All previews: click here for the full 2021 NCAA tournament schedule
Baylor Bears
Seed: 1
Record: 22-2
Conference: Big 12
vs.
Hartford Hawks
Seed: 16
Record: 15-8
Conference: America East
Date: Friday, March 19
Time: 3:30 pm Eastern
Region: South
Location: Lucas Oil Stadium, Indianapolis, IN
Channel: truTV
Hartford is peaking at the right time, playing well enough to make this game interesting if you parse and reparse the data enough times.
Baylor Hartford
Power Ratings
Strength: #3 Strength: #186
Pomeroy: #4 Pomeroy: #192
Offense: #3 Offense: #254
Defense: #44 Defense: #127
BPI: #2 BPI: #174
LRMC: #3 LRMC: #150
Other Measures:
Tempo Total/Off: #179/#91 Tempo Total/Off: #269/#308
SOS: #83 SOS: #211
Consistency: #244 Consistency: #116
Str x Consistency: #2 Str x Consistency: #182
2nd half season: #7 2nd half season: #172
Last 6 games: #36 Last 6 games: #148
Road Strength: #4 Road Strength: #177
Injury Modifier: #3 Injury Modifier: #183
At one time Baylor was #1 or #2 in every power rating, but a slump after their Covid holiday has knocked them to #3 or #4—still top-seed worthy, but no longer the favorite in most people's eyes. The BPI still has them #2, but their defensive ranking of #44 makes them suspect as a Final Four team. Their Last 6 Games rank of #36 shows how hard they fell after their time off. Have they recovered? It shouldn't matter against a 16-seed but it's something to look at going forward.
Hartford is not your typical 16-seed, but we're seeing more and more reasonable teams at the 16-level since the play-in game era. None of their numbers are great, but they aren't pathetic like most 16-seeds were in the past. Hartford plays a consistently slow tempo, unlike Baylor who actually plays a fairly fast offense coupled with a "slow" defense.
- Wins vs. tournament teams (9): =(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
- Losses to tournament teams (2): @(3)Kansas-13, =(4)Oklahoma St.-9
- 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.
The Bears 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.
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.
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- Wins vs. tournament teams (0): None
- Losses to tournament teams (2): @(7)Connecticut-12, =(5)Villanova-34
- Other losses (6): @New Hampshire-8, @New Hampshire-2, @UMass Lowell-9, @UMBC-8, @Stony Brook-14, NJIT-10
Overview: Unlike Baylor Hartford didn't score any big wins or make a lot of waves this year, but they did play UConn and Villanova, doing respectably against the Huskies at least. Stuck in the middle of the America East, they turned their season around overnight— literally—going from a 10-point Saturday loss to NJIT to beating the same team by 14 on Sunday, then winning four straight tournament games to go dancing. That there was a two-week break in there shouldn't make a difference—they somehow kept that momentum. So it may be a stretch to say they're "on fire" for the last 5 games when there was a 2-week break, it's still an impressive 5-game run for a 16-seed.
Hartford's scoring is very balanced, with essentially 5 players in double figures. Austin Williams leads with 13.7 and also leads in rebounds with 6.2.
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Game Analysis: If both teams play like they did in their last 2 games, Hartford has a great chance of pulling off the upset. Outside of that, there's not much hope.
Both teams play a smaller, guard-heavy lineup. The big difference is on offensive tempo, where the Bears are fairly quick-striking while the Hawks prefer a more methodical approach. A couple things that make a Hartford upset very unlikely are turnovers (Hartford's offense is turnover prone and Baylor's D is #3 in the nation) and rebounding, where Baylor excels on offense and Hartford's defense does not. So even if Baylor has another game like they did vs. Iowa State—a team of similar quality to Hartford—it probably won't be as close as that one was.
Vegas Line:
Baylor by 26
Power rating: spread
Baylor by 24.5
Game-comparisons: % Chance to win
Baylor: 94.4%
Hartford: 5.6%
Recent game performance (last 6):
Baylor: 80.6%
Hartford: 19.4%
Baylor by 12.5
We see how Baylor, around a 25 point favorite, could see that cut in half if they continue to play so poorly (and Hartford continues to excel). We could parse further and use the last 5 games; that would give Hartford a 22% chance and make the expected margin under 10 points. And if we cut to just the last 2 games for each team? Hartford wins by 5 points.
Bottom line: Cherry picking is frowned upon even on the playground, so we won't do it here. The outcome of this game isn't much in doubt but it will be interesting to see if Baylor is regaining its championship form. Based on their recent slide—and re-slide—I think the burden of proof is on them.
Final prediction: Baylor 73, Hartford 67
More previews: click here for the full 2021 NCAA tournament schedule.
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