All previews: click here for the full 2021 NCAA tournament schedule
West Virginia
Seed: 3
Record: 19-9
Conference: Big 12
vs.
Syracuse Orange
Seed: 11
Record: 17-9
Conference: ACC
Date: Sunday, March 21
Time: 5:15 pm Eastern
Region: Midwest
Location: Bankers Life Fieldhouse, Indianapolis, IN
Channel: CBS
West Virginia takes on always-March-ready Syracuse.
West Virginia Syracuse
Power Ratings
Strength: #22 Strength: #40
Pomeroy: #21 Pomeroy: #38
Offense: #10 Offense: #13
Defense: #65 Defense: #91
BPI: #25 BPI: #32
LRMC: #14 LRMC: #62
Other Measures:
Tempo Total/Off: #114/#176 Tempo Total/Off: #138/#53
SOS: #20 SOS: #53
Consistency: #11 Consistency: #273
Str x Consistency: #9 Str x Consistency: #57
2nd half season: #21 2nd half season: #34
Last 6 games: #35 Last 6 games: #15
Road Strength: #15 Road Strength: #75
Injury Modifier: #31 (-Tshiebwe) Injury Modifier: #27 (Covid)
The numbers look wide at first, with West Virginia at #22 in #21 in Strength and KemPom, and just #40 and #38 for Syracuse. LRMC (pre-tourney) has a wide advantage for the Mountaineers, #14 to #62. The BPI is narrower at #25 to #32. Looking at Pomeroy's offense and defense numbers it looks closer: both teams have solid, near-top-ten offenses and lagging defenses.
The narrowing happens when looking at more recent play; Syracuse gets better in the 2nd half of the year and over the last 6 games they're a lot better than West Virginia, who has faltered lately. Also, using the full year but modifying for the fact that West Virginia played better early on with Oscar Tshiebwa and Syracuse had a Covid slump that's over, the Orange rank as narrowly better.
- Wins vs. tournament teams (9): =(10)VCU+12, @(12)Georgetown+9, (13)North Texas+12, @(4)Oklahoma St.+3, (6)Texas Tech+1, (3)Kansas+12, @(6)Texas Tech+11, @(3)Texas+2, =(14)Morehead St.+17
- Losses to tournament teams (9): =(1)Gonzaga-5, @(3)Kansas-14, @(8)Oklahoma-4, (3)Texas-2, (7)Florida-5, (8)Oklahoma-OT, (1)Baylor-OT, (4)Oklahoma St.-5, =(4)Oklahoma St.-3
- Other losses (0): None
Overview: West Virginia faced overall #1 seed Gonzaga early in December and made a game of it, leading at the half and losing by just five points. They also beat VCU, Georgetown, and North Texas in the pre-conference season. Once the Big 12 started it was a murderer's row and the Mountaineers went 5-7 against the conference's tournament teams, also losing to 7-seed Florida along the way. They had a couple of three-game win streaks interrupted by overtime losses to Oklahoma and Baylor, the latter of which seemed to take something out of them as they dropped their last two games to Oklahoma State in close contests.
Mike McBride leads the four Mountaineers in double-digit scoring at 15.4 ppg; he also leads in assists and steals. #2 scorer Derek Culver (14.6) leads with 9.8 rebounds per game. West Virginia doesn't shoot the two very well at all (46.3%) and they're only reasonably good at the 3, but they get a lot of offensive rebounds and are good at avoiding turnovers.
Against Morehead State Mike McBride unloaded for 30 points, hitting 11 of 17 field goals in the 84-67 win.
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- Wins vs. tournament teams (5): (12)Georgetown+5, (10)Virginia Tech+18, (8)North Carolina+2, (7)Clemson+10, =(6)San Diego St.+16
- 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. In the upset win over San Diego State Buddy Boeheim was on fire, hitting 11 of 15 shots including 7 of 10 from the 3-pt line to finish with 30 points.
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Game Analysis: West Virginia's Mike McBride and Syracuse's Buddy Boeheim both scored 30 points in the teams' opening round win. Whoever can duplicate that performance has the edge, obvioulsy. Easier said than done though.
But that brings us to a point: defense. These are great offenses, obviously, with lots of scorers on each team. But the defenses lag. So it might not come down to which player can score 30 but rather which defense is able to hold him under, say, 15. Both defenses are really bad at rebounding. Syracuse ranks better at defending shots, but that's probably a product of their easier schedule; the teams are likely about the same. But the Orange do get a lot of steals and block a lot of shots.
Vegas Line:
West Virginia by 3 1/2
Power rating: spread
West Virginia by 2.9
Game-comparisons: % Chance to win
West Virginia: 58.5%
Syracuse: 41.5%
Recent game performance (last 6):
West Virginia: 36.1%
Syracuse: 63.9%
Syracuse by 5.1
West Virginia is a slim favorite, with our game-comparison system giving them a 59% chance to win, slightly lower than the historical 64% chance a 3-seed has over an 11-seed. But in recent play things shift to the Orange and they are a 64% favorite by 5 points.
Bottom line: We had West Virginia losing this round—to San Diego State. The Orange took matters into their own hands and got here, and looking at how they've been doing—particularly against SDSU—we go with them.
Final prediction: Syracuse 79, West Virginia 74
More previews: click here for the full 2021 NCAA tournament schedule.
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