John Berger
Senior Editor
Last weekend’s NCAA tournament games offered a number of interesting story-lines, but obviously the thing that everybody was talking about was the injury of Louisvilleguard Kevin Ware. I’m not going to link to a video of it because it was extremely gruesome, and not something that I want to look at again. From a basketball perspective, Ware’s injury adds an interesting dynamic to this tournament, because Louisville seemed to really rally around his absence on Sunday, and for the final four, there will be an increased incentive for Louisville to win the championship in Ware’s hometown of Atlanta. Like many said at the beginning of March, this tourney was likely to be unpredictable, and it was. We’re now left with the #1 overall seed, two #4 seeds, and a nine seed. With all that said, here are my predictions for Saturday’s games.
Wichita State vs Louisville- Saturday, 6:09, Atlanta:
At first glance, this seems like a big mismatch. Louisville is the #1 overall seed in the tournament, and they’ve won 17 out of their last 18 games, with that one loss coming from a five overtime game. Wichita State is a nine seed that went 12-6 in the Missouri Valley Conference, and does nothing particularly well. But they’re solid and balanced, and they’re led by an extremely good coach, Gregg Marshall. Wichita lost their five leading scorers from last year, and they’ve still made it to the final four, which is virtually unheard of for any program, let alone one from the Missouri Valley Conference. This game will be extremely difficult for Wichita town, even if Louisville is without Kevin Ware. Louisville has blown away everyone they’ve faced so far in the tournament, and they’ve done so by sticking to the script of pressure defense and aggressive offense. Louisville hasn’t had to battle a lot of first half foul trouble thus far in this tournament, and with Ware out, if Peyton Siva or Russ Smith get in foul trouble early on Saturday, things could get interesting.
Defensively, Wichita State likes to pack the paint and level off ball-screens, and that should be their game-plan Saturday against Louisville. As a defense, you want to make Louisville move the ball and force them to take outside shots. If they have a weakness, it’s their perimeter shooting. Wichita will attempt to force Siva and Smith towards the sideline on screens, and make them go east and west, not north and south. Look for Wichita and Gregg Marshall to jam Siva and Smith on the perimeter and then force them to go laterally.
On the other side of the court, Louisville will throw a lot of different looks at Wichita State. That’s what Rick Pitino does. Expect a heavy dosage of full-court pressure, half-court traps, and a 2-3 matchup zone designed to force Wichita into tough situations. The 2-3 matchup zone that Louisville runs has specific “trigger points” in which it converts to man to man. The most common trigger point is when the ball is passed into the post. At that point, the defense switches to what is essentially a man to man defense. It will be important for Wichita to effectively navigate both the full-court pressure and matchup zone defense that Louisville runs. Wichita State will have to use a combination of ball screens and kick-outs with dribble penetration to score on Louisville. Gregg Marshall’s offense usually consists of hard ball-screens and cuts, but that may not be effective enough against a matchup zone, particularly Louisville’s.
I think the Cardinals win this one by virtue of pulling away in the second half.
Pick: Louisville
Syracuse vs Michigan, Saturday, 8:49, Atlanta:
In the buildup to this game, a lot has been made about the fact that Michigan’s coach, John Beilein, is 0-9 lifetime against Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim. I think that that is
certainly something to keep in mind, but it’s not all that meaningful when you look at the context of this game and that stat. Beilein has never had a more talented team than he has this year at Michigan. His teams at Richmond and West Virginia were often over-matched from a talent perspective when they went up against Syracuse. I do think that there is validity to the belief that Beilein struggles with Boeheim’s 2-3 zone, but he’s never had the players that he does now to beat the zone. One could argue that last weekend Syracuse put in their best consecutive game performance in over two months, beating Indiana and Marquette in the sweet 16 and elite eight.
Syracuse’s zone has terrorized opposing offenses thus far in the tournament, allowing only 0.72 points per possession (PPP), which is a ridiculous number. Cuse forced Indiana to turn the ball over on 28% of their possessions, which is no small feat, considering Indiana has had the most efficient offense in the country all year long. Michigan has averaged 1.01 PPP against zone defenses this year, but they’ve only faced zones on 14% of their offensive possessions, according to umhoops.com.As with most zones, the key against Syracuse is to attack the gaps with the dribble, get the ball to the short corner, and work the ball in and out of the post. But Syracuse’s zone defense is different from other zones in that it’s very difficult to get open looks on the perimeter, and thus you can’t rely on making open shots over the top in order to beat the zone. Syracuse opponents shoot only 28% on threes, which puts Syracuse at third best in the country in that category.
When Syracuse is on offense, they seem to struggle a little bit more. Other than their opening round game against Montana, they haven’t really played well on offense, their defense has just been so good that they don’t need a lot on the offensive end. Syracuse doesn’t get out in transition very often, but when they do they are very effective. John Beilein has a reputation of being a really good x’s and o’s coach, particularly when it comes to game-planning for certain teams. For years Beilein was known for his 1-3-1 zone defense, but it seems like he’s gone away from that for the most part this season. Still, there is always the chance that he’ll go to it on Saturday.
Unlike most teams that Syracuse has faced this season, Michigan has the length and size at the guard position to matchup with Syracuse. I think that the play of Trey Burke and Tim Hardaway Jr, and Mitch McGary will be enough to beat the zone and Syracuse.
Pick: Michigan
If my predictions hold true, we’ll be looking at a Michigan-Louisville final on Monday, a matchup that would be very compelling. I’ll have a new blog post up on Monday with prediction for the championship game.
