All previews: click here for the full 2024 NCAA tournament schedule
Duke Blue Devils
Seed: 4
Record: 24-8
Conference: ACC
vs.
Vermont Catamounts
Seed: 13
Record: 28-6
Conference: America East
Date: Friday, March 22
Time: 7:10pm Eastern
Region: South
Location: Brooklyn, NY
Channel: CBS
Can the Catamounts take down the Blue Devils? It's a longshot.
Duke Vermont
Power Ratings
Strength: #12 Strength: #113
Median: #8 Median: #117
Markov: #10 Markov: #112
4-year: #11 4-year: #110
Pomeroy: #8 Pomeroy: #104
Offense: #7 Offense: #159
Defense: #26 Defense: #62
BPI: #8 BPI: #82
LRMC: #12 LRMC: #91
Other Measures:
SOS: #64 SOS: #253
Tempo (Offense): #135 Tempo (Offense): #324
Consistency: #120 Consistency: #51
Str + Reliability: #9 Str + Reliability: #94
Str + Potential: #15 Str + Potential: #144
2nd half season: #13 2nd half season: #107
Last 6: #20 Last 6: #129
Injury Mod Rank: #10 Injury Mod Rank: #113
Tourney 4-year: #11 (of 68) Tourney 4-year: #37
Right off the bat we have a red flag for upset fans: Duke's reasonable Consistency, and Vermont's super-reasonable Consistency of #51. So we can have more confidence in Duke's top ten or near-top ten power ratings, and Vermont's just-outside-the-top-100 power ratings. Although to be fair, the Catamounts are inside the top 100 in BPI and LRMC. But Duke is #8 and #12 by those measures. Vermont's defense isn't bad but they're up against Duke's top 10 offense. And Vermont's offense does not rate well in efficiency.
All that upset fans can hope for now (for a good excuse, not that you need one) is that Vermont's recent play is much better and bridges the gap a bit. Doesn't really happen. Duke has been playing a bit worse but they're still top 20.
- Wins vs. tournament teams (5): =(9)Michigan St.+9, =(3)Baylor+8, (6)Clemson+1, (10)Virginia+25, @(11)N.C. State+15
- Losses to tournament teams (4): (2)Arizona-5, @(1)North Carolina-9, (1)North Carolina-5, =(11)N.C. State-5
- Other losses (4): @Arkansas-5, @Georgia Tech-4, Pittsburgh-4, @Wake Forest-4
Overview: Like any Duke season expectations start high, and the Blue Devils play good teams and expectations are reset. Losing to Arizona at home was a wakeup call, but beating Michigan State helped assuage worries. Losing to Arkansas wasn't considered such an awful thing at the time, but losing to Georgia Tech for a 5-3 start sounded alarms. The Blue Devils won their next 8 games (including a win over 3-seed Baylor) going 19-5 the rest of the way. They lost twice to 1-seed North Carolina however, which showed there limitations, which were again exposed by the loss to NC State in the ACC tournament.
Duke has five players in double figures led by 7-0 Center Kyle Filipowski at 17.1; he adds 8.2 rebounds per game.
**************************************************************
- Wins vs. tournament teams (2): =(13)Charleston+9, (13)Yale+1
- Losses to tournament teams (1): (14)Colgate-6
- Other losses (5): =Liberty-10, @Bradley-9, @Virginia Tech-22, @Miami OH-1, @NJIT-2
Overview: Like many minor conference teams, Vermont did most of their losing up front, going 10-5 pre-conference with wins over 13-seeds Charleston and Yale. They lost to Colgate, Virginia Tech, and Miami of Ohio in their worst stretch, but that included their best game by far, an 86-60 win over Toledo. They went 18-1 overall in conference play which says something about the America East; only NJIT beat them, a striking aberration in a very consistent conference run.
Vermont shoots lots of 3s and they get few of the rebounds; they take their time to shoot, playing a very slow offense. Unsurprisingly, their leading scorer (TJ Long) averages just 12.2 ppg.
**************************************************************
Game Analysis: It's not hard to see why Vermont's offense is unproductive: they shoot a ton of 3s but make only 33.5% of them, and are #345 in offensive rebounding. This method might work against bad teams in the AE but they're going to have to get lucky and make all their shots to win this game.
They're not exactly a tall team either and with their biggest starter at 6-9, handling Kyle Filipowski is going to be a challenge.
Vegas Line:
Duke by 11 1/2
Power rating: spread
Duke by 14.9
Game-comparisons: % Chance to win
Duke: 87.8%
Vermont: 12.2%
No surprise, the Vegas line is a bit lower than the Strength power rating margin. Duke's 88% chance to win is much higher than the normal 79% for a 4-seed, in fact it's higher than the rate for a 3-seed. This is because both teams are very consistent so there are few outlier results (i.e. Vermont winning).
Bottom line: I wanted to pick Vermont. Who doesn't want to pick against Duke? But I don't see it happening for the Catamounts. Their offense would have to work perfectly, and then they'd still need to stop Filipowski on D.
Final prediction: Duke 81, Vermont 60
More previews: click here for the full 2024 NCAA tournament schedule.
Comments