We began the tournament with 23 Never Been Kissed (NBK) hopefuls. Just three survived and advanced to the Round of 32. Two of those three — Murray St. and Saint Peter’s — square off today for a berth in the Sweet Sixteen, the first in either school’s history. Before we dive deeply into this historic matchup, we look back at Friday’s games with NBK ramifications.
FRIDAY
TCU thumped Seton Hall 69-42 in a game that was all but decided by halftime. We’ll take a closer look at TCU and their chances against Arizona in this space on Sunday morning.
Colgate gave Wisconsin all they could handle and more, losing 67-60 in a game that was much closer than the final score suggests. The Raiders battled a raucous and partisan Milwaukee crowd, and held a 52-50 lead with under nine minutes to play. The Badgers’ Johnny Davis remembered he was a first-team All-American, and Wisconsin rode the frenzied crowd to a 10-0 run and the win.
By contrast, Cal St Fullerton put up little resistance to mighty Duke, falling 78-61. In Coach K’s final tournament, Duke looks like a great team for about 25 minutes each game and a Horizon League contender the other 15. Next up for the Blue Devils is Michigan St.
Delaware was dispatched by Villanova 80-60, as the Fightin’ Bidens ran out of gas late in the first half.
Jacksonville St lost to Auburn 80-61. Similar to Delaware, they were able to slow things down and keep pace with the Tigers for much of the first half (~60 possession pace). But Auburn cranked things up to 80 possession level early in the second and ran away with it.
Montana St were annihilated by Texas Tech 97-62, the Red Raiders delivering the most dominant performance thus far. Tech hangs their hat on their #1 KenPom Defense, and in this one added six players in double-figures scoring.
Yale lost to Purdue 78-56 as the multi-cultural duo of Jaden Ivey and Zach Edey were well beyond Ivy (sp) League levels.
Wright St lost to Arizona 87-70, as these Raiders had nothing for the surging Wildcats. Arizona will look to end another team’s NBK aspirations when they take on TCU on Sunday.
SATURDAY
It’s #1 Murray St (78%) vs #3 Saint Peter’s (22%) — 6:45 PM CDT on CBS — to graduate from the list of the Never Been Kissed once and forever. We’ll have to fire up the NBK supercomputer and go through the annals to see if we’ve ever had anyone with a 78% chance of making it.
Let’s take a closer look at Saturday’s game in typical Whatsabilliken.com fashion, by comparing today’s players with those in recent school history.
Murray State
Ja Morant is currently lighting up the NBA as the breakout star of the Memphis Grizzlies, second in the West and poised for a deep run in this year’s playoffs. Morant spent two years at Murray St, both ending in OVC tournament titles and NCAA appearances, plus a stomping of Marquette to top things off. He has not forgotten his time in Murray, KY. After Saint Peter’s beat Kentucky in a historic upset Thursday night, dodging a potential second-round date with the Racers, Morant took to Twitter to troll.
a team from kentucky won today 👀🙌🏽🐎
— Ja Morant (@JaMorant) March 18, 2022
Anyway, back to the Racers of today. On Thursday, the San Fancisco Dons and Jamaree Boyea pushed Murray St to overtime, largely on the brilliance of Boyea but also by containing KJ Williams down low. Normally 18 points and 7 rebounds are nothing to sneeze at, but as you can see below overall Williams was well below his usual outstanding production, and he’s the best non-Morant player Murray St has seen of late. Stepping into the void was Jordan Skipper-Brown, proving to the Dons that he IS a war-time consigliari by going for 12 points, 10 rebounds in just 17 minutes of action. His Gold Dot for the game was Beyond-Morant-level good.
Saint Peter’s
The Peacocks do not feature any NBA-caliber players in their recent past, and Bacon benefits somewhat in that we can only count his stellar senior season. A very good player is Ryan Bacon from Maplewood, NJ; a Saint Peter’s Hall of Famer Class of 2016, and quite mouth-watering when you sit down to think abou it. Marvin Dominique transferred to Saint Peter’s after two quiet years at Fordham, and thrived in his two MAAC campaigns. How many Peacocks have been drafted by the NBA ever? Our guess would have been two, but the correct answer is fourteen!
Turning to today’s ‘Cocks, KC Ndelfo has been stalwart on the Defensive boards and as a Shot-blocker for Saint Peter’s in his four seasons. He struggled hard Thursday against Kentucky’s front court — 7 points, 3 rebounds, 5 turnovers — and Oumar Diahame & Isiah Dasher were even worse in their combined 26 torpedoing minutes. Fortunately, Darryl Banks III was sensational (27 points, just 3 turnovers), Hassan Drame was versatile (7 points, 8 rebounds, 4 assists, a block and a steal), and Jaylen Murray helped contain Kentucky’s backcourt.
But the shooting of Doug Edert carried the Cocks to round two and within shouting distance of the Sweet Sixteen. The Junior poured in 20 points in just 25 minutes, including 8-8 from the free-throw line and 2-2 from distance. His performance was figuratively off-the-charts.
Both Murray St and Saint Peter’s play solid defense, but the Racers have a significant edge on offense. Pay close attention to Turnovers, particularly in the front court where the Peacocks particularly struggle.
Data courtesy Kenpom.com and Basketball Reference and RealGM.com
Game Score metric created by John Hollinger detailed here
Plot format by Aaron Baggett
Inspiration from Ken Pomeroy
Inspiration from Rock M Nation
Team colors courtesy:Benjamin S. Baumer and Gregory J. Matthews (2020). teamcolors: Color Palettes for Pro Sports Teams. R package version 0.0.4.