All previews: click here for the full 2021 NCAA tournament schedule
Villanova Wildcats
Seed: 5
Record: 17-6
Conference: Big East
vs.
North Texas Mean Green
Seed: 13
Record: 18-9
Conference: C-USA
Date: Sunday, March 21
Time: 8:45 pm Eastern
Region: South
Location: Bankers Life Fieldhouse, Indianapolis, IN
Channel: TNT
Sometimes you pick an upset and it's the wrong one, and you end up with a 2nd round contests between those you picked to lose.
Villanova North Texas
Power Ratings
Strength: #10 Strength: #70
Pomeroy: #14 Pomeroy: #57
Offense: #9 Offense: #100
Defense: #65 Defense: #37
BPI: #7 BPI: #62
LRMC: #21 LRMC: #60
Other Measures:
Tempo Total/Off: #320/#297 Tempo Total/Off: #350/#326
SOS: #32 SOS: #134
Consistency: #201 Consistency: #22
Str x Consistency: #13 Str x Consistency: #51
2nd half season: #20 2nd half season: #68
Last 6 games: #33 Last 6 games: #64
Road Strength: #39 Road Strength: #125
Injury Modifier: #55(-Gillespie) Injury Modifier: #67
As we mentioned last review of Villanova, the rank high in power ratings, higher than a 5-seed should. Especially in BPI where they're #7. North Texas has moved up since beating Purdue but is still around 50 spots lower. When North Texas has the ball it's good basketball, the #37 offense vs. the #9 defense; neither Villanova's defense nor North Texas' offense is anything to crow about.
The game should have a very slow pace given the two teams' preferred tempo. The only other thing to note is Villanova's poor recent play, and their even poorer play without Colin Gillespie, a 3-game sample but they lost 2 of those games.
- Wins vs. tournament teams (7): =(16)Hartford+34, @(3)Texas+4, @(12)Georgetown+13, (12)Georgetown+10, (7)Connecticut+8, (5)Creighton+12, =(12)Winthrop+12
- Losses to tournament teams (3): =(10)Virginia Tech-OT, @(5)Creighton-16, =(12)Georgetown-1
- Other losses (3): @St. John's-11, @Butler-12, @Providence-2
Overview: Villanova had a rough first 3 games, losing to 10-seed Virginia Tech in overtime. But they beat future 16-seed Hartford 87-53 to start a 9-game winning streak, beating the likes of 3-seed Texas, 12-seed Georgetown and...six other non-qualifiers. The win streak spanned a long layoff from December 23 to January 19 due to Covid (between games 9 and 10. The layoff didn't seem to affect them much, but several weeks later the random bad losses started to happen. First St. John's beat them 70-59, then Creighton blasted them 86-70, and then it was Butler's turn, 73-61. In-between these they played great, beating Marquette by 32, St. John's by 23, and Creighton by 12. But without Collin Gillespie they fell to Providence and Georgetown in their last two outings.
Villanova is led by four scorers in double figures, and it's likely two of them won't play in the tournament. Jeremiah Robinson-Earl (15.7 ppg, 8.3 rebounds) is fine, but #2 scorer Collin Gillespie (14.0) is out, and likely will be joined by #3 scorer Justin Moore (12.6). That will really hurt them at the point guard position.
Robinson-Earl led the team with 22 points against Winthrop; Justin Moore ended up playing after all, scoring 15 points, a good sign for the team.
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- Wins vs. tournament teams (1): =(4)Purdue+9
- Losses to tournament teams (3): @(3)Arkansas-15, @(3)West Virginia-12, @(8)Loyola Chicago-8
- Other losses (6): @Mississippi St.-6, @UTSA-8, Louisiana Tech-5, @Marshall-1, UAB-14, UAB-4
Overview: North Texas has played steady basketball all year, whether they were beating Mississippi Valley State 116-62 or losing by double digits to Arkansas, Mississippi State, and West Virginia. After those three games—and a loss to Loyola Chicago—the schedule got much easier and they won more games. That is, until a bad three-game stretch at the end including 2 home losses to UAB put their March Madness plans in doubt. Further complicating matters, they lost 6th man Rubin Jones for the C-USA tournament, but they played four solid games—including a wild final where they beat Western Kentucky in overtime.
Guard Javion Hamlet leads the team in scoring with 15.0 ppg, adding 4.5 assists. North Texas shoots the ball very well, particularly behind the 3-point line. They're vulnerable to steals, but they force turnovers on defense too—and their defense is much better than their offense.
Hamlet scored 24 points and garnered 12 rebounds in the upset win over Purdue.
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Game Analysis: Well we didn't pick either of these teams to get here and now we have to pick one of them to go to the Sweet Sixteen. Villanova has looked weak without Colin Gillespie and they were supposed to be without Justin Moore but he played, and that helped a lot—it helps a lot going forward. Meanwhile North Texas added another solid game to their recent streak, which is a reason to think they have a chance here.
Villanova might be getting used to Gillespie's absence as they've played a bit better each game, but they still aren't playing as well as North Texas over the same stretch.
Vegas Line:
Villanova by 6.5
Power rating: spread
Villanova by 8.4
Game-comparisons: % Chance to win
Villanova: 75.2%
North Texas: 24.8%
Recent game performance (last 6):
Villanova: 63.9%
North Texas: 36.1%
Villanova by 4.7
A few points separate Vegas' line from our projection, and we give Villanova a 75% chance which is close to the 82% historical chance a 5-seed has over a 13-seed. Recent games closes the gap and the spread, and if we look at only the last three games Villanova has played without Gillespie—and North Texas has been surging—the Mean Green are favored by 1.6 points.
Bottom line: We have no dog in this race, having expected a Purdue-Winthrop contest. We picked Villanova to get upset last round and we're going to do it again. If they advance far enough to become the underdog maybe we'll take them then.
Final prediction: North Texas 65, Villanova 64
More previews: click here for the full 2021 NCAA tournament schedule.
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