All previews: click here for the full 2021 NCAA tournament schedule
Florida Gators
Seed: 7
Record: 15-9
Conference: SEC
vs.
Oral Roberts Golden Eagles
Seed: 15
Record: 17-10
Conference: Summit
Date: Sunday, March 21
Time: 7:45 pm Eastern
Region: South
Location: Farmers Coliseum, Indianapolis, IN
Channel: truTV
We warned everyone about Oral Roberts and now here they are in the 2nd round.
Florida Oral Roberts
Power Ratings
Strength: #30 Strength: #146
Pomeroy: #37 Pomeroy: #136
Offense: #43 Offense: #71
Defense: #38 Defense: #247
BPI: #33 BPI: #152
LRMC: #50 LRMC: #119
Other Measures:
Tempo Total/Off: #165/#71 Tempo Total/Off: #47/#39
SOS: #17 SOS: #221
Consistency: #256 Consistency: #85
Str x Consistency: #37 Str x Consistency: #143
2nd half season: #35 2nd half season: #132
Last 6 games: #55 Last 6 games: #86
Road Strength: #23 Road Strength: #146
Injury Modifier: #38 -KJohnson Injury Modifier: #146
Oral Roberts jumped 16 spots in Strength, 16 places in Pomeroy, and just 4 places in the BPI for some reason. Florida held steady or lost a place generally. The LRMC doesn't update after Selection Sunday but already had the Eagles at #119.
That's still a long way from Florida's ranking, though. Their SOS jumped, too, but is a far cry from Florida's. And while they're getting closer in recent play, too, there's only so much one game can do.
- Wins vs. tournament teams (4): (8)LSU+4, (5)Tennessee+26, @(3)West Virginia+5, =(10)Virginia Tech+OT
- Losses to tournament teams (6): @(4)Florida St.-12, @(2)Alabama-15, @(3)Arkansas-11, (9)Missouri-2, @(5)Tennessee-11, =(5)Tennessee-12
- Other losses (3): Kentucky-18, @Mississippi St.-3, South Carolina-6
Overview: Florida beat three tourney teams including 3-seed West Virginia, and their best game was a 26 point blowout of 5-seed Tennessee. They lost twice to the Vols by double digits though, and lost three other times by double digits to tournament foes. Their season ended on a 1-3 skid which included the losses to Tennessee.
Trey Mann leads the team at 16.0ppg, stepping up after Keyontae Johnson was lost after just three games. Three other Gators score in double figures. On defense, the Gators block a lot of shots but allow a lot of offensive rebounds. Colin Castleton was key in Florida's 75-70 overtime win vs. Virginia Tech, scoring 19 and garnering 14 rebounds.
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- Wins vs. tournament teams (1): =(2)Ohio St.+OT
- Losses to tournament teams (5): @(9)Missouri-27, @(11)Wichita St.-5, @(4)Oklahoma St.-5, @(8)Oklahoma-14, @(3)Arkansas-11
- Other losses (5): North Dakota-1, UMKC-5, @North Dakota St.-7, South Dakota St.-15, @South Dakota-2
Overview: Oral Roberts played a killer non-conference schedule, losing to Missouri, Wichita State, Oklahoma State, Oklahoma, and Arkansas before Summit League play started. That's a 9, 11, 4, 8, and 3-seed all in the first month. So Ohio State won't shock them with anything they do; they even played two of those teams to single digits, and led 3-seed Arkansas 40-30 at the half before falling 87-76.
Oral Roberts boasts the nation's leading scorer in Max Abmas (pronounced Ace - Muss despite all indications otherwise) who scores 24.2 point per game; #2 scorer Kevin Obanor adds a healthy 18.2. Part of this is due to the speed they play, but they are #11 in the nation in 3-point percentage. It's not about the low level of competition either, as Abmas scored 28 against Wichita State, 33 on Oklahoma State, and 20 vs. Oklahoma.
The Golden Eagles got their first win over a tournament team in a big way, upsetting 2-seed Ohio State 75-72 in overtime. The top scoring duo in the nation was on show, with Obanor scoring 30 and Abmas 29, 79% of the team's output.
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Game Analysis: Both teams won overtime games to get into the 2nd round. The difference is that Florida needed overtime to beat 10-seed Virginia Tech, while Oral Roberts went into extra innings to top 2-seed Ohio State.
Oral Roberts' 1-2 punch of Abmas and Obanor combined to make 10 of 22 three-point attempts, a 45% clip. Florida's defense is #29 in 3-point defense, unlike Ohio State's #181 (post-game, but probably not far off). Defensive three-point percentage is a somewhat unreliable stat when looking ahead, but that's still a big difference.
Only one 15-seed has ever advanced to the Sweet Sixteen: Florida Gulf Coast in 2013, who beat 2-seed Georgetown 78-68 and 7-seed San Diego State 81-71 before falling to 3-seed Florida 62-50. Oral Roberts could be the 2nd—they have two big scorers, and that's all you need for an upset win.
Odds are against them, though, as 7 of 8 previous 15-seeds to make the round of 32 lost by an average of 16 points (add in FGCU's 10 point win and the average outcome is losing by 13. Also, the two 15-seeds to win their first round game by double digits did a LOT better than the other six in their 2nd round game, winning by 10 and losing by a point. The six that won in single digits lost by an average of 19 points.
Vegas Line:
Florida by 8
Power rating: spread
Florida by 12.9
Game-comparisons: % Chance to win
Florida: 82.2%
Oral Roberts: 17.8%
Recent game performance (last 6):
Florida: 63.9%
Oral Roberts: 36.1%
Florida by 3.5
Pretty big discrepancy between Vegas and Strength here, about 4 points. Maybe a lot of betting on Oral Roberts? You'd think, but the line opened around 7 1/2 and has hardly moved. Apparently their win over Ohio State—and their recent play—impressed the oddsmakers quite a bit. Pomeroy has a 10 point spread and the BPI reports 13.1, so it's not like we're out of school here.
There have only been three times a 7-seed met a 15-seed, and the 15-seed won once, so technically there is a historical 33% chance Oral Roberts wins, much higher than the 18% we report. That goes up to 36% in recent play, with a slim 3.5 point expected spread for Florida. The best sample for Oral Roberts is their last 5 great games; it reduces Florida's odds to 56% and a 1.1 point spread.
Bottom line: We almost recommended picking Oral Roberts over Ohio State, seeing it as by far the best 2 vs. 15 upset pick, but we never pick 15-seeds over 2-seeds so we balked. And let's be honest, we wouldn't have had them going more than one round, so we take Florida here. The Eagles have been playing well enough recently to make it a good game though.
Final prediction: Florida 78, Oral Roberts 75
More previews: click here for the full 2021 NCAA tournament schedule.
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