All previews: click here for the full 2021 NCAA tournament schedule
Houston Cougars
Seed: 2
Record: 26-3
Conference: American
vs.
Syracuse Orange
Seed: 11
Record: 18-9
Conference: ACC
Date: Saturday, March 27
Time: 9:55 pm Eastern
Region: Midwest
Location: Hinkle Fieldhouse, Indianapolis, IN
Channel: TBS
Syracuse is doing what Syracuse does, make an unlikely surge in the NCAA tournament. Can Houston stop them?
Houston Syracuse
Power Ratings
Strength: #4 Strength: #40
Pomeroy: #4 Pomeroy: #36
Offense: #7 Offense: #17
Defense: #11 Defense: #86
BPI: #3 BPI: #30
LRMC:(pre-tourney) #5 LRMC: #62
Other Measures:
Tempo Total/Off: #325/#325 Tempo Total/Off: #150/#61
Consistency: #234 Consistency: #295
Last 2 games: #15 Last 2 games: #12
Houston is unanimously a top five team, while Syracuse hovers around the 30s or 40s. Unlike previous Syracuse teams their calling-card is offense rather than they zone defense. Houston is solid on both offense and defense.
The Cougars like a slow tempo, a far cry from the Phi Slamma Jamma days; the Orange are more likely to try to push the offensive pace. Consistency for both teams is low enough to make any outcome feasible, and the teams are playing at about the same level in the tournament so far.
- Wins vs. tournament teams (4): =(6)Texas Tech+11, (11)Wichita St.+7, =(15)Cleveland St.+31, =(10)Rutgers+3
- Wins vs. Sweet Sixteen (0): None
- Losses to tournament teams (1): @(11)Wichita St.-5
- Losses to Sweet Sixteen (0): None
- Other losses (2): @Tulsa-1, @East Carolina-9
Overview: All year Houston has been the interloper in the top 25, the team from a non-major conference who isn't Gonzaga and therefore isn't legit. The Cougars have had to prove themselves time and time again that their schedule doesn't mean everything. And of course when they stumbled against really bad teams like Tulsa and East Carolina, those doubts grew. But with analytics on their side, they hovered in the top ten most of the year in the AP poll, and finally made believers of the selection committee, nabbing a 2-seed.
Quentin Grimes leads the Cougars with 18.0 points per game, adding 6 rebounds. And rebounding is a big reason why Houston offense works despite ranking only #104 in effective field goal percentage; the Cougars are #2 in offensive rebounding, meaning they get a lot of 2nd chances, which is how they can rank #8 in offensive efficiency per Pomeroy. On defense, they're top 10 against both 2s and 3s, and they get a lot of blocks and steals, those these stats are unadjusted for competition.
Houston blitzed Cleveland State 87-56 in round 1, with Grimes scoring his typical 18 to lead the team. Grimes led with 22 against Rutgers as the Cougars held off the Scarlet Knights 63-60.
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- Wins vs. tournament teams (6): (12)Georgetown+5, (10)Virginia Tech+18, (8)North Carolina+2, (7)Clemson+10, =(6)San Diego St.+16, =(3)West Virginia+3
- Wins vs. Sweet Sixteen (0): None
- 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
- Losses to Sweet Sixteen (0): None
- 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. Boeheim had 25 against West Virginia.
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Game Analysis: Syracuse has been a bracket buster many times in the recent past. In the late 80s/early 90s Boeheim's teams were perennial top seeds, so they weren't pulling off upsets. But by the mid-90s they weren't getting 1- and 2-seeds and they often outperformed, going to the Final Four as a 4-seed and winning it all in 2003 as a 3-seed. But it's been in the last decade they've gotten a giant-killer rep: in 2013 they reached the Final Four again as a 4-seed; in 2016 they made the Final Four as a 10-seed, and in 2018 reached the Sweet Sixteen as an 11-seed.
Houston's history in the tournament goes back to the Elvis Hayes Final Four team and the 3 consecutive Phi Slamma Jamma Final Fours in 1982-1984. Since then they haven't made the 2nd round until 2018, and have now reached 2 consecutive Sweet Sixteens.
Vegas Line:
Houston by 6
Power rating: spread
Houston by 9.2
Game-comparisons: % Chance to win
Houston: 71.1%
Syracuse: 28.9%
Recent game performance (last 6):
Houston: 52.8%
Syracuse: 47.1%
Houston by 2.2
Vegas hedges their best a bit from the full-season estimate as the Orange are famous for their NCAA runs now. For the full-year sample the Orange have almost a 30% chance to win, which is well above the 13% historical average for an 11-seed trying to upset a 2-seed. For very recent play the game is roughly a tossup but Houston remains a 2 point favorite.
Bottom line: Syracuse keeps making these unlikely runs; this is their fourth such outperformance in their last six appearances. It's very likely Jim Boeheim knows how to motivate his team and calm them down to get the best performance out of them during the Madness. They might be headed for another Final Four but it also might be Houston's turn to get back to the Final Four for the first time since 1984.
Final prediction: Houston 75, Syracuse 71
More previews: click here for the full 2021 NCAA tournament schedule.
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