF: 52.6%
Well, this is weird all over. Vegas favors the Knights by 1, while our Strength power rating has the Rams by less than half a point. The same Strength power rating says that UCF is more likely to win....what?
Here we have a case where UCF wins a majority of comparisons, but when VCU wins, they win by more on average. So the average of all outcomes is VCU by 0.4 points....but UCF wins more times. So which should we follow? If we wanted to pick against the spread, we'd use the numerical figure. But we're concerned with choosing the winner, and that is UCF more often than not.
Bottom line: We've seen some tossups, but this is really, really, really a tossup. We already predicted a double overtime 8vs9 so we won't do it again. Instead, we're looking for a very, very low-scoring affair.
Final prediction: UCF 49, VCU 48
More previews: click here for the full 2019 NCAA tournament schedule.
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