All previews: click here for the full 2021 NCAA tournament schedule
Creighton Bluejays
Seed: 5
Record: 20-8
Conference: Big East
vs.
UC Santa Barbara Gauchos
Seed: 12
Record: 22-4
Conference: Big West
Date: Saturday, March 20
Time: 3:30 pm Eastern
Region: West
Location: Lucas Oil Stadium, Indianapolis, IN
Channel: truTV
Has Creighton recovered from their shocking loss to Georgetown in the Big East final?
Creighton UC Santa Barbara
Power Ratings
Strength: #13 Strength: #81
Pomeroy: #19 Pomeroy: #69
Offense: #14 Offense: #66
Defense: #40 Defense: #82
BPI: #13 BPI: #61
LRMC: #12 LRMC: #68
Other Measures:
Tempo Total/Off: #144/#37 Tempo Total/Off: #295/#248
SOS: #42 SOS: #252
Consistency: #297 Consistency: #255
Str x Consistency: #26 Str x Consistency: #87
2nd half season: #26 2nd half season: #73
Last 6 games: #45 Last 6 games: #119
Road Strength: #19 Road Strength: #79
Injury Modifier: #13 Injury Modifier: #80
Creighton is the obvious favorite here, ranking inside the top 20 in all power ratings, with a top 15 offense and decent defense. UC Santa Barbara isn't bad for a 12-seed though, with all their power ratings in the top 70 except for ours where they are #81. Both their offense and defense are respectable though not spectacular.
Creighton's tempo is an interesting case; the Bluejays play at a moderate overall tempo but their offense is quite fast. This is due to their defensive tempo rank of #325. What this says is that the Bluejays push the pace and take early shots, but regroup for sound half-court defense, looking to prevent good shots. UC Santa Barbara is slow-tempo on offense, which means the game will be slow when they have the ball at least.
There's the usual discrepancy in schedule strength, and both teams are fairly erratic. Both teams also look worse over the last 6 games. For Creighton that might be the effect of their terrible last game, so we have to go to the charts to see whether this was a 1-time deal or a true slump.
- Wins vs. tournament teams (5): @(7)Connecticut+OT, (7)Connecticut+8, @(12)Georgetown+15, (5)Villanova+16, =(7)Connecticut+3
- Losses to tournament teams (4): @(3)Kansas-1, (12)Georgetown-7, @(5)Villanova-12, =(12)Georgetown-25
- Other losses (4): Marquette-5, @Butler-OT, Providence-4, @Xavier-8
Overview: In their brief pre-conference schedule Creighton lost to 3-seed Kansas 73-72 then lost their first Big East contest to Marquette. They won six straight but only one victim was an eventual NCAA qualifier (UConn). From there, the Bluejays won consistenly with occasional lapses, losing twice in a row two separate times. They seemed to be rolling at the end—they beat Butler 93-73 with coach Greg McDermott suspended for using insensitive language, then beat them worse when he was re-instated, 87-56. They seemed to really be united by the ordeal as they topped red hot UConn 59-56.
But then they met Georgetown, and after getting a small lead at 13-6, were victimized by a 46-8 run by Georgetown. The run spanned both halfs, meaning no adjustment or pep-talk made any difference. And they never made a run to cut into the lead. A lot of it was luck: Creighton stopped hitting their threes and everything was falling for the Hoyas. But playing your worse game of the year at the end of the season is cause for concern. Luckily, it wasn't part of a trend, so it was probably more due to Georgetown's improvement and enthusiasm than Creighton's, so it shouldn't carry over into the tournament. It does raise questions about how far they can advance.
Point guard Marcus Zegarowski is the team's leading scorer at 15.5 points per game and he's a tough customer. The Bluejays' scoring is distributed very evenly among five players in double figures. They shoot the ball really well, from both the 3 (36.7%) and the 2 (56%), but they are oddly a very poor free-throw shooting team (64%). They don't rebound well so if the shots aren't falling for some reason they can be in trouble (as we saw in the Georgetown game).
**************************************************************
- Wins vs. tournament teams (0): None
- Losses to tournament teams (0): None
- Other losses (4): @Loyola Marymount-5, @UC Irvine-19, @UC Irvine-4, @UC Riverside-16
Overview: Teams that haven't played another tournament team are historically a big red flag; even having played and lost to a tournament team makes one legit. This year is different, though, and there are four teams in this category. Usually they are very bad teams, 14 to 16 seeds, not 12-seeds. The Gauchos did play a pretty easy schedule though.
They won their first two games over honorary D-I teams St. Katherine and Bethesda before splitting with Loyola Marymount and losing twice to UC Irvine. They went on a 18-1 run after that, helped by the fact that they didn't have to play Irvine again until the Big West tournament final, which they won 79-63.
Three Gauchos score in double figures led by JaQuori McLaughlin's 16.2; he leads with 5.2 assists per game as well. Number 3 scorer Ajare Sanni (11.2) is probably out for the game. UCSB shoots the ball well—not as well as Creighton, and mainly 2-pointers, but they make their free throws at least! They avoid steals and blocks in their measured offense. Their defense shows really good numbers too, but remember the schedule strength.
**************************************************************
Game Analysis: Santa Barbara played one of their best games of the season in the conference tournament final, while Creighton played their absolute worst game. If they repeat those performances UCSB will win a blowout somewhere around 88-53.
That's unlikely to happen, obviously. Creighton almost certainly had a once-in-a-season debacle as seen by their chart. It might play on their minds a bit, but it also could having them itching to get on the court again to forget that game.
This game features two really good shooting teams, but only one has faced a team like the one across from them. UCSB's best opponents were borderline top 100 while Creighton faced only a handful worse than top 100. Making matters tougher for the Gauchos is the probably loss of their #3 scorer and 2nd best three-point shooter, Ajare Sanni; he shoots 40% from behind the arc.
Vegas Line:
Creighton by 7 1/2
Power rating: spread
Creighton by 9.1
Game-comparisons: % Chance to win
Creighton: 72.7%
UC Santa Barbara: 27.3%
Recent game performance (last 6):
Creighton: 69.4%
UC Santa Barbara: 30.6%
Creighton by 8.7
Vegas looks a little gun-shy of Creighton, or people are betting against the spread due to their big loss. UCSB doesn't have the historical 36% shot that a 12-seed does, not according to our numbers, and the situation is similar even when you look at their final six games which include Creighton's big loss.
Bottom line: We don't see Creighton having even close to a repeat of their Georgetown game.
Final prediction: Creighton 78, UC Santa Barbara 65
More previews: click here for the full 2021 NCAA tournament schedule.
Comments