All previews: click here for the full 2024 NCAA tournament schedule
Purdue Boilermakers
Seed: 1
Record: 30-4
Conference: Big Ten
vs.
Utah State Aggies
Seed: 8
Record: 28-6
Conference: Mountain West
Date: Sunday, March 24
Time: 2:40pm Eastern
Region: Midwest
Location: Indianapolis, IN
Channel: CBS
Purdue got past the first round. How far will they go?
Purdue Utah St.
Power Ratings
Strength: #4 Strength: #48
Median: #5 Median: #49
Markov: #3 Markov: #60
Pomeroy: #3 Pomeroy: #48
Offense: #4 Offense: #39
Defense: #21 Defense: #68
BPI: #3 BPI: #68
LRMC: #4 LRMC: 54
Other Measures:
SOS: #3 SOS: #92
Tempo (Offense): #216 Tempo (Offense): #117
Consistency: #103 Consistency: #81
Str + Reliability: #2 Str + Reliability: #31
Str + Potential: #7 Str + Potential: #66
2nd half season: #5 2nd half season: #69
Last 6: #9 Last 6: #59
Injury Mod Rank: #4 Injury Mod Rank: #49
Tourney 4-year: #10 (of 68) Tourney 4-year: #29
The 1-seed vs. 8-seed is a key matchup, it's where a surprising amount of 1-seeds fall. Utah State has fair but not great stats for an 8-seed—they got it more on résumé than true strength. Their consistency ranking is pretty solid, so they didn't get upset a lot. But can they get a true upset themselves? Their offense isn't better than Purdue's defense, and their defense is pretty marginal. They haven't been playing better than normal recently, either. Their best hope seems to be that Purdue has a very subpar performance.
- Wins vs. tournament teams (15): 13)Samford+53, (14)Morehead St.+30, =(5)Gonzaga+10, =(2)Tennessee+4, =(2)Marquette+3, =(4)Alabama+6, (2)Arizona+8, (3)Illinois+5, (9)Northwestern+OT, @(5)Wisconsin+6, (9)Michigan St.+6, @(3)Illinois+6, (5)Wisconsin+8, =(9)Michigan St.+5, =(16)Grambling St.+28
- Losses to tournament teams (3): @(9)Northwestern-OT, @(8)Nebraska-16, =(5)Wisconsin-OT
- Other losses (1): @Ohio St.-4
Overview: Purdue has one hell of a résumé, with three 2-seeds (Tennessee, Marquette, and Arizona) among their non-conference wins, the first two on neutral courts. They beat 4-seed Alabama and 5-seed Gonzaga (both underseeded for how good they are), again, on neutral courts. And their best non-conference wins might have been beating 13-seed Samford 98-45 and 14-seed Morehead State 87-57 in their first two games.
The Big Ten is where Purdue suffered all four losses, and to some fairly pedestrian teams: 5-seed Wisconsin, 8-seed Nebraska, 9-seed Northwestern, and NIT pick Ohio State. Two of the four losses were in overtime.
Purdue revolves around Zack Edey, a two time Player of the Year. He puts up 24.4 points and grabs 11.7 rebounds per game. Four other Boilermakers average double figures but he's the man; without him, they'd probably be an 8-seed playing a 1-seed instead of the other way around. Edey had 30 points and 21 rebounds against Grambling State.
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- Wins vs. tournament teams (7): =(14)Akron+3, (10)Colorado St.+5, @(10)Boise St.+OT, (10)Boise St.+19, (5)San Diego St.+5, (11)New Mexico+2, =(9)TCU+16
- Losses to tournament teams (5): @(11)New Mexico-13, @(5)San Diego St.-14, (10)Nevada-14, @(10)Colorado St.-20, =(5)San Diego St.-16
- Other losses (1): @Bradley-OT
Overview: Utah State lost early but not often. In the 2nd game of the season they fell at Bradley, 72-66 in overtime, but then won 15 straight. Most weren't great opponents, but they beat 14-seed Akron, UC Irvine, and San Francisco. In the Mountain West they lost to 11-seed New Mexico, 5-seed San Diego State twice, 10-seed Nevada, and 10-seed Colorado State. They also beat all of those teams other than Nevada, and beat 10-seed Boise State twice, winning the MWC regular season. They did finish with a couple of dud games, needing overtime to beat Fresno State and falling to San Diego State by 16.
Utah State is led by Forward (and all-name team) Great Osobor, who averages 18 points and 9.2 rebounds per game. Four Aggies average double figures. The Aggies played one of their best games of the season in beating TCU 88-72; Ian Martinez led with 21.
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Game Analysis: Purdue cleared the first (mostly mental) hurdle, now they're already playing a team as good as the ones that beat the Boilermakers this year. Utah State, normally a very consistent team, had an outlier game against TCU and luckily for the Aggies it was on the upside. But the two previous games were downside outliers. Maybe the Aggies are not as consistent any more?
Utah State can shoot the ball very well but only from 2-pt range; they're only 32.4% on threes. Purdue is decent but not overwhelming at defending 2-point shots (they're actually a pretty short team except at Center), and while Edey has 2.2 blocks per game he's pretty much the only one doing it for Purdue.
Purdue hits 40.7% of their threes, an incredible complement to Edey's inside play where he shoots 62%. Utah State's 3-point defense is #3 in the nation, however, so look for Edey to get the ball a lot, especially since the Aggie interior defense is poor. Not surprisingly Purdue is a very good rebounding team, and they get to the free throw line a lot.
Utah State has a 7-0 starting center, Isaac Johnson, a sophomore who normally plays about 15 minutes and scores around 7 points. He still gives up 4 inches to Edey. Their best interior player, Osobor, is just 6-8. It will be interesting to see how they defend Edey; they'll probably do okay on offense since Edey is the only tall opponent on the court, but they might get into foul trouble defending him.
Vegas Line:
Purdue by 10 1/2
Power rating: spread
Purdue by 10.6
Game-comparisons: % Chance to win
Purdue: 79.3%
Utah St.: 20.7%
Almost a perfect match between Vegas and Strength. And pretty much an exact match in our estimate of Purdue's chances to win and the historical roughly 80% odds that a 1-seed beats an 8-seed opponent.
Bottom line: Utah State played great last game but chances are they will revert to the mean. Osobor is Great in many ways, but Edey is too big for him.
Final prediction: Purdue 82, Utah State 71
More previews: click here for the full 2024 NCAA tournament schedule.
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