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Duke Blue Devils
Seed: 2
Record: 30-6
Conference: ACC
vs.
Texas Tech Red Raiders
Seed: 3
Record: 27-9
Conference: Big Twelve
Date: Thursday, March 24
Time: 9:39 pm Eastern
Region: West
Location: San Francisco, CA
Channel: CBS
Both Duke and Texas Tech will play very competitive basketball on both ends of the court.
Duke Texas Tech
Power Ratings
Strength: #11 Strength: #7
Median: #10 Median: #7
Markov: #10 Markov: #5
Pomeroy: #11 Pomeroy: #6
Offense: #4 Offense: #44
Defense: #44 Defense: #1
BPI: #12 BPI: #9
LRMC: #11 LRMC: #6
Other Measures:
Tempo (Offense): #178 Tempo (Offense): #208
SOS: #63 SOS: #22
Consistency: #185 Consistency: #214
2nd half season: #12 2nd half season: #2
Last 6 [-best]: #53 [#50] Last 6 [-best]: #1 [#5]
An interesting situation where the 3-seed outranks the 2-seed in every power rating, without exception. The most interesting part however is the Offense and Defense breakdowns by Pomeroy. Texas Tech has the #44 offense, matched by Duke's #44 defense. Meanwhile when they have the ball Duke is the #4 offense playing against the nation's #1 defense. Both ends of the court are too close to call but the real fireworks will be when the Blue Devils are trying to score.
Many times in our reviews we've seen that the team with the full-season advantage is not the team with the recent play advantage. In this case, Texas Tech's margin grows: they're #2 in the 2nd half of the season, and #1 in very recent play (Last 6 games), while Duke fades to a dismal #53! The real story behind those last 6 games only becomes clear on the charts. Basically Duke has played 4 good-but-not-great games and two awful duds, while Texas Tech has played 4 good-but-not-great games and 2 outrageously good ones. So each team is playing majority "good" games, 4 of the last 6; it's the other two that makes all the difference.
- Wins vs. tournament teams (8): =(2)Kentucky+8, =(1)Gonzaga+3, (11)Virginia Tech+11, @(11)Notre Dame+14, @(8)North Carolina+20, =(10)Miami FL+4, =(15)Cal St. Fullerton+17, =(7)Michigan St.+9
- Wins vs. Sweet Sixteen (3): =(1)Gonzaga+3, @(8)North Carolina+20, =(10)Miami FL+4
- Losses to tournament teams (4): @(7)Ohio St.-5, (10)Miami FL-2, (8)North Carolina-13, =(11)Virginia Tech-15
- Losses to Sweet Sixteen (2): (10)Miami FL-2, (8)North Carolina-13
- Other losses (2): @Florida St.-OT, Virginia-1
Overview: Duke quietly had a Duke-like season and nobody really noticed. Until the very end, the Blue Devils seemed like the typical Duke team that wins national titles: lose a handful of games and then win six in a row. They beat two of the best teams in the country—1-seed Gonzaga and 2-seed Kentucky—and people seem to treat it like a fluke.
Finally, then, they laid a couple of eggs and people said "I knew they weren't any good" but before that they played 7 of their best games in a row. It's kind of odd how the Blue Devils were counted out of a season where the possibility of team emotion taking them to a title had to be a strong possibility. The blowout loss to North Carolina in Coach K's home final seemed to indicate that there would be no amazing ending like there was to John Wooden's career (going out with a title) but then again Wooden didn't announce his retirement until the night before the championship game. Coach K announced it before the season started and it's been a Farewell Tour the whole year. It sounds like he just wants to get it over with.
The loss to Virginia Tech in the ACC championship game was further evidence that the Big Dance may end early for Duke. That and the other home losses, to Miami and Virginia, were signposts that something is wrong in Durham. They're still a good team, still capable of beating anyone, but it doesn't look like there will be any added magic due to Coach K's retirement. Maybe it's because of one-and-done turnover that the team can't muster a proper send-off?
This year's team has great talent, with 5 players averaging double figures on offense, led by 6-10 freshman forward Paolo Banchero's 17.0 points and 7.8 rebounds. As usual Duke shoots the ball well, shoots the 3 well, plays decent defense and doesn't foul much at all. True to form, all five starters were in double figures against CS Fullerton, including Banchero who led with 17 points and 10 rebounds. Gabe Brown's 18 led Duke to beat Tom Izzo and Michigan State 85-76, after Duke was down with 2 minutes to go.
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- Wins vs. tournament teams (11): =(3)Tennessee+OT, (1)Kansas+8, @(1)Baylor+3, (11)Iowa St.+12, (6)Texas+13, (9)TCU+13, (1)Baylor+10, @(6)Texas+6, =(11)Iowa St.+31, =(14)Montana St.+35, =(11)Notre Dame+6
- Wins vs. Sweet Sixteen (3): (1)Kansas+8, (11)Iowa St.+12, =(11)Iowa St.+31
- Losses to tournament teams (6): @(4)Providence-4, =(1)Gonzaga-14, @(11)Iowa St.-4, @(1)Kansas-OT, @(9)TCU-3, @(1)Kansas-9
- Losses to Sweet Sixteen (5): @(4)Providence-4, =(1)Gonzaga-14, @(11)Iowa St.-4, @(1)Kansas-OT, @(1)Kansas-9
- Other losses (3): @Kansas St.-11, @Oklahoma-15, @Oklahoma St.-1
Overview: Texas Tech plays in the Big Twelve so there's a wealth of tournament teams to play; they ended up 9-6 vs. the field, with three other conference losses. They played three tournament teams outside the conference and went 1-2, beating 3-seed Tennessee in overtime but losing to 4-seed Providence and 1-seed Gonzaga. They beat 1-seeds Baylor twice and Kansas once to make them 3-1 vs. 1-seeds, not bad for a 3-seed.
Looking at their last 6 games you can imagine a slight decline. Five of the six games were a bit lower than their average, with one outlier (the 72-41 win over 11-seed Iowa State), which is how you get the #13 ranking, #24 with high score removed. Either way it doesn't look great, but note that just before that they played four fantastic games; in a sample of the "last 10 games" Texas Tech ranks #4.
Defense is the key for Texas Tech and they do it all: turnovers, blocks, and limiting opponents' field goal percentage. On offense the Raiders aren't nearly as productive but they're still very close to having 5 double-digit scorers, led by Bryson Williams' 13.7ppg. Williams had 20 against Montana State, matched by Terrence Shannon, Jr. in the 97-62 romp. The Red Raiders overcame terrible shooting (36%) to beat Notre Dame 59-53 led by Kevin Obanor's 15 (that's what defense does for you—Notre Dame shot 33%).
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Game Analysis: The cool thing about this game is the Pomeroy numbers for Offense and Defense and the matchups it makes (ok, only a power rating geek would say something like that but it's true). Duke and Texas Tech share a #44 rating when the Red Raiders have the ball, and they are #4 and #1 when Duke has the ball. Somehow that slight edge for Tech on defense translates into being 5 spots higher overall.
So let's look at those matchups, especially when Duke has the ball. Texas Tech's guards are much taller than Duke's, but the height advantage doesn't extend to the bigs. In the end the teams are roughly the same average height. Duke's offense shoots well and rebounds well but guess what, Tech's defense guards well and rebounds well. The 2-point range will be key as both are borderline top ten (Duke in making 2s, Tech in preventing them). Tech's defense also gets a lot of blocks and steals; they do pretty much everything, hence the #1 ranking.
When Tech is on offense they are pretty focused on the 2-point shot and they're good at it. Duke defends pretty well there, and rarely fouls. The Raiders should have a big rebounding edge here. They're vulnerable to steals but Duke doesn't cause many turnovers.
Overall it looks really even, naturally, on both sides of the court but it almost seems like Texas Tech's offense might have to win this one for them, even more than their defense. Duke has to make their 2-point shots against Tech's stingy defense, and they have the big men to do it.
Vegas Line:
Texas Tech by 1
Power rating: spread
Texas Tech by 0.9
Game-comparisons: % Chance to win
Duke: 49.4%
Texas Tech: 50.6%
Recent game performance (last 6):
Duke: 41.7%
Texas Tech: 58.3%
Texas Tech by 11.6
If you ever doubted that computer power ratings form the basic for Vegas' oddsmaking (does anyone still?) look no further than the fact that Texas Tech is favored by a point, matching almost exactly the Strength power ratings's margin (Pomeroy also has Tech by 1). Fans in the 90's would be dismayed by things like this; they didn't know about the computers and to them power ratings were that thing Sagarin had in the USA Today that didn't have any effect on Selection Sunday or the AP Poll.
Note how close the game is by the game-comparison system, almost a 50/50 split. 2-seeds beat 3-seeds more than 60% of the time historically, but Texas Tech is a 2-seed quality team so it's very even. The recent sample boosts Texas Tech's odds by a bit and the spread by a lot, mainly because that 6-game spread includes 2 of Tech's best games and 2 of Duke's worst. If we make it a 10-game spread it's back to exactly 50/50, but Tech still "wins" by 5 points in the average game.
Bottom line: I picked this game for Texas Tech in my bracket and don't see a reason to change. Duke has done about as well as I expected with no real "boost" for Coach K yet. Beating Tom Izzo is probably all he really wanted to do when he saw the brackets anyway.
Final prediction: Texas Tech 70, Duke 65
More previews: click here for the full 2022 NCAA tournament schedule.
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