All previews: click here for the full 2021 NCAA tournament schedule
Baylor Bears
Seed: 1
Record: 26-2
Conference: Big 12
vs.
Houston Cougars
Seed: 2
Record: 28-3
Conference: American
Date: Saturday, April 2
Time: 5:14 pm Eastern
Location: Lucas Oil Stadium, Indianapolis, IN
Channel: CBS
Houston did it—they reached their first Final Four since the (H)Akeem Olajuwon era in 1984. Meanwhile Baylor reached their first Final Four since 1950. We're not even sure whose era that was.
Baylor Houston
Power Ratings
Strength: #2 Strength: #4
Pomeroy: #2 Pomeroy: #3
Offense: #3 Offense: #7
Defense: #28 Defense: #8
BPI: #2 BPI: #3
LRMC:(pre-tourney) #3 LRMC: #5
Other Measures:
Tempo Total/Off: #186/#112 Tempo Total/Off: #328/#331
Consistency: #206 Consistency: #207
SOS: #77 SOS: #99
Last 4 games: #3 Last 4 games: #6
This is a Final Four matchup for sure, according to the power ratings all of which have both teams in the top four (excuse LRMC's #5 for Houston as it's a pre-tourney ranking). Interestingly Houston has the more balanced offense and defensive play, ranking in the top ten of both measures while Baylor still has an outside-the-top-25 defense.
Tempo will be interesting as Houston wants the game to go slow. Baylor isn't exactly a rocket, but they like to play fairly quick on offense so that's where the question lies—how quickly can they find good shots against Houston's D? We include Strength of Schedule here because it shows relatively close values but when we look at the number of tough teams faced by each team, Baylor's schedule is much tougher than Houston's despite the "averaged" values appearing close.
- Wins vs. tournament teams (13): =(1)Illinois+13, (8)Oklahoma+15, @(6)Texas Tech+8, (3)Kansas+8, @(4)Oklahoma St.+15, @(3)Texas+14, @(3)West Virginia+OT, (4)Oklahoma St.+11, (6)Texas Tech+15, =(16)Hartford+24, =(9)Wisconsin+13, =(5)Villanova+11, =(3)Arkansas+11
- Wins vs. Sweet Sixteen (2): =(5)Villanova+11, =(3)Arkansas+11
- Losses to tournament teams (2): @(3)Kansas-13, =(4)Oklahoma St.-9
- Losses to Sweet Sixteen (0): None
- Other losses (0): None
Overview: Baylor raced from the gate ranked #2 and looking like it as they beat future 1-seed Illinois in an otherwise cupcake pre-conference season. Those cupcakes, coupled with their three-week break leaves them with a résumé that would be worthy of a 3-seed any other year in terms of big wins. But this year it's pretty stellar; only 4 teams have more than their 9 tourney-team skins. Amazingly though as they reach the Sweet Sixteen they've beaten none of the rest of the field as the Big Twelve has fizzled out much like the Big Ten.
The Bears' Covid break occurred between game 17 (Texas) and game 18 (Iowa State). Though they beat the 2-win Cyclones it was close, 77-72 at home, by far their worst game of the season at that point. The loss at Kansas wasn't quite as bad but spoiled their perfect season. The Bears recovered over the next three games and looked to be recapturing their form—which would make sense, their practice was greatly limited during the off time—but then they had another relapse, barely beating 9-19 Kansas State 74-68 then falling to Oklahoma State 83-74. They look like they recovered against Hartford, but the jury is still out.
Baylor boasts three players in double figures: Jared Butler (17.1), MaCio Teague (16.2) and Davion Mitchell (14.1). They play a smaller, guard-heavy lineup, often having only one player over 6-5 on the court. Against Hartford, Teague led the Bears with 22 points. Against Wisconsin Teague and Mitchell at 16 but it was Matthew Mayer leading off the bench with 17. And in the win over Villanova another bench player, Adam Flagler, led with 16; the Bears won comfortably despite making only 3 of 19 threes as Villanova made just 3 of 17. Teague had 22 in the Bears's solid win over Arkansas.
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- Wins vs. tournament teams (6): =(6)Texas Tech+11, (11)Wichita St.+7, =(15)Cleveland St.+31, =(10)Rutgers+3, =(11)Syracuse+16, =(12)Oregon St.+6
- Wins vs. Sweet Sixteen (2): =(11)Syracuse+16, =(12)Oregon St.+6
- 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. Houston didn't shoot well against Syracuse, making just 38% but they held the Orange to 28% in the 62-46 win; Grimes had 14. And Maurice Calloo came off the bench and scored 13 in the Cougars' 67-61 win over Oregon State to reach the Final Four for the first time since 1984.
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Game Analysis: Baylor's path to the Final Four was assisted a bit by some upsets. They got some help from Wisconsin upsetting a UNC team that was on a roll, and they avoided having to face 2-seed Ohio State thanks to Oral Roberts. But their seed path was still 16-9-5-3 rather than the slightly more difficult 16-8-4-2.
Houston on the other hand had their road paved for them; instead the expected 15-7-3-1 path, they faced 15-10-11-12, the easiest path to the Final Four in 64-team tournament history (by simple addition). 10-seed Rutgers upset 7-seed Clemson, while 11-seed Syracuse beat 6-seed San Diego State and 3-seed West Virginia, and 12-seed Oregon State knocked off the 5-seed, 4-seed, and 8-seed Loyola Chicago—who knocked off 1-seed Illinois. That's a lot of good teams they didn't have to face.
Neither team is very tall, and both play guard-heavy lineups with taller guards or forwards at the F/C positions. Houston's top rebounding offense should do well against Baylor's D, but Baylor's offensive rebounding is great too (#7) and they shoot the ball a lot better than Houston. On the other hand Houston defends the shot better than anyone—at least based on the schedule they've faced, which hasn't been nearly as good as Baylor's, either for the full season or in the tournament itself.
While Baylor has defeated 13 tournament teams now, Houston has topped just 6. And that's just the start. Houston hasn't beat a team awarded higher than a 6-seed, and that happened before the tournament. Baylor just beat a 3-seed and a 5-seed and during the regular season they beat 3-seeds three more times and beat 1-seed Illinois too. The Bears' average SOS is drawn down by several pre-conference wins over teams ranking in the 300s while Houston tried to supplement their weak conference slate with some decent pre-season games; they also beat NIT winner Memphis twice which helps their ranking.
Vegas Line:
Baylor by 5
Power rating: spread
Baylor by 1.1
Game-comparisons: % Chance to win
Baylor: 55.2%
Houston: 44.8%
Recent game performance (last 4):
Baylor: 75.0%
Houston: 25.0%
Baylor by 4.3
Vegas makes Baylor a healthy 5-point favorite, and the way they're playing in the tournament it's hard to disagree. For the full season we show Baylor winning by about a point, with a 55% chance. That includes Baylor's post-Covid slump which they have put behind them for sure. More recent play—just the tournament—expands that to 75% and a four-point win. 1-seeds beat 2-seeds 53.8% of the time so the full-season odds seem more applicable, but in just Final Four matchups 1-seeds win 2/3 of the time.
Bottom line: Houston goes from facing overachieving double-digit seeds to taking on Baylor, a team that might be as good as they've been all year. We said early on if no one stopped Baylor early it would be tough, and it looks too tough for Houston.
Final prediction: Baylor 81, Houston 67
More previews: click here for the full 2021 NCAA tournament schedule.
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