All previews: click here for the full 2024 NCAA tournament schedule
Baylor Bears
Seed: 3
Record: 23-10
Conference: Big Twelve
vs.
Colgate Raiders
Seed: 14
Record: 25-9
Conference: Patriot
Date: Friday, March 22
Time: 12:40pm Eastern
Region: West
Location: Memphis, TN
Channel: truTV
Guess who has the 6th-longest active NCAA tournament appearance streak? If you said Baylor or Colgate, you're right.
Baylor Colgate
Power Ratings
Strength: #10 Strength: #142
Median: #14 Median: #123
Markov: #13 Markov: #157
4-year: #9 4-year: #130
Pomeroy: #14 Pomeroy: #145
Offense: #6 Offense: #211
Defense: #64 Defense: #104
BPI: #13 BPI: #113
LRMC: #16 LRMC: #112
Other Measures:
SOS: #8 SOS: #293
Tempo (Offense): #273 Tempo (Offense): #226
Consistency: #48 Consistency: #99
Str + Reliability: #5 Str + Reliability: #128
Str + Potential: #21 Str + Potential: #166
2nd half season: #15 2nd half season: #131
Last 6: #23 Last 6: #172
Injury Mod Rank: #13 Injury Mod Rank: #134
Tourney 4-year: #8 (of 68) Tourney 4-year: #30
Both of these teams have been in the previous 4 NCAA tournaments. That's right: Baylor and Colgate are tied for 6th longest active streak (Michigan State* and Gonzaga are #1 and #2, with 26 and 25 including this year). Beyond that, there's not much tied about these teams, as Baylor has the edge you'd expect from a 3-seed. They're top ten in Strength and almost top ten just about everywhere else. Meanwhile Colgate is struggling to get above #100 in one power rating, though they come close.
Baylor's offense is top ten but their defense is outside the top 50, making a Final Four run unlikely. Colgate's defense is almost as good as Baylor's but their offense is #211. That puts them without a side of the court to exploit for a potential upset. And believe me, I'm looking for a reason to give Colgate their first win in 7 tries. The strength of schedule difference is alarming, and both teams are quite consistent which makes an upset much less of a chance. I'm still looking!
Baylor hasn't played their best lately, but neither has Colgate really. We'll have to look at the charts or matchup info if we want a reason other than just "picking an upset" (which isn't entirely invalid, after all this is March Madness).
* Kansas is the actual #1 with 34 consecutive years but they "vacated" an appearance in 2018 (the NCAA's "official" stats are revisionist bullshit). Baylor and Colgate are really tied for 7th.
- Wins vs. tournament teams (8): =(4)Auburn+6, =(7)Florida+4, (6)BYU+9, (2)Iowa St.+2, (6)Texas Tech+6, @(9)TCU+8, (4)Kansas+8, (7)Texas+8
- Losses to tournament teams (9): @(9)Michigan St.-24, =(4)Duke-8, @(7)Texas-2, (9)TCU-OT, @(4)Kansas-3, @(6)BYU-7, (1)Houston-OT, @(6)Texas Tech-10, =(2)Iowa St.-14
- Other losses (1): @Kansas St.-OT
Overview: Baylor looked like the best team in the country early on, beating Auburn and Florida in a 9-0 start, but they ran into Michigan State, losing 88-64, then fell to Duke and the idea the Bears were the top team fizzled out. The question was could they be the top team in the Big Twelve, and even that was pretty tough to sell. The Bears started 3-0 including an overtime win at Oklahoma State, then lost three in a row (two in overtime) and in the end they were 11-7, which is great for the Big Twelve but not what the Bears wanted just a few years out from a national title. Their last three games included two duds, a 78-68 loss to Texas Tech and a 76-62 loss to Iowa State. They only lost to one team that missed the tournament—Kansas State, in overtime.
The Bears have a high-powered offense with six players averaging double figures, though Langston Love (11.0) has been out for a while. Ja'Kobe Walter leads with 14.2 points.
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- Wins vs. tournament teams (1): @(13)Vermont+6
- Losses to tournament teams (3): =(13)Yale-18, @(2)Arizona-27, @(3)Illinois-17
- Other losses (6): @Syracuse-4, Harvard-6, @Iona-20, @Cornell-13, Lafayette-5, American-2
Overview: Colgate won the Patriot League championship for the 5th time in 6 years (they lost in 2020 when the NCAA tournament was cancelled). This year started a bit rocky though, which is to be expected when you play Syracuse, Illinois, and Arizona in the pre-conference season. The Raiders were only 6-7 going into the Patriot League schedule, where they went 16-2.
The Raiders don't beat teams by 40 points like the 2021 squad did, though they did beat Binghamton by 35. Three players average double figures led by Braeden Smith's 12.5.
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Game Analysis: Obviously Baylor has been in the tournament consistently lately, including their 2021 championship. But Colgate is a tournament veteran, too, appearing in all of the last four Big Dances (2019, and 2021 to 2023), each time a 14- or 15-seed, and each time losing in the first round. Their closest calls were falling to Tennessee and Wisconsin by 7 points in 2019 and 2022.
Colgate shoots the ball well, and that's their hope for this game: shoot well against a suspect Baylor D, and hope to make all of them because they aren't getting many rebounds and aren't getting to the free throw line very often (and only shoot 68% anyway).
If they can do that, maybe they can mitigate damage on the other side of the court, where they match up very well statistically with the Bears' powerful offense. It's pretty amazing how aligned they are: Baylor is #6 in 3-point shooting, Colgate is #11 in 3-point defense. Rebounding? #24 and #19. Turnovers? #217 and #239. It's like a mirror-image on this side of the court, as long as you don't take schedule strength (#8 vs. #293) into account. When that happens, you get a #6 vs. #104 efficiency advantage for the Bears when they have the ball. Looking at the non-adjusted stats is interesting, but probably not very informative.
Langston Love has missed most of the last month, but the Bears have a lot of scorers and lots of guards to pick up the slack.
Vegas Line:
Baylor by 13 1/2
Power rating: spread
Baylor by 17.3
Game-comparisons: % Chance to win
Baylor: 92.3%
Colgate: 7.7%
This is a pretty wide margin for a 3- vs. 14-seed, almost like a 2 vs. 15. Historically the 14-seed wins 14.5% of the time, and a 15-seed has 7.2% odds. The odds skew so heavily to Baylor because both teams are very consistent, and thus there are few outliers to give Colgate the win.
Bottom line: Looking at the raw stats you'd think Baylor will have a tough time scoring. It probably won't be like that if Baylor takes the Raiders seriously. Someday Colgate will get their first win, they're definitely due, but it doesn't look like it will be this team.
Final prediction: Baylor 74, Colgate 62
More previews: click here for the full 2024 NCAA tournament schedule.
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