Cappers Buzz

Florida vs. UCLA

The Bruins have finally gotten their wish and that is a chance at redemption against these Florida Gators, the team that outclassed them 73-57 in last year’s NCAA championship. Both teams have handled the BULL’S EYE placed on their backs in very tough conferences this season. The Pac 10’s other Elite 8 contestant (only conference with more than 1), Oregon, already felt got chomped by the Gators earlier this week. The Pac 10 gets my vote for toughest conference this season, but the SEC was definitely top 3, and the Gators’ division, the SEC East was brutal as 3 East teams made the Sweet 16, as both Vanderbilt and Tennessee were beaten by 1 point by teams that are still playing. Also worth noting that Kentucky won an NCAA tourney game, and Georgia an NIT game, so the East definitely proved itself this postseason.

UCLA took apart Kansas last round with their trademark defense, a defense that has allowed a paltry 36% FG this NCAA tourney, down from 43% during the regular season. They have also held foes to an ugly .77 assist/to ratio. UCLA loves to collapse the lane and run at teams’ worst ball handlers. They are very long and athletic, and even an athlete the caliber of Julian Wright, a future top 6-7 NBA pick was thorughly frustrated as he got off only 7 shot attempts for 8 pts. last Saturday. They bring double and triple teams from all angles and are deep at both forward positions, using their fouls wisely. They remind you of the NBA’s better defensive teams in that they give you nothing from the 3 pt. line (less than 5 3s per game) or the FT stripe (teams only shoot 15 FTs a game against them). They make you earn points and your second and third options better come to play because they refuse to get beat by team’s leading scorers. HC Ben Howland is not the kind of HC you want to bet against in a game of this magnitude, and the defense he has this team playing is simply suffocating right now.

That being said, the Florida Gators are a tough matchup for UCLA. You don’t shoot 53% from the floor against the competition Florida faced this season, by being a selfish, one-dimensional offensive team, the type of teams the Bruins take apart. The Gators don’t have 1 key scoring threat on this team…They have 5. Last year in the National Championship game, they picked UCLA apart with 21 assists and only 6 TO’s, and while they have been a little sloppier with the ball at times this season, they certainly won’t crumble the way the Kansas Jayhawks did under the UCLA pressure. Big men Noah and Horford are so adept at sharing the ball and passing when the double team comes, its almost as if this team is built to combat UCLA’s defense. If Lee Humphrey and Corey Brewer can combine for 5 or 6 from downtown, it could be a long day for UCLA, who although they do have depth in the frontcourt, don’t have a true center to match up with Horford and super-sub Kris Richard down low. At least last year UCLA had Ryan Hollins, this year, they have an athletic collection at the 3 and 4 position, but only role player Mata at the 5. If the Gators handle the Bruins pressure anywhere near as well as in last year’s final, and avoid making this an “ugly” contest, I’m not sure UCLA is built to go up and down the court with UF. One thing is for certain, UCLA PG Collison must play better than he did against Kansas, as 7 TOs (Bruins had 24 as a team!) simply won’t fly here. The good news for Bruins backers, is that Collison is certainly capable.

On the other hand, UCLA did win last Saturday’s game against the immensely talented Jayhawks by 13 despite 24 turnovers! Many of those were of the careless variety and that number most likely won’t be hit here. I would only take the points here with Howland and this Bruin defense, as Florida, much like the regular season, has seemed to think they can turn it “on” and “off” at times. However, it is a mild lean at best as Billy Donovan is no slouch either, the matchups seem to again point to Florida, and Florida very well can have 3 top 15 picks on the floor on Saturday in Horford, Noah, and Brewer. One wild card in all of this could be the Billy Donovan to Kentucky rumors that the Gators headman hasn’t exactly gone out of his way to deny. That can only be viewed as a negative at this time of year.

KEY TREND UCLA is now 22-9-1$ their last 32 games as the underdog

PREDICTION:  Florida 64-63

Most eyes will be on the NCAA Final Four tonight, but below are a couple of NBA games that might have some value.

Take a look at the L.A. Clippers +1 as they are in excellent current form and are now facing a Portland squad that will be without their leading scorer, Zach Randolph (23.6 ppg, 10.1 rpg), for the rest of the season.

Also look at New Orleans -7½ as the Knicks are in a very difficult scheduling situation after a last second loss at Dallas last night. New York is short-handed due to injuries and now must travel without rest and play their third game in four nights.

Talk about a bad day at the office…When reviewing San Antonio’s dismantling of Golden St. the other night, take a look at the statlines of Al Harrington (nearly 18 ppg since coming to the Bay), and Jason Richardson (over 14ppg playing through injuries this season, over 23 ppg last season)

Harrington:  0-5, 1 pt. 3 fouls

Richardson: 0-8, 0-3 3pt., 4 fouls, 2 TO

A combined 0-13 and 1 pt.  from two accomplished scorers in this league is tough to handicap and overcome on any given night in the NBA. 

You think this year’s NCAA tourney lacked upsets?  How about the NIT, where all 4 #1 seeds cruised through to the Semis.  That’s right not one team in this year’s final has played an NIT road game, so it will be interesting to see  how each team reacts to playing their 1st game away from home in nearly 3 weeks! 

Tonight’s matchups are very similar in that both feature up and down style,  athletic team against a slower paced/perimeter passing-based offense.  The contrast in styles is not as exaggerated in the WVU/Miss St. game as the Clemson/AF game, but the fundamental difference is still there.  WVU, unlike Air Force will not shy away from running tonight when they do get the chance, but at the same time does not want a track meet with the Bulldogs.  Other factors that stand out  for tonight’s games are:

-Clemson’s horrible 58% team FT shooting on about the same number of attempts/game as Air Force

-WVU/MSU have combined for only 13 road and neutral wins this  season, and both drop off across the board statistically far more than the other game’s combatants when they take to the road.  However, it must be said that it was more difficult to win on the road in the SEC and Big East then in the ACC and Mountain West this season.    This road performance may be worth noting when one of these teams make the final. 

-Both Air Force and WVU are tough to prepare for THE FIRST TIME YOU PLAY THEM.  Clemson really hasn’t played a slow down game all season in the uptempo ACC.  Miss St. did face a similar offense to WVU two games back against Bradley, and dominated the Braves winning by 29.  

The Grizzlies are the worst team in the league and they are now extremely short-handed as both Mike Miller and Damon Stoudamire are out with knee injuries.  Making matters worse is that Memphis must travel without rest and play their third road game in just four nights.

The Grizzlies are playing terrible basketball and trailed by 22 and 24 points in their past two games at Phoenix and Utah without Miller and Stoudamire in the lineup.  Teams that are struggling during extended road trips do not have the practice time to fix their problems and the Grizzlies fit a negative 34% ATS situation based on their back-to-back double digit losses.

The Lakers are in solid current form with five straight wins and they have held 18+ point leads in three of their past four games.  This is also the Lakers only game during a four day span which should ensure a focused effort tonight.

The line is inflated as my power ratings would normally favor Los Angeles by only 8 points and the Lakers have gone just 4-11 ATS this year when laying more than seven points, but the injuries and current form and worth a few extra points are the Lakers are the only way to look in this game.

The lack of upsets continued this past week as seven of the top eight teams in the nation (based on my power ratings) made the Elite Eight with North Carolina, Florida, UCLA, Kansas, Georgetown, Ohio State, and Memphis all advancing. The only team in my Top-8 that did not advance was Texas A&M who lost by one point versus Memphis.

The Final Four is now set with a pair of #1 seeds battling a pair of #2 seeds. The defending national champion Florida is still the team to beat as the Gators have a 36% chance of winning their final two games, followed by Georgetown at 24%, Ohio State 22%, and UCLA 18%. These percentages break down to the following “true odds” for those of you looking at the Final Four future prices.

Florida 2.8-to-1

Georgetown 4.1-to-1

Ohio State 4.5-to-1

UCLA 5.6-to-1

The two semi-final games present a pair of interesting matchups as Florida and UCLA meet in a rematch of last year’s national finals. The Bruins are 9-1 SU in all tournament games the past two tournaments with their only loss coming versus the Gators 73-57 last year.

The other semi-final presents a matchup of two of the best big men in the nation with 7’1” Greg Oden and 7’2” Roy Hibbert. It will be interesting to see if Ohio State is comfortable with the half-court style that Georgetown prefers to play.

There are four possible matchups for the national finals on Monday night. Below are the “true odds” of each pairing.

Florida/Georgetown 32% (3.1-to-1)

Florida/Ohio State 30% (3.4-to-1)

UCLA/Georgetown 20% (5.0-to-1)

UCLA/Ohio State 18% (5.4-to-1)

The UCLA vs. Georgetown matchup would be a nightmare for CBS with an extremely ugly halfcourt battle that might struggle to top 100 total points.

Thursday night’s NCAA card features 6 of the NCAA’s top defensive teams squaring off against each other.  Southern Illinois vs. Kansas, Texas AM vs. Memphis, and Pitt vs. UCLA.   My numbers have Pitt as a notch below the other 6, but the Panthers are certainly nothing to scoff at on that end of the court.   Also must be noted that a nother top defensive team, Ohio St.,  plays Tennessee, but with the Vols up and down style, doesn’t make this quite the defensive war that the others look like on paper. 

This is the first time since 1995 that no team seeded #10 or worse has made the Round of 16 and it is only the second time it has happened since the field was expanded to 64 teams in 1985.

Last year’s NCAA Tournament had the biggest Cinderella story in recent memory as #11 seed George Mason made a Final Four run, while none of the #1 seeds made it past the Elite Eight. With all the parity in college basketball, there were expectations of more upsets and underdog runs this year, but the exact opposite occurred on the very first day of the tournament as the pointspread favorite went 15-1 SU (13-2-1 ATS). Favorites also performed well on Friday and went 12-4 SU (9-7 ATS). Overall, the pointspread favorite was 27-5 SU in the first round.

Round 2 saw pointspread favorites go 12-4 SU, but only 7-9 ATS as oddsmakers did a solid job of setting the lines. Overall, the higher seed has won 38 of the 48 tournament games this year, with the pointspread favorite winning 39 of 48 outright.

Despite the lack of upsets, it is still impossible to predict all the games correctly. There are millions of online contest entries at ESPN and no one has a perfect bracket remaining. In fact, every contestant had at least two losses by the end of Round 2. There are eight people currently tied for first place with exactly two losses (out of 48 games) and these eight contestants have Kansas (3), Ohio State (1), North Carolina (1), Memphis (1), Texas A&M (1), and Vanderbilt (1) as their national title picks.

While the upsets have been mild, the fact remains this is still a wide-open tournament with numerous teams capable of winning it all. While momentum is an overrated factor heading into the postseason, it is actually a very strong indicator once the tournament has begun as the past nine national champions have each won their first two NCAA Tournament games by at least 10+ points apiece.

There are five remaining squads this season that fit this predictive criteria; Kansas, North Carolina, Memphis, Southern Illinois, and USC. It will be interesting to see if this historical indicator holds up for a tenth straight year.

You’ll probably hear it alot over the next 4 or 5 days, but that was a very difficult hurdle for Texas AM to overcome beating a RED HOT Louisville team in Kentucky.  They probably shouldn’t have had to play that game with the season they had, but they accepted the challenge, and despite being down 6 with under 5 minutes to play, they dug in, played their trademark defense, and outscored Louisville 13-4 the rest of the way.  This team is hard not to cheer for, and things set up very nicely for them going back to their home state for the next 2 rounds. 

Today’s Butler/Maryland game features one of the biggest contrast of styles that you’ll see in the NCAA.  Maryland is among the NCAA leaders at right around 75 possessions/game, while Butler is among the slowest at right around 60 possessions/game.  With Maryland’s huge edge in athleticism, expect Butler to put everything it has into getting back on defense and boxing out.  The Bulldogs do these things well, and are a weak offensive rebounding team anyway, so it won’t be a huge adjustment.