Big West
In Russell Turner’s decade-long run of dominance in the Big West, even his best teams have generally not been lined as massive favorites. In fact, the ‘Eaters have only closed 17 or higher on one occasion (-17.5 vs UCSB in 2017). This matchup closed -13 a month ago at Poly, and with little travel involved, I don’t see a basis for a 9.5-point swing for HCA. More importantly, despite tracking towards the presumptive #1 seed in the BW Tournament, Irvine hasn’t shown much interest in putting together explosive scoring runs. Per EvanMiya, UCI has accrued just eight “kill shots” this season. For context, UC San Diego has 25 and LBSU has 16. Cal Poly (finally) shit-canned John Smith this week, though for some reason is “allowing” him to stay on through the end of the season (presumably as penance for his ineptitude). This is grotesque, but it’s Senior Night at UCI, and I imagine Turner wants to get the bench boys some earlier-than-usual burn ahead of the impending net-cutting ceremony (UCI clinches at least a share of the title with a win tonight, or a UCSD loss).
You probably know this, but UCSD is ineligible for the Big West Tournament, meaning one of the mediocre mid-packers (Hawaii, CSUN, UCSB or UC Riverside) is in position to claim the four seed and accompanying first round bye. While UCSD can’t make the Dance, it does have a plausible path to a split title with Irvine, though the ‘Eaters would inexplicably need to lose to Poly (sup Akron?) or Fullerton on Saturday.
Sun Belt
Since February 1, Texas State has a (slightly) better adj defensive efficiency rating than JMU (84th vs. 91st). The ‘Bobs have some recent experience in throwing a wrench into this field and were gifted new life in the first round when ODU’s improbable buzzer-beater was waived off. They draw a plus matchup with the Belt’s worst offense since Feb. 1, and a unit further weakened by the loss of its highest-rated offensive player, Donovan Ivory, who led the team in offensive BPR, per EvanMiya. These squads played two very different games in the regular season, though upon review of the SQ data, I’m inclined to view the 60-55 grinder in San Marcos last month as the more replicable outcome, as both defenses will again force the offenses into a high rate of inefficient mid-range crap. This total closed 128 three weeks ago but sits in the 135 range at the time of this writing.
Horizon
Horizon parity is on full-display tonight as 8th-seeded Fort Wayne is a meager 3.5-point dog in a true road game against top-seeded Oakland. These are the two best teams in the league since February 1 (IPFW #120; Oakland #129). I find this to be a near-impossible cap as the Dons will launch a barrage of threes over the top of the Oakland zone — a strategy that bore ample fruit in the first matchup in December (17-of-26 from three!) in a 21-point road win, but backfired in the rematch last month when the Dons went cold (9-of-28) in an 8-point home loss. I really enjoy the uniqueness of this Oakland team (zone defense plus iso-heavy, post-centric offense is an extremely unusual combo) and have viewed them as underrated all season, but this is an unfairly difficult draw for a top seed in a quarterfinal game. Fun matchup.
Cleveland State closed +2 and +3.5 in its two meetings with Youngstown this season, and this is generally an uber-competitive matchup. At first glance, I thought 9 was high, but the CSU defense over the last month has offered less resistance than the Maginot Line. Incredibly, CSU’s adjD ranks 294th since February 1 despite opponents being unable to make threes (28.1% 3PT D; 11th nationally). SQ scored CSU’s 8-point home win over YSU last month as an expected 7-point loss, and it’s not difficult figure to out why this happened. YSU shot 6-of-26 from three and went 1-of-9 on mid-range jumpers (along with a 25% turnover rate). The ‘Guins “should” roll here, but recent Horizon history is littered with the corpses of top seeds who fell victim to the incredible parity of the league.
Miscellaneous:
Nothing is at-stake seeding-wise in Palo Alto tonight, but this is Madsen’s much-anticipated return to Maples. I cannot imagine the “atmosphere” will be particularly upbeat as the remaining 18 Stanford fans are forced to suffer through the indignity of one final Haase home game while staring across the sideline at the dude they so badly wanted during last offseason’s coaching carousel. With a win, Cal would finish .500 in conference, a stellar achievement after the moribund performances of the Mark Fox era. A win would also keep them safely away from the 8/9 line and a likely quarterfinal matchup with Arizona. Without Bynum and (presumably) Spencer Jones, Stanford has lost nine of ten, a run of futility supported by the SQ post-game expectancy data (scored eight of the ten as expected losses).
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