Monthly Archives: April 2022

Championship Game Matchup

(8) North Carolina vs (1) Kansas – 8:20 PM CDT on TBS

Current Heels in Bold. Light blue dots are the Game Score Per 40 Minutes in the Tar Heels’ Final Four win over Duke on Saturday night.
Current hawks in Bold. Red dots are the Game Score Per 40 Minutes in the Jayhawks’ Final Four win over Villanova on Saturday night.

Data courtesy Kenpom.com and Basketball Reference
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

Final Four Matchups

Let’s take a WAB-style look at the Final Four matchups for this historic Saturday.

(2) Villanova vs (1) Kansas – 5:09 PM CDT on TBS

Looking first at Villanova, let’s start with the excellence of Jermaine Samuels these past two weeks. Samuels is the only player across all the Final Four teams who has out-performed his career during this year’s tournament run. (We’ll see later that Duke’s Wendell Moore Jr. and Kansas’ Remy Martin were very close to matching this Samuels’ feat.) With Justin Moore out after tearing his achilles at the end of the Houston game, Eric Dixon and Collin Gillespie will need to join Samuels in out-playing themselves.

Current Cats in Bold. Light blue dots are the Game Score Per 40 Minutes in the Cats’ four tournament wins this year.

Kansas rode the Remy Matin reclamation project for the first three rounds, then overwhelmed Miami in the second half of their Elite Eight matchup. Mitch Lightfoot has been Remyesque, while Jalen Wilson and Christain Braun have been pretty steady and solid. Kansas went small to finish off Miami, leaving David McCormack on the bench while they ratcheted up the pace. Villanova already is small, without many viable options on the bench.

Current hawks in Bold. Red dots are the Game Score Per 40 Minutes in the Jayhawks’ four tournament wins this year.

(8) North Carolina vs (2) Duke – 7:49 PM CDT on TBS

Armando Bacot has been fantastic thus far, and Brady Manek has had a couple of huge performances. Since they are the only two current Heels that perform above the average Heel (red dashed line) it seems fair to state UNC can’t win without those two going off.

Current Heels in Bold. Light blue dots are the Game Score Per 40 Minutes in the Tar Heels’ four tournament wins this year.

Duke also has two big dudes up at the top of their ratings. Mr Inside Mark Williams and Mr All-Around Paolo Banchero. With AJ Griffin and Trevor Keels under-performing, it’s been Wendell Moore Jr who has picked up their slack.

Current Blue Devils in Bold. Light blue dots are the Game Score Per 40 Minutes in Duke’s four tournament wins this year.

Data courtesy Kenpom.com and Basketball Reference
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