All previews: click here for the full 2023 NCAA tournament schedule
Arizona Wildcats
Seed: 2
Record: 28-6
Conference: Pac-12
vs.
Princeton Tigers
Seed: 15
Record: 21-8
Conference: Ivy League
Date: Thursday, March 16
Time: 4:10pm Eastern
Region: South
Location: Sacramento, CA
Channel: TNT
Princeton flies across the country to face Arizona in California.
Arizona Princeton
Power Ratings
Strength: #8 Strength: #111
Median: #3 Median: #115
Markov: #7 Markov: #141
Pomeroy: #10 Pomeroy: #112
Offense: #4 Offense: #103
Defense: #41 Defense: #137
BPI: #9 BPI: #110
LRMC: #5 LRMC: #138
Other Measures:
SOS: #32 SOS: #199
Tempo (Offense): #14 Tempo (Offense): #241
Consistency: #244 Consistency: #124
Str + Reliability: #8 Str + Reliability: #108
Str + Potential: #9 Str + Potential: #119
2nd half season: #7 2nd half season: #123
Last 6: #14 Last 6: #101
Injury Mod Rank: #7 Injury Mod Rank: #111
MegaScreen Ranking MegaScreen Ranking
Final 4: NA Final 4: NA
Sweet 16: #7 Sweet 16: NA
Arizona's numbers are great as you would expect from a 2-seed, but Princeton comports itself very well for a 15-seed, nearly ranking in the top 100 across the board. On both offense and defense they will be far outclassed, and this might be a situation where an unbalanced team with say, a great defense like last year's St. Peter's team, would give them some area of advantage. But there's not much here. The game will be a tempo clash, as Arizona's games often are.
Arizona doesn't show up in our MegaScreen Final Four, I think due to their excessive steals suffered on offense. But they rank fairly high on the Sweet Sixteen indicator while Princeton is shut out.
- Wins vs. tournament teams (12): =(5)San Diego St.+17, =(6)Creighton+2, =(4)Indiana+14, (16)Texas A&M Corpus Chris+38, (4)Tennessee+5, (14)Montana St.+21, @(11)Arizona St.+9, (10)USC+15, (2)UCLA+6, @(10)USC+6, =(11)Arizona St.+19, =(2)UCLA+2
- Losses to tournament teams (2): (11)Arizona St.-1, @(2)UCLA-9
- Other losses (4): @Utah-15, Washington St.-13, @Oregon-19, @Stanford-9
Overview: Arizona was one of the top teams all season, in contention for a 1-seed until some late losses knocked them down a bit and winning the Pac-12 tournament could only get the Wildcats a 2-seed. They beat several top-quality non-conference opponents: 6-seed Creighton, 5-seed San Diego State, and 4-seeds Indiana and Tennessee. Their rivalry with UCLA was about as close as it can get, splitting the home and away and the last game coming down to a failed 3-pointer by the Bruins.
For a running team Arizona is very tall, boasting two near-7-footers: leading scorer and rebounder Azuolas Tubelis (19.8, 9.3) and center Oumar Ballo who is second in both categories (14.2, 8.5). A trio of guards averages just over 10 points each in the high-powered offense.
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- Wins vs. tournament teams (0): None
- Losses to tournament teams (1): =(13)Iona-6
- Other losses (7): Hofstra-6, @Navy-1, Delaware-7, @Brown-2, @Yale-22, @Dartmouth-7, Yale-OT
Overview: Princeton's season started with two losses but when faced with easier foes they won 8 straight. Then they met 13-seed Iona and lost. And the pattern repeated, whenever Princeton faced someone in the top 100 they would lose, and then recovered with wins over lesser opponents. After two losses to Yale (#67 in Pomeroy) the Tigers finally got a solid win and it gave them an NCAA berth.
6-8" Princeton forward Tosan Evbuomwan leads the team in scoring with 15.0 ppg but also in assists with 4.8 per game as well as in steals.
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Game Analysis: Princeton doesn't match up very well against Arizona, let's face it. It goes beyond being a 15-seed trying to match up with a 2-seed, too.
Princeton is a fairly tall team, in that they are tall across the board, with big guards and essentially three forwards. But they're not big forwards, and against Arizona they'll be facing twin towers almost 7-feet tall each. That could be a nightmare on both offense and defense. If Arizona's defense can disrupt the offense going through Evbuomwan, it's all over for Princeton and very early. Princeton still plays much of the same patient offense that bears their name but of course it's personnel driven—as well as opponent driven, and they haven't faced opponents like the Wildcats.
They can't even take advantage of the Wildcats propensity to turn the ball over (#326 in steals) as the Tigers rank #350 in steals on defense.
Vegas Line:
Arizona by 13 1/2
Power rating: spread
Arizona by 14.2
Game-comparisons: % Chance to win
Arizona: 83.0%
Princeton: 17.0%
Princeton is a pretty strong 15-seed, and the game-comparison system often yields better odds for an underdog than the historical seeding. This is one such case, as historically 15-seeds have won just 6.8%, or 10 times out of 148 tries. We give Princeton well over double those odds while at the same time favoring the Wildcats by a bit more than the sportsbooks.
Since the Tigers are traveling from East to West the impact of going through three time zones will be mitigated, so we won't even get into that.
Bottom line: You never know (just ask Kentucky) but I don't see grounds for an upset (I saw grounds for Kentucky's upset and noted it, even if I didn't call it officially). The matchup doesn't look good and there's no "angle" like St. Peter's had with their defense and excellent recent play.
Final prediction: Arizona 86, Princeton 66
More previews: click here for the full 2023 NCAA tournament schedule.
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