All previews: click here for the full 2024 NCAA tournament schedule
Creighton Bluejays
Seed: 3
Record: 24-9
Conference: Big East
vs.
Oregon Ducks
Seed: 11
Record: 24-11
Conference: Pac-12
Date: Saturday, March 23
Time: 9:40pm Eastern
Region: Midwest
Location: Pittsburgh, PA
Channel: TBS/truTV
Another 3-seed playing an 11-seed. What is going on with the 11-seeds?
Creighton Oregon
Power Ratings
Strength: #13 Strength: #54
Median: #15 Median: #53
Markov: #11 Markov: #51
Pomeroy: #11 Pomeroy: #55
Offense: #12 Offense: #50
Defense: #24 Defense: #70
BPI: #9 BPI: #61
LRMC: #11 LRMC: #52
Other Measures:
SOS: #26 SOS: #35
Tempo (Offense): #172 Tempo (Offense): #240
Consistency: #314 Consistency: #43
Str + Reliability: #17 Str + Reliability: #32
Str + Potential: #9 Str + Potential: #78
2nd half season: #14 2nd half season: #52
Last 6: #27 Last 6: #25
Injury Mod Rank: #11 Injury Mod Rank: #51
Tourney 4-year: #5 (of 68) Tourney 4-year: #43
Obviously Creighton wins the power ratings battle but let's look down the numbers a little bit. Similar SOS, similar Tempo on offense...then Consistency: Creighton #314, Oregon #43. With Creighton the favorite, their Consistency is a bad sign. With Oregon the underdog, their Consistency is a bad sign. Basically Creighton is the team likely to decide who wins, based on how they play. Oregon is hoping that Creighton has a bad day; Creighton is hoping that if they have a sub-par day, Oregon's consistency means they won't rise to the occasion to get the win. That's sort of what Oregon's been doing lately as an underdog, though.
The Last 6 games is interesting because Creighton's previous ranking (#12) was concealed by one super-great game. Now that that fell off the back end (it's the 7th game), it's pretty clear the Bluejays haven't been doing so well (sometimes I used Last Six Games Excluding Best Game but didn't this year). Now with Oregon on a roll the teams are pretty much dead even, lately. And assuming Creighton has a typical game, which they really don't.
- Wins vs. tournament teams (5): @(8)Nebraska+29, (4)Alabama+3, (1)Connecticut+19, (2)Marquette+14, =(13)Akron+17
- Losses to tournament teams (3): =(10)Colorado St.-21, @(2)Marquette-5, @(1)Connecticut-14
- Other losses (6): @UNLV-15, Villanova-OT, Butler-1, @Providence-OT, @St. John's-14, =Providence-5
Overview: Creighton has played some great basketball interrupted by the occasional meltdown performance. They had a long period of consistent play in the middle of the season but early on, and later, their erratic play was confounding. The losses to Colorado State (69-48, game 6) and UNLV (79-64, game 10) weren't far removed from an 89-60 beatdown of 8-seed Nebraska. And late in the season they beat Butler 79-57 on the road, and 1-seed UConn 85-66, then lost to St. John's by 14 and to Providence in the Big East tournament. Is this team consistent enough to make a Final Four run? 7-1 Ryan Kalkbrenner is part of a trio averaging 53 points per game. Kalkbrenner led with 23 against Akron.
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- Wins vs. tournament teams (4): @(7)Washington St.+5, =(2)Arizona+8, =(10)Colorado+7, =(6)South Carolina+14
- Losses to tournament teams (6): =(4)Alabama-8, @(10)Colorado-16, (2)Arizona-9, (7)Washington St.-6, @(2)Arizona-20, (10)Colorado-4
- Other losses (5): =Santa Clara-6, =Syracuse-20, @Utah-3, @UCLA-8, @California-5
Overview: Oregon had a fairly successful and uneventful pre-conference season with only losses to Alabama and Syracuse of note. In the Pac-12 they raced to a 5-0 start but hit some bad turbulence and ended 12-8, needing a very strong tournament run to get to the NCAA. They got it, largely because of N'Faly Dante's heroics. He went 25 of 30 from the floor during the tournament, including a 12 for 12 performance against Colorado to seal the bid. Dante missed the first half of the season due to knee surgery but now leads the team with 16.2 points and 8.8 rebounds per game, shooting an ungodly 70.2%. Dante shot 78% against South Carolina and had 23 points but it was Jermaine Couisnard who busted out with a incredible 40 point performance, shooting 14 of 22 including 5 of 9 on threes.
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Game Analysis: Just when it looked like the key to stopping Oregon was to slow down N'Faly Dante, Jermaine Couisnard blows the doors open. It's true, they are pretty much co-scoring leaders but it was Dante who was pushing the team to new heights lately. With both an inside and outside threat, the Ducks are looking pretty damn good right now.
So instead of just focusing on the inside battle between Ryan Kalkbrenner and Dante, we have to look at guard play too. That's ok. But first the inside game. Kalkbrenner shoots 71.2% on 2s (Creighton is #3 in the nation in 2-point shot percentage at 60.5%). Dante shoots 70.5%. Creighton's 2-point defense is much better than Oregon's and Oregon as a team is only above-average on 2-pointers. So it looks like Creighton's interior defense can focus on Dante, while the Ducks have more to worry about (and aren't good on interior defense anyway).
As for guard play, Creighton has better 3-point shooting and better 3-point defense than Oregon.
Vegas Line:
Creighton by 4 1/2
Power rating: spread
Creighton by 7.3
Game-comparisons: % Chance to win
Creighton: 69.9%
Oregon: 30.1%
Very interesting spread, with Vegas clearly giving some respect for Oregon's recent play. Our power rating spread is for the full season and based on that we'd expect it to be Creighton by about six points. Creighton's 70% win percentage is higher than the rate at which 3-seeds beat those pesky 11-seeds, which is around 64%.
Bottom line: Oregon is playing so well I wouldn't be surprised at all if they won this game. I had them meeting Creighton here and losing, and I still take the Jays because after looking at matchups they still have more to offer. But with Oregon playing how they are? It's going to be tough as nails.
Final prediction: Creighton 78, Oregon 77
More previews: click here for the full 2024 NCAA tournament schedule.
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