All previews: click here for the full 2021 NCAA tournament schedule
Baylor Bears
Seed: 1
Record: 25-2
Conference: Big 12
vs.
Arkansas Razorbacks
Seed: 3
Record: 25-6
Conference: SEC
Date: Monday, March 29
Time: 9:57 pm Eastern
Region: South
Location: Lucas Oil Stadium, Indianapolis, IN
Channel: CBS
After all the upsets the South region boils down to a 1-seed vs. a 3-seed.
Baylor Arkansas
Power Ratings
Strength: #2 Strength: #11
Pomeroy: #2 Pomeroy: #16
Offense: #3 Offense: #45
Defense: #27 Defense: #8
BPI: #2 BPI: #13
LRMC:(pre-tourney) #3 LRMC: #18
Other Measures:
Tempo Total/Off: #178/#96 Tempo Total/Off: #17/#36
Consistency: #228 Consistency: #257
Last 3 games: #3 Last 3 games: #24
Baylor keeps its seemingly permanent #2 ranking, while Arkansas flirts with the top ten. The Razorbacks are top ten on defense, which is where they'll have to make their stand against the Bears' top 5 offense. On offense they can hope for breakdowns against Baylor's not-quite top 25 D. Another area of contention will be tempo, where the Razorbacks want to speed it up. They'll need to do something as they haven't been playing the best basketball of the Elite Eight teams.
- Wins vs. tournament teams (12): =(1)Illinois+13, (8)Oklahoma+15, @(6)Texas Tech+8, (3)Kansas+8, @(4)Oklahoma St.+15, @(3)Texas+14, @(3)West Virginia+OT, (4)Oklahoma St.+11, (6)Texas Tech+15, =(16)Hartford+24, =(9)Wisconsin+13, =(5)Villanova+11
- Wins vs. Sweet Sixteen (1): =(5)Villanova+11
- Losses to tournament teams (2): @(3)Kansas-13, =(4)Oklahoma St.-9
- Losses to Sweet Sixteen (0): None
- Other losses (0): None
Overview: Baylor raced from the gate ranked #2 and looking like it as they beat future 1-seed Illinois in an otherwise cupcake pre-conference season. Those cupcakes, coupled with their three-week break leaves them with a résumé that would be worthy of a 3-seed any other year in terms of big wins. But this year it's pretty stellar; only 4 teams have more than their 9 tourney-team skins. Amazingly though as they reach the Sweet Sixteen they've beaten none of the rest of the field as the Big Twelve has fizzled out much like the Big Ten.
The Bears' Covid break occurred between game 17 (Texas) and game 18 (Iowa State). Though they beat the 2-win Cyclones it was close, 77-72 at home, by far their worst game of the season at that point. The loss at Kansas wasn't quite as bad but spoiled their perfect season. The Bears recovered over the next three games and looked to be recapturing their form—which would make sense, their practice was greatly limited during the off time—but then they had another relapse, barely beating 9-19 Kansas State 74-68 then falling to Oklahoma State 83-74. They look like they recovered against Hartford, but the jury is still out.
Baylor boasts three players in double figures: Jared Butler (17.1), MaCio Teague (16.2) and Davion Mitchell (14.1). They play a smaller, guard-heavy lineup, often having only one player over 6-5 on the court. Against Hartford, Teague led the Bears with 22 points. Against Wisconsin Teague and Mitchell at 16 but it was Matthew Mayer leading off the bench with 17. And in the win over Villanova another bench player, Adam Flagler, led with 16; the Bears won comfortably despite making only 3 of 19 threes as Villanova made just 3 of 17.
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- Wins vs. tournament teams (11): (13)North Texas+15, (15)Oral Roberts+11, (14)Abilene Christian+13, @(9)Missouri+OT, (7)Florida+11, (2)Alabama+15, (8)LSU+8, =(9)Missouri+6, =(14)Colgate+17, =(6)Texas Tech+2, =(15)Oral Roberts+2
- Wins vs. Sweet Sixteen (3): (15)Oral Roberts+11, (2)Alabama+15, =(15)Oral Roberts+2
- Losses to tournament teams (6): (9)Missouri-13, @(5)Tennessee-5, @(8)LSU-16, @(2)Alabama-31, @(4)Oklahoma St.-4, =(8)LSU-7
- Losses to Sweet Sixteen (1): @(2)Alabama-31
- Other losses (0): None
Overview: Arkansas has an excellent record against the field, winning 5 games against SEC teams that made the cut and beating three other small-conference champs while they were at it. They also took their lumps in the SEC, including a stretch where they lost 4 of 5, but they turned their season around and won nine straight, 12 straight in-conference before losing to LSU in the SEC tournament. They didn't lose a game to a non-tournament team, nor did they lose to any team seeded lower than 9.
Moses Moody (17.4ppg) leads four scorers in double figures. The Razorbacks aren't reliant on shooting the 3, and don't shoot it particularly well, but they're above 50% on 2-pointers. On defense they're pretty good across the board. Justin Smith's 29 led the team against Colgate in their back-and-forth 85-68 victory; all of his 20 points against Texas Tech were needed in the Hogs' 68-66 2nd round win.
Arkansas now has 3 wins over the Sweet Sixteen field, including one over Oral Roberts from back in December. The tournament game against the Eagles was even more challenging; just like the first game, Oral Roberts led at half, this time 35-28, and led by 12 in the 2nd half before the Hogs battled back to take the lead with 5 minutes to go and held on to win 72-70. Jalen Tate led with 22 points.
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Game Analysis: It may not look like Arkansas is playing very well. Beating 15-seed Oral Roberts by 2 points would win a team a lot of plaudits during the regular season. But Oral Roberts was a legit Sweet Sixteen team, and Arkansas took care of business, though just barely. A convincing win would have made their chances against Baylor look a lot better, but they also might have made Baylor take the Razorbacks' threat more seriously too. Right now I can almost imagine Baylor looking ahead to playing Houston.
Meanwhile Baylor beat Villanova while making only three 3-pointers, shooting 15.8% instead of their normal 40+%. They are pretty certainly "back" from their post-Covid slump, but are they "back" to their pre-Covid quality? It's hard to say after just three games, but it appears they are playing about as well as they did in their pre-Covid peak. This is bad news for Arkansas, and for everyone except maybe Gonzaga.
Arkansas has a very good defense, so with luck they can temper the Bears' great offense and pray for another bad three-point shooting day from Baylor. The downside is this: if Baylor makes their threes instead of missing them, they beat Villanova by 30 points and that could happen to Arkansas. On offense Arkansas needs to impose their fast tempo and hope it disrupts Baylor's sort-of-questionable defense.
A little overconfidence from Baylor would go a long way to an Arkansas win, too. Arkansas won't have that problem going against Baylor, and certainly not after beating a 15-seed by 2 points.
Vegas Line:
Baylor by 7
Power rating: spread
Baylor by 5.8
Game-comparisons: % Chance to win
Baylor: 64.2%
Arkansas: 35.8%
Recent game performance (last 6):
Baylor: 58.3%
Arkansas: 41.7%
Baylor by 5.2
In the history of the Elite Eight 3-seeds have met 1-seeds 25 times and won 9 meetings, or 36%; this is almost exactly what we have for Arkansas' odds of winning. 3-seeds have won an additional 4 (out of 10) times in the later rounds, making their overall average 37%.
You can see the oddsmakers giving Baylor a little extra, probably for the fact that they beat a 5-seed fairly easily while Arkansas struggled mightily with a 15-seed.
Bottom line: We're in potential blowout territory here as Baylor hits their stride and Arkansas is worn out from the Oral Roberts game. The smart money probably takes Baylor by 30 but we picked Arkansas in our Final Four before the tournament and are bound to it, going with the very unexpected upset.
Final prediction: Arkansas 74, Baylor 71
More previews: click here for the full 2021 NCAA tournament schedule.
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