All previews: click here for the full 2023 NCAA tournament schedule
UCLA Bruins
Seed: 2
Record: 29-5
Conference: Pac-12
vs.
UNC Asheville Bulldogs
Seed: 15
Record: 27-7
Conference: Big South
Date: Thursday, March 16
Time: 10:05pm Eastern
Region: West
Location: Sacramento, CA
Channel: truTV
UCLA starts what could be a deep tournament run, while UNC Asheville tries to stop it before it can start.
UCLA UNC Asheville
Power Ratings
Strength: #3 Strength: #173
Median: #5 Median: #181
Markov: #1 Markov: #151
Pomeroy: #2 Pomeroy: #146
Offense: #25 Offense: #195
Defense: #1 Defense: #115
BPI: #4 BPI: #136
LRMC: #2 LRMC: #134
Other Measures:
SOS: #25 SOS: #302
Tempo (Offense): #201 Tempo (Offense): #82
Consistency: #83 Consistency: #17
Str + Reliability: #1 Str + Reliability: #130
Str + Potential: #8 Str + Potential: #230
2nd half season: #3 2nd half season: #138
Last 6: #4 Last 6: #123
Injury Mod Rank: #3/14 Injury Mod Rank: #175
MegaScreen Ranking MegaScreen Ranking
Final 4: #2 Final 4: NA
Sweet 16: #7 Sweet 16: NA
UCLA is a very strong 2-seed, ranking in the top 4 in all the major power ratings and snagging the #1 spot in the Markov ratings, #1 in defensive efficiency per Pomeroy, and #1 when Strength and Consistency are combined to forecast a deep tournament run. They're #2 overall in Pomeroy and in the LRMC. That's the profile of a 1-seed. Meanwhile UNC Asheville is a pretty weak 15-seed for this tournament. This makes sense as UCLA is #5 on the Committee's S-curve, meaning they're the top 2-seed while Asheville is the #4 15-seed.
Apart from the obvious strength of schedule difference, the thing to note is how consistent each team is. UCLA's odds of a deep run go up if they don't have a "down" and they rarely do. On the other hand, the Bulldogs are even more consistent, meaning there's less chance for them to have an extra-"up" game needed to pull off a big upset.
UCLA is on the new MegaScreen's very short list of possible Final Four teams, and is in fact the only team to qualify as a possible winner! (It's a bit strict in it's first go-around, I think). UCLA's Injury Mod ranking of #14 is for when both Jaylen Clark and Adem Bona are gone; Bona may be back, and they might play very close to at their #3 level if so, but it's hard to tease out reliably with so few game examples.
- Wins vs. tournament teams (6): @(8)Maryland+27, =(6)Kentucky+10, (10)USC+2, @(11)Arizona St.+12, (11)Arizona St.+18, (2)Arizona+9
- Losses to tournament teams (5): =(9)Illinois-9, =(3)Baylor-5, @(2)Arizona-6, @(10)USC-13, =(2)Arizona-2
- Other losses (0): None
Overview: UCLA suffered early losses to 9-seed Illinois and 3-seed Baylor, both in the Continental Tire Main Event in Las Vegas. They won 14 straight after that, beating 8-seed Maryland 87-60 on the road and 6-seed Kentucky along the way. Then they dropped two more games, to 2-seed Arizona and 10-seed USC, before running off another 12 straight. They dropped the last game to 2-seed Arizona on a missed 3-pointer. The Bruins lost no home games this year.
Veterans Jaime Jacquez (17.3 ppg, 8.1 rebounds) and Tyger Campbell (13.6 points, 4.7 assists) have been the team leaders for the last four years and provide just about the best complementary play in college basketball today. Third-leading scorer Jaylen Clark was lost for the year a few games ago; his absence is the only question mark for this team's NCAA tournament run.
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- Wins vs. tournament teams (0): None
- Losses to tournament teams (1): @(8)Arkansas-34
- Other losses (6): =Eastern Kentucky-2, @Georgia St.-6, @North Carolina Central-13, @Dayton-23, @Winthrop-2, @USC Upstate-6
Overview: Like many 1-bid conference champs, Asheville got off to a rocky start in their pre-conference season, going 8-5 with several close losses as well as a 79-56 loss to Dayton and an 85-51 loss to 8-seed Arkansas, and a solid win over Central Florida in double overtime in their opener. When the schedule got easy in the Big South the Bulldogs lost only twice more: to Winthrop by 2 on the road at the beginning, and to USC Upstate also on the road which split their season into two 9-game win streaks. The Bulldogs were undefeated at home all year.
6-11 senior Drew Pember is the team's leading scorer (21.2ppg) and rebounder (9.4).
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Game Analysis: Asheville's offense runs through Drew Pember, and to defend him Adem Bona would be a big help, but he's not going to be 100% if he plays, which is still uncertain. Without him their shot-block heavy defense loses a lot of that threat. Regardless, Asheville's offense isn't good enough to really be effective against the nation's #1 defense, especially when UCLA forces so many turnovers (something Asheville is vulnerable to), and guards shots so well (which can mitigate Asheville's good shooting, which was accomplished against much inferior defenses). UCLA also has a big rebounding advantage over the Bulldog offense.
On the other side of the court UCLA will miss Clark more than Bona, but with Jacquez and Campbell they should have nothing to worry about against a mediocre Bulldog D.
The only concern is overconfidence, and the factoid that UCLA has lost two games in a row twice this year and this is the 2nd game in another series. It's the only data point, faux or not, that I can come up with to be concerned about the Bruins. If the Bruins do get upset, people will point to their schedule and say "see? It was going to happen for sure!" but like a psychic prediction that doesn't come true it will be forgotten if the Bruins do win. The overconfidence issue is very real, however, and is always a problem for the favorite who runs into a psyched-up underdog.
Vegas Line:
UCLA by 17 1/2
Power rating: spread
UCLA by 21.4
Game-comparisons: % Chance to win
UCLA: 96.4%
UNC Asheville: 3.6%
The game-comparison odds for this contest are pretty extreme. 15-seeds get an upset about 7% of the time and Asheville is only given half those odds of an upset. This is a product of both teams being so consistent; UCLA doesn't have many low-performance games and Asheville doesn't have many of high enough performance to get a win very often. To be exact, 42 times in 1,156 tries.
You could even argue that UCLA deserves partial home court advantage for playing less than 400 miles from home and in-state while UNC Asheville travels 2,500 miles across three time zones. But there's no need, and the sportsbooks don't see it, and traveling West is less impactful anyway according to the studies.
Bottom line: Two consistent teams make for a dull game, but I think UCLA may have their usual post-loss hangover (or a bit of overconfidence), but it won't be enough to change the outcome—just make it more interesting.
Final prediction: UCLA 72, UNC Asheville 60
More previews: click here for the full 2023 NCAA tournament schedule.
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