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Saint Mary's Gaels
Seed: 5
Record: 26-7
Conference: West Coast
vs.
Grand Canyon Antelopes
Seed: 12
Record: 29-4
Conference: WAC
Date: Friday, March 22
Time: 10:05pm Eastern
Region: West
Location: Spokane, WA
Channel: truTV
Grand Canyon won 14 games in a row at one point this season; St. Mary's won 17 in a row.
Saint Mary's Grand Canyon
Power Ratings
Strength: #18 Strength: #69
Median: #12 Median: #69
Markov: #44 Markov: #59
4-year: #17 4-year: #77
Pomeroy: #20 Pomeroy: #53
Offense: #45 Offense: #63
Defense: #16 Defense: #51
BPI: #15 BPI: #62
LRMC: #26 LRMC: #44
Other Measures:
SOS: #114 SOS: #195
Tempo (Offense): #359 Tempo (Offense): #74
Consistency: #355 Consistency: #38
Str + Reliability: #50 Str + Reliability: #47
Str + Potential: #10 Str + Potential: #89
2nd half season: #7 2nd half season: #63
Last 6: #30 Last 6: #48
Injury Mod Rank: #19 Injury Mod Rank: #65
Tourney 4-year: #23 (of 68) Tourney 4-year: #40
St. Mary's is ranked in the top 20 in all the power ratings except LRMC, which puts them #26. Interestingly our Markov Chain implementation has them a lowly #46! Meanwhile Grand Canyon improves their #69 Strength ranking in both LRMC and Markov Chain, and Pomeroy and BPI like them a lot better, too. Which is interesting because normally faster-tempo teams do better in Strength than in Pomeroy or BPI, which use per-possession elements. In any case the big difference between the Gaels and the Antelopes seems to be defense, where St. Mary's excels.
There isn't that big of an SOS difference; the West Coast Conference might be one of the higher mid-Majors but the WAC isn't too far behind them, despite all the attrition to other conferences (BYU was in the WAC decades ago, and made their way through the WCC before joining the Big Twelve). Tempo shows a big discrepancy, as the Gaels run a slow offense and the Lopes a quick one. And then there's Consistency: the Gaels don't have it, the Antelopes do. Much of the outcome of the game might depend on which St. Mary's shows up.
Their inconsistency is reflected in their seasonal numbers: For the 2nd half of the season they've been a top ten team—but not over the most recent stretch, where they are worse. It's probably just their erratic play, not any real trends, but their chart will tell the story, or at least help us sort out what's going on. It does leave the game pretty close if Grand Canyon's trends are real, too.
- Wins vs. tournament teams (4): (11)New Mexico+14, @(10)Colorado St.+3, @(5)Gonzaga+2, =(5)Gonzaga+9
- Losses to tournament teams (3): =(5)San Diego St.-25, @(10)Boise St.-3, (5)Gonzaga-13
- Other losses (4): Weber St.-4, =Xavier-17, Utah-7, Missouri St.-5
Overview: Saint Mary's season got off to a rocky start to say the least. The first two games were a 107-28 (seriously) win over St. Stanislaus, and a 72-58 win over 11-seed New Mexico. But then the Gaels lost three in a row in ugly fashion: 61-57 to Weber State at home, 79-54 to 5-seed San Diego and 66-49 to Xavier, both in Las Vegas. So then they beat Davidson 89-55. After losing to Utah and 10-seed Boise State they were 3-5 and you can see how they're the 8th most inconsistent team in the country!
But then they hit their stride, or figured things out, and stopped being quite so random and started being just plain good. Other than another inexplicable home loss to a bad team (Missouri State, 69-64), it was wins from then on, 16 in a row at one point including a road win at 5-seed Gonzaga. They lost the home return vs. Gonzaga 70-57, but won the neutral court rubber match, 69-60. In a way they'd become very consistent—winning—but beating the Zags on the road then losing at home is still pretty inconsistent.
St. Mary's has five starters in low-double figures led by Aidan Mahaney's 13.9 points per game. They're one of the best teams in the country in both offensive and defensive rebounding.
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- Wins vs. tournament teams (1): (5)San Diego St.+6
- Losses to tournament teams (1): (6)South Carolina-7
- Other losses (3): @Seattle-7, @Tarleton St.-3, @Abilene Christian-6
Overview: Grand Canyon's chart looks nothing like their namesake. Maybe a little bit at the end but for the most part, this is a reasonably predictable team. Their loss to 6-seed South Carolina and their win over 5-seed San Diego State (game 8) pretty much showed their range from bad to good. before the WAC season. In conference play the competition got a bit easier but they dropped a few games late in the year, before recovering to finish strong.
The Antelopes are led by 6-7 senior Tyon Grant-Foster who averages 19.8 points per game.
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Game Analysis: Normally a team like Grand Canyon—a mid-Major with a stunning Win/Loss record—gets paired with a Major conference team that has gone 50/50 maybe in conference play, so they are coming off 6 losses in their last 11 games. The contrast between the long streaks of wins and the back-and-forth winning and losing is pretty stark on the game charts. But with St. Mary's, you have the same long streak of wins, even longer, than Grand Canyon.
Neither team was playing the best competition during the conference season. St. Mary's had only Gonzaga and San Francisco in the Kenpom top 100, and Grand Canyon had none, though Seattle and Texas-Arlington came close. And they beat San Diego State in the pre-conference season, a better skin than St. Mary's had then.
What's good about this is we can reasonable compare field goal and rebounding stats and they tend to mean something, since the SOS differential isn't like 200 places.
The Antelopes are going to be challenged on offense by St. Mary's tough D. The Gaels are #3 in effective FG defense and #2 in rebounding. They do get to the line a lot, where they shoot over 75%. They want to push the pace a bit too.
St. Mary's plays a very slow offense. They shoot pretty well but rebound like crazy (#3 in offensive rebounding). They really don't get to the line too often which is good since they shoot only 67%. Grand Canyon is a decent match for them on defense, ranking #51 to St. Mary's #45 offense. In fact, since I started this review Grand Canyon has jumped to #46 on defense per Pomeroy. (It looks like there were many teams essentially tied from #46 to #51 and one of Tuesday's games caused a shift).
Ultimately I don't trust St. Mary's 2nd half of season surge—they're not a top ten team. But neither do I think they've sunk to #30. #18 seems about right, and the rest is just noise—they're a noisy team. Makes them hard to take for a deep run, and yes, a possible upset victim, but they won 16 games in a row and you don't do that if you're completely inconsistent.
Vegas Line:
Saint Mary's by 5 1/2
Power rating: spread
Saint Mary's by 7.0
Game-comparisons: % Chance to win
Saint Mary's: 67.6%
Grand Canyon: 32.4%
This is pretty much what I expected, a point and a half below our Strength power rating margin. The Gaels' 68% chance to win is slightly higher than the historical norm for a 5-seed.
Bottom line: I talk about winning teams expecting to win, and it's usually a minor-conference team in that situation or a team playing a fairly easy schedule. Going on a 26-3 run like Grand Canyon did is impressive, but it's more impressive to go on a 23-2 run like St. Mary's did when you play Gonzaga three times in that stretch. Two winning teams meet, and one has to lose, and I think it's going to be the Antelopes.
Final prediction: Saint Mary's 72, Grand Canyon 61
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