Saturday, February 04, 2012

Ohio State Is The Best Team In The Country

#3 Ohio State 58, #20 Wisconsin 52
Despite the title of this post, I've actually felt all season long that Ohio State was the best team in the nation. Even before this win they were the #1 team in both Pomeroy and the Sagarin PREDICTOR, and they're now outscoring Big Ten opponents by an absurd 0.27 PPP. To put that in perspective, last year's Ohio State was arguably the best team in the country and was in a slightly weaker Big Ten and only outscored opponents in conference play by 0.16 PPP. The only reason Ohio State isn't #1 in the human polls is because they happen to be playing in the toughest conference in the nation (and thus have more losses) and because the voters suck at ranking teams. Yes, Wisconsin would have won this game if not for a hideous shooting night (5-for-27 on threes), but I thought Ohio State's game plan was excellent.

Thad Matta clearly came into this game expecting to not hit any three pointers. There's arguably no team in the country better at running opponents off the arc than Wisconsin. The Badgers are allowing only 3.2 made threes per game this season, which leads the nation by far. The next best team from a major conference? Virginia Tech with 4.3 per game. So Matta threw the ball into Jared Sullinger and just had him attack the basket relentlessly, with DeShaun Thomas coming on the weak side anytime Wisconsin tried to help. Sullinger almost outscored the entire Wisconsin team in the first half. Bo Ryan adjusted in the second half, benching his centers and having his starting forwards Ryan Evans and Mike Bruesewitz (the two best defenders on the team) front Sullinger, with a second man ready to come in and steal the pass if anything was tried over the top. It worked, and Sullinger was much quieter in the second half, but the damage was done.

The reason I haven't had Ohio State as the top team in my bracket, even though I think they're the best team in the country, is because of the strength of the Big Ten. It's going to be a lot easier for teams like Syracuse and Kentucky to win their conference tournaments because they don't have the same level of competition. But now? I'm getting more confident that Ohio State will get to a record like 14-4 in conference play. And even if they were to fall in the Big Ten tournament semis or finals, they'd still almost certainly be a 1 seed. I'll think seriously about moving them to the #1 overall spot in my next bracket, which I expect to post around 1-2 AM eastern time tonight. Their next game will be Tuesday against Purdue.

This loss drops Wisconsin to 7-4, and they do still have to head on the road to face Ohio State and Michigan State, but other than that their schedule is very soft (by Big Ten standards). And the reality is that despite the recent past of Wisconsin being so much better at home than on the road, this year they have just struggled so much shooting the ball at home, and have actually had better results in road conference games than at home. At home they are 3-3 this season, including a loss to Iowa and a squeaker over Nebraska. On the road they are 4-1 with wins over Purdue and Illinois (not to mention a destruction of Nebraska). So I wouldn't be shocked if Wisconsin won on the road against either Michigan State or Ohio State. Their next game will be Thursday at Minnesota, which will be their toughest game the rest of the way not including the two aforementioned road games.

Notre Dame 76, #15 Marquette 59
This was always going to be a difficult game for Marquette with Davante Gardner sidelined for the second straight game with a knee injury. With Chris Otule done for the season, that left Marquette with only one real big man. It allowed Notre Dame, a horrible rebounding team, to actually win the rebounding battle (a 28.0 OR% versus a 24.2 OR% for Marquette), and to own the paint defensively. Throw in some hot outside shooting for the Irish (11-for-23 on threes) and you end up with this 17 point thumping.

This win moves Notre Dame to 7-3 in Big East play, which sounds terrific until you realize that the Big East is down this season and that their non-conference performance was putrid. Overall they have wins over Syracuse, Marquette, Louisville, UConn and Seton Hall, along with bad losses to Georgia, Maryland and Rutgers. They are 7-6 against the RPI Top 100 and their Sagarin ELO_CHESS should move into the Top 50 with this win. It's a resume of a bubble team, but Notre Dame is heading in the right direction. They've won four in a row, and will be in pretty good shape if they can just go 4-4 down the stretch. If they can finish 5-3 then they'll be 12-6 in Big East play, and no 12-6 Big East team will get left out of the NCAA Tournament. Their next game will be a tough one, on Wednesday at West Virginia.

Marquette doesn't have to worry about the bubble, but this loss drops them two games behind Syracuse with a head-to-head loss (they won't play a second time in the regular season). So their faint Big East title hopes look to be basically dead. They're still very much in the mix for a 3 or 4 seed in the NCAA Tournament with a good finish to the season, though. They'll play at DePaul on Monday.

#11 Florida 73, Vanderbilt 65
Both of these teams played to form here. Florida's backcourt took a ton of threes, as they typically do. They happened to hit them at a high rate here (45.8%). And Vanderbilt, without a true point guard, struggled badly with the press (17 turnovers, 9 steals allowed). After putting up a respectable showing against the Arkansas press on Tuesday night, it looked like Vandy's ball handling might have started to turn the corner. But they regressed right back to normal here.

I think Florida is a bad match-up in general for Vanderbilt. Vandy's defensive strength is in the paint, where Festus Ezeli is a vacuum cleaner. Vandy's perimeter players struggle to defend one-on-one (it's why their defense was so poor when Ezeli was hurt earlier this season and couldn't clean up the messes that Vandy's guards created). Florida, on the other hand, doesn't run any of their offense through the paint, and their guards prefer launching threes to challenging opposing bigs. Vandy will get a return trip at home on February 28th, so they might prove me wrong, but I think that they're going to need Florida's guards to go cold from deep to pull that one out.

This game did have bubble implications for a Vanderbilt team that just can't seem to firm up their place in the NCAA Tournament. They're now 5-3 in the SEC and 7-6 against the RPI Top 100 with only one really big win (Marquette) to go with that bad loss to Indiana State. Their RPI is 26th, but their Sagarin ELO_CHESS is going to drop to around 35th, and it's the ELO_CHESS that is the best objective metric of resume strength. Throw in the low regard for the SEC and the fact that Vandy doesn't have a lot of big wins and I think they'd only be a 9 or 10 seed if the season ended now. Unless they get to 10-6 in conference play they're going to enter the SEC tournament on the bubble. They'll try to move to 6-3 on Wednesday against LSU.

Florida moves to 7-1 in SEC play, a game behind Kentucky in the loss column. They still have a home-and-home to play with Kentucky, so they'll get their chance to win the SEC. They still have to head to Vanderbilt, but Kentucky still has both of their Vanderbilt games left. Florida still has to head to Alabama, but Kentucky has to head to Mississippi State. What I'm saying is, even if Florida can just split the head-to-head with Kentucky, they have an easier remaining schedule than Kentucky and have an excellent chance to share the SEC title. Their road game at Kentucky is coming up on Tuesday night. The return visit will be on Senior Night in Gainesville on March 4th.

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