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Arizona Wildcats
Seed: 1
Record: 32-3
Conference: Pac-12
vs.
TCU Horned Frogs
Seed: 9
Record: 21-12
Conference: Big Twelve
Date: Sunday, March 20
Time: 9:40 pm Eastern
Region: South
Location: San Diego, CA
Channel: TBS
TCU won big on Friday, beating an 8-seed much worse than Arizona handle a 16-seed. Does it mean anything?
Arizona TCU
Power Ratings
Strength: #2 Strength: #30
Median: #2 Median: #22
Markov: #3 Markov: #28
Pomeroy: #2 Pomeroy: #27
Offense: #5 Offense: #74
Defense: #20 Defense: #15
BPI: #3 BPI: #32
LRMC: #2 LRMC: #55
Other Measures:
Tempo (Offense): #4 Tempo (Offense): #309
SOS: #64 SOS: #11
Consistency: #280 Consistency: #218
2nd half season: #7 2nd half season: #22
Last 6 [-best]: #13 [#11] Last 6 [-best]: #10 [#9]
Arizona ranks the way a 1-seed should rank, in the top 4 across the board. Their offense is top 5, defense top 20. TCU looks like an 9 or 9 seed, which is appropriate, they are a 9-seed that just beat an 8-seed—beat them really bad, too, in what was probably their best game of the season. Will it translate to the next game with Arizona?
The Wildcats slide a bit, just outside the top ten, when we look at the 2nd half of the season, and TCU is looking better. Now fast forward to the Last 6 games and TCU is a few spots ahead—even when their big win is removed from the calculation. Do we have another UNC-Baylor situation here? The one we picked as an overtime win for Baylor but was an overtime loss instead? North Carolina had their best game of the year in the first round and beat a 1-seed, and TCU is in the same position.
- Wins vs. tournament teams (8): =(11)Michigan+18, (12)Wyoming+29, @(4)Illinois+4, (4)UCLA+10, (7)USC+9, @(7)USC+20, =(4)UCLA+8, =(16)Wright St.+17
- Losses to tournament teams (2): @(3)Tennessee-4, @(4)UCLA-16
- Other losses (1): @Colorado-16
Overview: Arizona raced to an 11-0 start beating 11-seed Michigan and 4-seed Illinois, and by that time people were starting to take notice. They stubbed their toe on 3-seed Tennessee on the road but they picked right back up and were 16-1 when 4-seed UCLA beat them 75-59. No problem: 9 wins later they're a crazy 25-2. That's when they suffered their worst loss by far: 79-63 at Colorado. But once again, six wins later the Wildcats were 31-3, Pac-12 champs, and had beaten a good collection of tough teams.
Arizona's fast-paced offense is one of the very best in the country. They're good on defense, too, and they settle down into the half court there and defend well, especially from 2-point range. But it's the offense that drives them. They're top 5 from 2-point range and rebound very well. Four Wildcats average in double figures led by Benedict Mathurin's 17.4ppg. Note that point guard Kerr Kriisa (#4 scorer, #1 assists) may miss the first round game. He's very likely to be back for the next game if he does. Mathurin led five in double figures with 18 in the win over Wright State.
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- Wins vs. tournament teams (6): @(11)Iowa St.+15, (6)LSU+9, (3)Texas Tech+3, (1)Kansas+10, =(6)Texas+5, =(8)Seton Hall+27
- Losses to tournament teams (8): (1)Baylor-12, (6)Texas-23, @(3)Texas Tech-13, (11)Iowa St.-3, @(1)Baylor-10, @(6)Texas-9, @(1)Kansas-4, @(1)Kansas-13
- Other losses (4): =Santa Clara-19, @Oklahoma St.-1, Kansas St.-12, @West Virginia-6
Overview: TCU didn't play any tournament-bound teams before the Big Twelve season started, but they made up for lost time going 4-8 vs. that field and added a win over 6-seed LSU in late January. Early on they lost to Santa Clara 85-66 but they put that behind them with a 7-game win streak before conference play started. There were some bad losses—Texas beat them 73-50 at home, game 17, for example—but for the most part their losses were good efforts. They just played a killer schedule.
The Horned Frogs didn't finish the season very well in terms of wins and losses—they were 4-7 in the last month—but they played tough teams. They played Kansas three times in March! And they beat them once, lost by 4 points and then by 13 points. They also split with 6-seed Texas, West Virginia, and 3-seed Texas Tech in that stretch, and lost to 1-seed Baylor.
TCU has the #1 offensive rebounding team in the country, but they turn the ball over a lot and don't shoot well, especially from the 3-point line. The Frogs are led by Mike Miles' 15.0 points per game; Damion Baugh is #2 at 10.7. Both have missed several games and TCU has played better when both are in the lineup (as they will be for the tournament). Miles had 21 points in TCU's 69-42 beatdown of Seton Hall.
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Game Analysis: So TCU got a blowout win. That doesn't mean they'll play out of their heads again and beat Arizona. For example, the only team that had a better first round game was North Carolina, and they took on a 1-seed in their next game and we pointed out that, with an erratic team like North Carolina, one massive game is usually followed by a flat one and we can't expect them to beat a 1-seed just because they played a really good first round game.
And so of course North Carolina just beat Baylor in double overtime.
We're not about to be swept up into a new theory that teams that have a killer first game can upset a top seed the next time around. I've seen that fail before—one example was Iowa in 2015, who had the best first-round win over Davidson, 83-52. It was their best performance of the season, too. Facing 2-seed Gonzaga next, they fell 87-68. Their huge win didn't mean anything by the next game. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't.
Problems for TCU on offense (#74 Pomeroy, vs. #20 Arizona) are many. They can't hit the 3 to save their life, and Arizona's D is great against the 2. Solution? They are shockingly the #1 offensive rebounding team in the nation. Eventually one will go in right? But TCU also turns the ball over a lot. And Arizona is the 2nd tallest team in the country and blocks a lot of shots.
Problems for TCU on defense (#15, vs. #7 Arizona) are not nearly as many. They're really good, but so is Arizona's offense, which is the source of their problems here. The Wildcats shoot well, especially from 2-point range. And they rebound well. It seems Arizona's got an edge here too.
Vegas Line:
Arizona by 9 1/2
Power rating: spread
Arizona by 9.3
Game-comparisons: % Chance to win
Arizona: 73.9%
TCU: 26.1%
Recent game performance (last 6):
Arizona: 44.4%
TCU: 55.6%
TCU by 1.8
Crazy...our spread is lower than the Vegas line? Never happens. Arizona's 74% chance is a lot lower than the historical 1-vs-9 results for the 1-seed, who wins it 92% of the time. 9-seeds just don't beat 1-seeds nearly as often as 8-seeds do. And that effect is actually statistically significant to .05 (p=.0496). And with Baylor's loss today—to an 8-seed—the p-Value is now .037. If Gonzaga holds on vs. Memphis it will remain statistically significant, otherwise it will fall to .059. Ain't stats fun?
Anyway the point is 9-seeds don't beat 1-seeds and it's a weird effect unlikely to be completely random, so we can officially state that there must be something about the psychology of being a 9-seed and getting the minor "upset" that holds them back, or the 8-seed feels an extra boost from being the favorite and that carries over? Or something in the 1-seeds psychology? Who knows.
So of course when recent play is invoked, TCU's huge win makes them the favorite. But it's not just that, Arizona's last several games aren't the best overall.
Bottom line: Looking at the offense/defense matchups and Arizona's height across the board, we think TCU, unlike North Carolina, won't beat the 1-seed. Mainly because they're a 9-seed, and if they do win it will screw up the chi-square test for that phenomenon.
Final prediction: Arizona 78, TCU 68
More previews: click here for the full 2022 NCAA tournament schedule.