Previewing the Atlantic 10 and Ivy League Championship Games
We’re just a couple games away from figuring out who the hell is going to be in the NCAA Tournament. It always becomes a little bittersweet when this moment hits. It’s a four month grind to get here, but this regular season has been awesome. There will obviously be a ton of coverage with the brackets being revealed and everything heading into the NCAA Tournament, which you can follow me @barstoolreags. Let’s get into the early games today:
Atlantic 10 Championship Game – Pittsburgh
No. 4 Rhode Island vs No. 2 VCU – Noon
Line: PK
If you’re a Rhode Island fan, you just want to go out and win this game. There’s arguably not a team that’s more squarely on the bubble than URI and while they dominated Davidson in the semifinals, it’s not necessarily viewed as a quality win. Now, I do believe URI should be in, especially if you’re judging teams based on injuries and outside circumstances.
These two teams are nearly identical. They live on defense and don’t shoot a ton of outside shots. On top of that, they shoot nearly identical in terms of effective field goal percentage and 3-point percentage while both struggle from the free throw line. The major difference? VCU forces more turnovers, which is what a lot of its offense is predicated on. That’s not to say URI doesn’t force turnovers (it ranks 98th in the country), it’s just that VCU is better. Just take a look at tempo and efficiency here with the two teams.
There’s really not an advantage for either team to truly expose. VCU will try to trap and take away URI posting up, which is its most effective offensive set, but they only run it about 6% of the time. URI will look to block shots and make VCU work on the offensive side of the ball.
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It’s very simple. Who makes the jumpers. This is one of those games where if a team shoots 38% from three instead of 33% they win this game. It’s going to come down to something as simple as that. We see it all the time when there are two very comparable teams. There’s no fatigue factor as both teams played the same amount of games.
Pick: This sort of feels like the perfect bracket for URI. They beat St. Bonaventure pretty easily before avoiding Dayton and now getting a comparable team while VCU went to OT with Richmond. However, I trust VCU’s defense just a little bit more. I don’t love taking a side in this game, but I’ll go VCU.
Iv League Championship Game – The Palestra
No. 3 Yale vs No. 1 Princeton – 12:30 pm
Line: Princeton – 7
The semifinals worked out to be the perfect combo of games for the Ivy League. They were both superb games and Princeton won despite having to play Penn at The Palestra. Princeton went undefeated in conference play yet had to go on the road. If Princeton loses to Penn in the semis, the whole story is about how they got screwed and how the Ivy League going to a tournament for the first time ever was a bad decision. Instead everyone was talking about how good the games were, which is all you ask for in a smaller conference.
It’s not going to shock anyone that both of these teams play a slower pace, especially when you remember that Yale’s point guard Makai Mason has missed the entire season. They are teams that want to run the motion offense and work for a quality shot. Princeton will take advantage of the 3-point line while Yale looks for more drives later in the clock.
The other major advantage here for Princeton? The turnover battle. Yale is sloppy with the ball. Part of that is not having Mason, but they still rank 243rd in the country in turnover percentage. Princeton on the other hand is extremely careful with the ball, ranking 12th in turnover percentage. Throw in the fact Princeton forces a good amount of turnovers (45th in the country) while Yale just defends and wants to force you into bad shots, this could be the biggest advantage in the game.
Pick: I say it quite a bit. I just can’t trust teams where the margin for error in terms of turnovers is so small, especially when they aren’t the better team. Princeton will make Yale pay for these turnovers so I’ll take the Tigers -7.