All previews: click here for the full 2021 NCAA tournament schedule
Alabama Crimson Tide
Seed: 2
Record: 25-6
Conference: SEC
vs.
Maryland Terrapins
Seed: 10
Record: 17-13
Conference: Big Ten
Date: Monday, March 22
Time: 8:45 pm Eastern
Region: East
Location: Bankers Life Fieldhouse, Indianapolis, IN
Channel: TNT
Alabama is a rock-solid 2-seed but Maryland's win over hot UConn makes this one interesting.
Alabama Maryland
Power Ratings
Strength: #7 Strength: #30
Pomeroy: #8 Pomeroy: #30
Offense: #38 Offense: #42
Defense: #2 Defense: #27
BPI: #9 BPI: #38
LRMC: #6 LRMC: #34
Other Measures:
Tempo Total/Off: #9/#3 Tempo Total/Off: #317/#285
SOS: #23 SOS: #15
Consistency: #335 Consistency: #127
Str x Consistency: #16 Str x Consistency: #28
2nd half season: #9 2nd half season: #22
Last 6 games: #5 Last 6 games: #28
Road Strength: #7 Road Strength: #27
Injury Modifier: #11 -JPrimo Injury Modifier: #28
Pretty strong agreement between the power ratings on Alabama and Maryland's ranking. The number that stands out is Alabama's defense, which ranks much better than Maryland's D and more importantly, far better than Maryland's offense. This game will feature a big class in tempo; Alabama has one of the fastest offenses in the country, while Maryland's D forces long possessions.
Alabama guard Josh Primo missed the first game and will probably miss the 2nd; it's "game time decision." The Tide rank slightly worse in the small sample of games without him including the first-round Iona win.
- Wins vs. tournament teams (8): @(5)Tennessee+8, (7)Florida+15, (3)Arkansas+31, @(8)LSU+30, (8)LSU+18, =(5)Tennessee+5, =(8)LSU+1, =(15)Iona+13
- Losses to tournament teams (4): =(7)Clemson-8, @(8)Oklahoma-5, @(9)Missouri-3, @(3)Arkansas-15
- Other losses (2): Stanford-18, Western Kentucky-2
Overview: Alabama didn't start the season a powerhouse, in fact they lost three of their first seven games, falling to Stanford 82-64, 7-seed Clemson by 8, and Western Kentucky by 2. But once the SEC season started they were off to the races with nine straight wins, beating 5-seed Tennessee, 7-seed Florida, 3-seed Arkansas (90-59), and 8-seed LSU (105-75 on the road). They lost to red-hot (at the time) 8-seed Oklahoma before beating LSU again for a 10-0 conference start. They dropped games to Missouri and Arkansas, both of whom were on a hot streak, too. They won their last six including three games to win the SEC tournament.
Jaden Shackleford leads the Crimson Tide with 14.2 points per game; three others average double figures as well including #4 scorer Herbert Jones (11.2) who also leads in rebounds, assists, steals, and blocks. Alabama's so-so offensive efficiency comes from so-so shooting—they rank #105 in field goal percentage—and they suffer a lot of blocks and steals in their hurry-up offense. On defense they are spectacular, ranking #10 in opponent eFG% and forcing turnovers.
Guard Josh Primo, the Tide's 5th leading scorer (8.1 ppg), is expected to miss the game, and might not be able to return until the Sweet Sixteen. Alabama played about 1 point worse without him in the two games he missed already, which is obviously a small sample but the bottom line is they can win without him...for now. He missed the Iona game and is a "game-time decision" against Maryland.
Herbert Jones led the way with 20 points as Alabama dispatched Iona 68-55 in the first round.
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- Wins vs. tournament teams (8): (16)Mount St. Mary's+18, @(9)Wisconsin+6, @(1)Illinois+3, (4)Purdue+1, @(10)Rutgers+9, (11)Michigan St.+18, =(11)Michigan St.+11, =(7)Connecticut+9
- Losses to tournament teams (9): @(7)Clemson-16, (10)Rutgers-14, @(4)Purdue-3, (1)Michigan-11, (2)Iowa-22, @(1)Michigan-24, (9)Wisconsin-6, (2)Ohio St.-8, =(1)Michigan-13
- Other losses (4): @Indiana-8, @Penn St.-5, @Northwestern-5, Penn St.-5
Overview: Maryland was 6-6 at one point in the season and was pretty much written off as a March Madness contender. Slowly but surely, though, they won games and built their résumé. The biggest win happened right away when they took down future 1-seed Illinois 66-63 on the road. They edged Purdue at home (a win's a win), then beat Rutgers and Michigan State on a 5-game winning streak. They dropped their last two regular season games to unheralded Northwestern and Penn State and they probably needed the win over Michigan State in the Big Ten tournament or they might have fallen into the play-in 11-seed where the Spartans ended up.
Maryland has a great 1-2 punch of Eric Ayala (14.9 points) and Aaron Wiggins (14.0) at guard. Both are tall—6-6 and 6-5—and the whole team is at least 6-5, making them the 30th tallest team in the nation despite having no one on the floor over 6-7 most of the time. Maryland shoots well but mainly on 2s; they take a lot of 3s but as a team aren't great (Ayala and Wiggins combine for about 33%).
Maryland's win over UConn was very strong considering how well the Huskies had been playing lately. Ayala had 23 point on 8 of 14 shooting to lead the Terps.
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Game Analysis: Alabama's offense (#38) vs. Maryland's defense (#27) is the more even side of this game. It's also wildly disparate in terms of preferred tempo, with Alabama being very fast, the Terps forcing long possessions. This seems like an ideal case to think that whichever team can impose its tempo on the other has an advantage.
If Maryland can slow down Alabama's offense, it could even out the game, since the other side of the court pits Alabama's #2 defense vs. Maryland's #42 offense. There, tempo is less important because of Alabama's advantage, and the fact that while Maryland is fairly slow on offense, Alabama's defense is fine with a slow pace, forcing long possessions themselves. The tempo discrepancy is only when Alabama has the ball.
This seems like a fairly easy pick but Maryland's win over UConn was quite a game-changer. The Terps played about as well as they can, and if we see that kind of effort again from them this will be a big challenge for the Tide.
Vegas Line:
Alabama by 5 1/2
Power rating: spread
Alabama by 5.4
Game-comparisons: % Chance to win
Alabama: 61.6%
Maryland: 38.4%
Recent game performance (last 6):
Alabama: 61.1%
Maryland: 38.8%
Alabama by 7.2
Pretty strong agreement here between Vegas and our expected margin. 62% is just under the 64% historical win rate for 2-seeds against 10-seeds.
Bottom line: Alabama needs everything they've got if the Terps have one of their "up" games. If not, things will be smoother for the Tide. Given this tournament, I'm not predicting an easy path.
Final prediction: Alabama 70, Maryland 68
More previews: click here for the full 2021 NCAA tournament schedule.
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