All previews: click here for the full 2021 NCAA tournament schedule
Baylor Bears
Seed: 1
Record: 22-2
Conference: Big 12
vs.
Wisconsin Badgers
Seed: 9
Record: 17-12
Conference: Big Ten
Date: Sunday, March 21
Time: 2:40 pm Eastern
Region: South
Location: Hinkle Fieldhouse, Indianapolis, IN
Channel: CBS
Looks like there's another 1-seed vs. top ten team in the 2nd round, as Wisconsin's win over North Carolina has propelled them to borderline top ten status.
Baylor Wisconsin
Power Ratings
Strength: #3 Strength: #11
Pomeroy: #4 Pomeroy: #10
Offense: #3 Offense: #27
Defense: #34 Defense: #12
BPI: #2 BPI: #14
LRMC: #3 LRMC: #19
Other Measures:
Tempo Total/Off: #179/#91 Tempo Total/Off: #326/#317
SOS: #83 SOS: #10
Consistency: #244 Consistency: #180
Str x Consistency: #2 Str x Consistency: #15
2nd half season: #8 2nd half season: #12
Last 6 games: #21 Last 6 games: #10
Road Strength: #4 Road Strength: #17
Injury Modifier: #3 Injury Modifier: #11
Baylor is obviously one of the top teams in the country but the question is: have they recovered from their Covid pause that sent them into a mini-tailspin? For the full-season they're a clear top 5 team. 9-seed Wisconsin isn't far behind, jumping into nearly the top ten in Strength and making it in Pomeroy. They've played better over the last 6 games than Baylor, but the Bears might be coming out of their slump.
Wisconsin's calling card is a slow tempo, while Baylor is faster but not run-and-gun. The Badgers managed to play North Carolina at their pace while scoring a lot of points.
- Wins vs. tournament teams (10): =(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
- 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. 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.
**************************************************************
- Wins vs. tournament teams (5): (8)Loyola Chicago+14, @(11)Michigan St.+9, @(10)Rutgers+6, @(10)Maryland+6, =North Carolina+23
- Losses to tournament teams (10): (10)Maryland-6, @(1)Michigan-23, (2)Ohio St.-12, @(1)Illinois-15, (1)Michigan-8, (2)Iowa-15, (1)Illinois-5, @(4)Purdue-4, @(2)Iowa-4, =(2)Iowa-5
- Other losses (2): @Marquette-2, @Penn St.-10
Overview: Wisconsin zipped to an 8-1 start featuring wins over Loyola Chicago, Louisville, and Michigan State. (Somehow, like North Carolina, they managed to lose to Marquette). They were ranked #6 in the country at the time, and were still in the top ten a few weeks later at 12-3. But they'd stopped beating the good teams they faced, and that continued the rest of the year; the last tournament team they beat was 10-seed Maryland on January 27. From that point on the Badgers were 3-8, beating Nebraska, Northwestern, and Penn State twice. On the bright side, 8 of their 12 losses were to 1- or 2-seeds, so they were dealt a pretty tough hand this year.
D'Mitrik Trice (13.7) and Micah Potter (12.8) lead the Badgers on offense. As a team they're not good inside the 3-point line but respectable outside; they get a lot of shots blocked but rarely turn the ball over (#2 in nation). Against North Carolina the Badgers played one of their best games of the season, led by Brad Davidson's 29 points on 5 of 7 three-point shooting.
**************************************************************
Game Analysis: There are two questions to ponder: 1) How much has Baylor really recovered from their post-Covid-pause slump? and 2) How much better is Wisconsin playing lately?
For #1, the Hartford game showed them playing at a much higher level than they played against Iowa State, Kansas, Kansas State, and Oklahoma State. It's one of their best games since the pause, and roughly matches their average performance for the year. But that full-season average of course includes their post-Covid slump, so if we look at their pre-Covid numbers, it was about 5 points worse than their average. The fact that it was a against such a poor team complicates matters; margins of victory in a blowout are pretty arbitrary. But Hartford is roughly as good as Iowa State and Kansas State, and they won by 24 not 5 or 6, so it's a definite improvement over their slumping level.
For #2: Wisconsin has been playing great basketball their last seven games. It might not seem like it since they lost 4 of those games, but the losses were to 1-seed Illinois by 5, 4-seed Purdue by 4 on the road, and 2-seed Iowa by 4 and 5 points. Then they crushed 8-seed North Carolina 85-62. They've moved into Pomeroy's top ten for a reason—he weights recent games a bit more, so that good-sized chunk of solid play elevates them.
One odd phenomenon of the tournament has been that 9-seeds have a much lower odds of beating a 1-seed, just 8% compared to 19% for 8-seeds. Whether this is a fluke or there is some psychological reason underpinning it, we don't know.
Vegas Line:
Baylor by 6
Power rating: spread
Baylor by 6.0
Game-comparisons: % Chance to win
Baylor: 68.0%
Wisconsin: 32.0%
Recent game performance (last 6):
Baylor: 52.8%
Wisconsin: 47.2%
Wisconsin by 3.0
Vegas and our Strength power rating are in complete agreement, Baylor by 6; Wisconsin's 32% chance to win is well above the historical record says 9-seeds have (8%) but most 9-seeds aren't borderline top 10 teams playing like gangbusters. Speaking of which, over the last 6 games Wisconsin is a 47% underdog, and the average result is a 3-point Wisconsin win.
Bottom line: We were unsure about Baylor going into the tournament, wondering whether they'd recovered from their slump. We had them losing this round, and we're going with Wisconsin's hot hand for the upset. If Baylor makes it past this round it probably means their slump is over and they're headed for the Final Four.
Final prediction: Wisconsin 73, Baylor 70
More previews: click here for the full 2021 NCAA tournament schedule.
Comments