A big Sunday awaits the Never Been Kissed – those schools who have never made it to the Sweet Sixteen since the men’s basketball tournament expanded to 64 teams back in 1985. Before we look ahead to Sunday and part two of Championship Week(s), let’s recap the major stories since our checkpoint last Sunday.
High Point hit their nadir in the Big South semifinal, turning a 15-point second half lead into an overtime loss to Longwood, and an inglorious exit from this year’s NBK. One Panther who can hold his head high is Kezza Giffa, the 6’1″ junior guard is a foul-drawing savant (#9 in the country in Fouls Drawn per 40 MIns, #7 in Free Throw Rate) and was a perfect 14-for-14 from the stripe on Saturday, coming off the bench to garner KenPom game MVP honors in a losing cause. Longwood & UNC Asheville square off on Sunday (11 AM CDT on ESPN2 ) for Big South glory and NBK consideration.
Even more surprising was Youngstown St losing to Cleveland St in their Horizon League tournament opener, though the flow of this game was very different. Cleveland St took control halfway through the first half and the Penguins could not get closer than five points the rest of the way. DJ Burns had a strong game in a losing cause – the well-traveled 6’7″ senior went for 17 points & 18 rebounds.
Wrapping up the downer section of this post, Akron continued their tailspin this week, falling to both Eastern & Western Michigan to end the regular season losing 5 of 8, after an 18-5 start. The Zips performance in February and March has been downright (John) Groce, and they’ve ceded the top seed in next week’s Mid America Conference to Toledo. We’ll see if the Zips right the ship, or if the Mud Hens snag their NCAA & NBK spots.
Morehead St showed the rest of this group how to handle their business, shrugging off three-straight February losses to run off three straight wins and take the Ohio Valley Conference tournament championship on Saturday. Seniors Riley Minnix & Kalil Thomas led the way in the conference tourney and will await their bracket fate next week. Joey Brackets has the Eagles as a 14-seed.
Appalachian St & James Madison continue on their path to a seemingly-inevitable clash in the Sun Belt tournament final, but first they will need to get past Arkansas St & Texas St respectively on Sunday night. With KenPoms of 75+, this looks like an NBK battle for just one spot.
Samford also made their Sunday semifinal; they face Furman for a place in the Southern Conference final on Monday (6 PM CDT on ESPN or ESPN2).
Finally we get to the entree of this blog meal: Indiana St vs Drake in the Missouri Valley Conference final. Arch Madness has gone chalk since the preliminary round, leading to this clash of NBK hopefuls on Sunday (1:10 PM CDT on CBS). Joey Brackets does not hold out much hope for the loser of this one getting love from the committee, so even with comparatively solid KenPom ratings of 41 & 51, our guess is this is a winner-take-all matchup.
How’d they get here? On Saturday, Indiana St used a total team effort to overwhelm Northern Iowa from the outset and win going away. Take your pick of game MVP candidates in this one, as every Sycamore on the floor performed at peak level. Drake, on the other hand, fell behind early to a solid Bradley team (#61 KenPom), battled back to tie at halftime, then survived a back-and-forth second half to squeak out the win. Atin Wright carried the Bulldogs, as the 6’1″ junior transfer from Cal St Northridge his a season-best 5 of 7 three pointers and chipped in 3 steals. Is it better to cruise through a semifinal, or does iron sharpen iron? We’ll see on Sunday.
The final should be a fun one, as both teams are much stronger on Offense than on D. Keep an eye out for early foul trouble for ISU — they are not deep and the farther you go into their bench the contribution drops off a cliff, while Drake has more reinforcements at the ready. ISUs main weakness on Offense besides a lack of depth is a high rate of getting their shots blocked, but despite’s Drake’s superior size they hardly ever block shots. It’s a classic matchup of the extremely movable object meets the fading, blinking force.
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