(5) San Diego St vs (4) UConn – 8:20 PM CDT on CBS

Keep your eye on the foul totals and the double-bonus situation tonight, for a couple of reasons. In the first half, both of these coaches are extremely conservative when it comes to playing guys with two fouls. So a first half second foul on anyone is a near certain auto-bench and may screw up the rotation. San Diego State wants to maximize the minutes of the Huskies’ Naheim Alleyne and Hassan Diarra. Then as we get into the second half, both teams also give up a high free throw % to the opponent, meaning they generally foul guard. This could provide a comeback path for either side.

These teams are deep enough — San Diego State goes a legitamate nine-deep and UConn is at about eight-and-a-half depending on how you feel about Diarra — and both have versatile scoring and defensive profiles, so foul trouble with a particular player may not prove decisive. But we saw in the women’s final yesterday that the sheer abundance of fouls on Iowa, then the fifth on Monika Czinano curbed their comeback run, and finally the technical (counting as personal foul number four) on Caitlin Clark seemed too much for the Hawkeyes to overcome.

Is this the game San Diego State unleashes the full Adam Seiko? The fifth-year senior is shooting 44.3% on three point attempts but has had only three games with 9+ attempts. How did he shoot in those games, you ask? 6 for 9 vs Occidental in December, 7 for 9 vs Utah St in January, and 6 for 10 vs UNLV in January. He’s only attempted four this entire tournament.

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