All previews: click here for the full 2021 NCAA tournament schedule
San Diego State Aztecs
Seed: 6
Record: 23-4
Conference: Mountain West
vs.
Syracuse Orange
Seed: 11
Record: 16-9
Conference: ACC
Date: Friday, March 19
Time: 9:40 pm Eastern
Region: Midwest
Location: Hinkle Fieldhouse, Indianapolis, IN
Channel: CBS
With Syracuse, you never know what you're going to get in the NCAA tournament; they've been upset by a 15-seed as a 2-seed and they've made the Final Four as a 10-seed. The last time they were an 11 they made the Sweet Sixteen; this time they face a San Diego State team that might have been a 1-seed in last year's aborted tournament.
San Diego St. Syracuse
Power Ratings
Strength: #30 Strength: #44
Pomeroy: #20 Pomeroy: #41
Offense: #44 Offense: #22
Defense: #11 Defense: #89
BPI: #17 BPI: #33
LRMC: #26 LRMC: #62
Other Measures:
Tempo Total/Off: #298/#128 Tempo Total/Off: #138/#53
SOS: #121 SOS: #53
Consistency: #82 Consistency: #273
Str x Consistency: #24 Str x Consistency: #57
2nd half season: #21 2nd half season: #41
Last 6 games: #48 Last 6 games: #32
Road Strength: #20 Road Strength: #75
Injury Modifier: #31 Injury Modifier: #31 (Covid)
There's some separation in the power ratings between the 6-seed and the 11-seed as expected, but it's fairly tight between Strength putting San Diego State at #30 and BPI putting them at #33. Of course, the BPI ranks the Aztecs #17, and the LRMC is not impressed with the Orange at all (#62). The best basketball will be played when Syracuse has the ball, their #22 offense squaring off against SDSU's #11 defense.
Despite the Aztecs' overall slow tempo (#298), the game should be fairly fast moving. San Diego State plays moderate speed on offense, and Syracuse likes to push the tempo a bit when they have the ball. Syracuse has had the tougher schedule, and they have also had far more inconsistent results as we'll see when we look at their chart. Their Strength pretty much exactly matches San Diego State's when we removed games post-Covid-pause.
- Wins vs. tournament teams (2): (11)UCLA+15, =(11)Utah St.+11
- Losses to tournament teams (3): (6)BYU-10, @(11)Utah St.-12, @(11)Utah St.-5
- Other losses (1): Colorado St.-3
Overview: San Diego State probably hoped to pick up where they left off in 2020—one of the nation's top teams—but alas, they had to settle for just "very good." They beat UCLA and Arizona State from the Pac-12 but lost to BYU. The conference season started an unpromising 3-3 after repeat losses at Utah State. But from there SDSU was on a tear, winning 14 straight and capturing the Mountain West crown.
Senior forward Matt Mitchell leads the team with 15.4 points per game with 3-point specialist Jordan Schakel adding 14.3. Schakel hits 47% of his 3's, top five in the nation, and as a team the Aztecs are #28 behind the arc. But it's their defense that really wins games for them; they limit teams to 45% shooting from 2-pt and are top 20 in steals.
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- Wins vs. tournament teams (4): (12)Georgetown+5, (10)Virginia Tech+18, (8)North Carolina+2, (7)Clemson+10
- Losses to tournament teams (6): @(10)Rutgers-10, @(8)North Carolina-6, @(4)Virginia-23, @(7)Clemson-17, @(9)Georgia Tech-7, =(4)Virginia-3
- Other losses (3): Pittsburgh-3, @Pittsburgh-20, @Duke-14
Overview: Syracuse began the year with a win that was one of their worst moments as they beat Bryant just 85-84. It turned out that Bryant wasn't all that bad this year, but we didn't know that at the time. Nor did we know that Rutgers—the Orange's first loss—was headed to the NCAA tournament. Things looked bleak for Syracuse but a 101-63 win at Boston College righted things for the moment.
But following a win vs. Buffalo the team had to quarantine for 2 weeks, and they lost three of their next four games. They followed that stretch with their best back-to-back games, beating Miami 83-57 and Virginia Tech 78-60 but then suffered bad losses to Virginia and Clemson. The up-and-down season culminated in two big wins (8-seed North Carolina, 7-seed Clemson), a 89-68 beatdown of NC State in the first round of the ACC tournament followed by a narrow loss to Virginia. Who can tell what's next?
Coach Jim Boeheim's son, Buddy Boeheim, leads the team scoring 17.1 points per game. Two others score in double figures including leading rebounder Quincy Guerrier who pulls down 8.8 boards per game
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Game Analysis: Syracuse lost 3 of 4 games following Covid protocol break. Remove those 4 games from their slate and they rank exactly the same as San Diego State in Strength. This is a hard game to pick.
This is going to be a popular upset pick for many reasons including Syracuse's recent history as a bracket buster, coach Boeheim's long tenure, and the fact that the Orange are really a pretty good team. As upsets go, it's not a bad one to take if you're looking for some bracket points and don't see either team advancing past the round of 32.
Vegas Line:
San Diego St. by 3
Power rating: spread
San Diego St. by 1.9
Game-comparisons: % Chance to win
San Diego St.: 55.7%
Syracuse: 44.3%
Recent game performance (last 6):
San Diego St.: 44.4%
Syracuse: 55.6%
Syracuse by 2.3
As usual, our spread and Vegas's spread are very close, about a point apart. 6-seeds win about 63% of 6 vs. 11 matchups so this one is a bit closer than most, especially when we look at recent play and Syracuse has a 2 point edge. But with their inconsistency I don't think the arbitrary six-game window is meaningful here.
And as mentioned above, Syracuse's schedule can be modified to remove a few post-Covid-quarantine games; this reduces San Diego State's odds to 51% with an estimated winning margin of 0.00. Does that mean overtime?
Bottom line: It's a tough decision but San Diego State has been playing pretty well for pretty long and are not likely to go away easily. Neither are the Orange, but we take the Aztecs in an overtime thriller.
Final prediction: San Diego St. 79, Syracuse 76 OT
More previews: click here for the full 2021 NCAA tournament schedule.
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