NCAA Men's Tournament Preview: Wisconsin vs. BYU
A battle between two fan-bases on opposite ends of the "Knowing Which Bars Do 2-4-1 Miller Lites on Tuesdays" spectrum.
I know that this is mainly a Wisconsin (and Big Ten) women’s basketball newsletter, but the Badgers (WBB) didn’t make the NCAA Tournament (I checked all of the at-large spots) and the Badgers (MBB) did. So, let’s talk some man balls!
Wait…don’t call it that.
Anyways, on to some basketball analysis!
Game Preview
Game: East Region; 3-seed Wisconsin Badgers vs. 6-seed BYU Cougars
Date: Saturday, March 22
Time: 6:45 p.m. CT
TV: CBS; Brad Nessler, Brendan Haywood, Dana Jacobson
Location: Denver, Colo.; Ball Arena
Odds: Wisconsin, -1.5
Torvik UW win%: 51%
Wisconsin’s first game of the NCAA Tournament went about exactly as everyone expected. There was a bit of a feeling out period, followed by UW taking a slight lead at halftime, and ending with Isaac Gard and Ricardo Greppi on the court for the Badgers. UW held the lead for 37:46 of the 40 minutes they played.
Five players were in double figures for Wisconsin, led by John Blackwell’s 19 and Steven Crowl’s 18. Max Klesmit didn’t get on the board with any points, but he did lead the team with four assists. Nolan Winter, Kamari McGee, and Carter Gilmore each had six boards contributing to a full team effort against Montana.
BYU had a tougher test against VCU in the first round, but the Cougars potent offense carried them to a victory over the Rams. Richie Saunders scored 16 points and 6-foot-9 Russian freshman phenom Egor Demin added 15 points, four rebounds, and two assists. The Cougars are a deep, balanced team and had nine players record 12 minutes (or more) of playing time on Thursday.
This should be a fun matchup for neutral parties as both teams like to fill it up and can, at times, struggle on defense. Whoever ends up winning will almost certainly be the team that can string together a couple of stops in a row in the second half.
Wisconsin Resume
Q1-A record: 3-6
Q1 record: 8-8
Q2 record: 10-1
Q3/4 record: 9-0
Record: 27-9 overall, 13-7 Big Ten
Torvik rank: 12th
KenPom rank: 13th
NET rank: 15th
Strength of schedule: 25th
Best wins (Torvik rank listed): No. 9 Arizona, No. 13 Michigan State (neutral site), at No. 18 Purdue, No. 23 Illinois, No. 25 UCLA (neutral site)
Bad losses: No. 64 Penn State
BYU Resume
Q1-A record: 3-4
Q1 record: 8-7
Q2 record: 7-2
Q3 record: 4-0
Q4 record: 6-0
Record: 25-9 overall, 14-6 Big 12
Torvik rank: 14th
KenPom rank: 24th
NET rank: 25th
Strength of schedule: 49th
Best wins (Torvik rank listed): vs. No. 27 Baylor, vs. No. 20 Kansas, at No. 10 Arizona, at No. 9 Iowa State, vs. No. 9 Iowa State (neutral)
Bad losses: at No. 105 Providence, at No. 73 TCU
Wisconsin Top-Six (by minutes %)
John Tonje, 6-foot-5, guard, graduate, 77.2%
John Blackwell, 6-foot-2, guard, sophomore, 77.2%
Steven Crowl, 7-foot-0, center, graduate, 63.4%
Max Klesmit, 6-foot-4, guard, senior, 61.2%
Kamari McGee, 6-foot-0, guard, senior, 55.3%
Nolan Winter, 7-foot-0, forward, sophomore, 52.5%
BYU Top-Six (by minutes %)
Richie Saunders, 6-foot-5, guard/forward, junior, 69.9%
Egor Demin, 6-foot-9, guard, freshman, 61.7%
Dallin Hall, 6-foot-3, guard, junior, 54.2%
Trevin Knell, 6-foot-5, guard/forward, senior, 49.6%
Keba Keita, 6-foot-8, forward, junior, 49.3%
Mawot Mag, 6-foot-7, forward, senior, 43.6%
Wisconsin Statistical Leaders
PPG: John Tonje, 19.1 ppg
RPG: Nolan Winter, 5.9 rpg
APG: Max Klesmit, 2.7 apg
SPG: Kamari McGee, 0.9 spg
BPG: Steven Crowl, 0.5 bpg
FG%: Nolan Winter, 56.4%
3P%: Kamari McGee, 45.9%
FT%: John Tonje, 91.2%
BYU Statistical Leaders
PPG: Richie Saunders, 16.0 ppg
RPG: Keba Keita, 8.0 rpg
APG: Egor Demin, 5.3 apg
SPG: Richie Saunders, 1.2 spg
BPG: Keba Keita, 1.1 bpg
FG%: Keba Keita, 66.9%
3P%: Trevin Knell, 43.1%
FT%: Richie Saunders, 82.2%
Wisconsin Four Factors
Offense (national rank)
eFG%: 53.8 (59th)
TO%: 14.2 (17th)
OR%: 28.0 (236th)
FTR: 33.8 (152nd)
Defense (national rank)
eFG%: 47.8 (47th)
TO%: 14.4 (331st)
OR%: 26.4 (36th)
FTR: 27.8 (50th)
BYU Four Factors
Offense (national rank)
eFG%: 57.2 (6th)
TO%: 17.6 (208th)
OR%: 33.6 (68th)
FTR: 30.7 (251st)
Defense (national rank)
eFG%: 50.7 (166th)
TO%: 17.2 (174th)
OR%: 26.2 (30th)
FTR: 28.8 (71st)
Most Interesting Statistical Matchup
I’ll admit that this is a kind of boring choice but…whichever team shoots better from three is almost guaranteed to win this game. Both teams are top-20 nationally in amount of threes they shoot relative to their other possessions, but Wisconsin is better at limiting their opponents’ attempts from deep. Seven of BYU’s nine losses this season came when they shot below the D1 average of 33.7% from beyond the arc. Only five of their 25 wins have seen them shoot that poorly.
Wisconsin is 14-6 when shooting below 33.7% from deep and are 13-3 when hitting above that mark.
Xavier Amos has had a wildly inconsistent first year in Madison, but he scored 11 points off the bench against Montana which included him being a perfect 3-of-3 at the rim. He has also greatly improved as a defender from the beginning of the year. I think the 6-foot-7 stretch forward can be an “x-factor” in this game due to his versatility (he’s a solid three-point shooter despite the below average numbers this year) and could even be thrown on Egor Demin for a few minutes to try and match the Russian’s length.
Shot Charts
(all shot charts images are from the excellent CBB Analytics site)
Some More Wisconsin Stats
AdjOE: 122.5, 13th
AdjDE: 95.9, 25th
2P%: 55.3%, 39th
2P% def.: 46.8%, 30th
3P%: 34.8%, 123rd
3P% def.: 32.9%, 120th
3P rate: 47.9%, 19th
3P rate def.: 39.0%, 187th
Tempo: 67.6, 156th
Some More BYU Stats
AdjOE: 126.0, 6th
AdjDE: 99.1, 52nd
2P%: 58.7%, 5th
2P% def.: 49.2%, 109th
3P%: 37.0%, 33rd
3P% def.: 35.0%, 249th
3P rate: 48.0%, 17th
3P rate def.: 44.9%, 336th
Tempo: 67.3, 180th
Shot Volume Stats
Firstly: you should all subscribe to Will Warren’s wonderful college basketball newsletter. While it is statistically focused, he also tells stories about teams that you wouldn’t hear about otherwise. He has info on D-2, D-3, and NAIA teams and has been expanding his women’s hoops coverage this season too. I am biased because Will is my pal, but that doesn’t change the fact that his work is of the highest quality. He is running a March Madness special where an entire year’s worth of content (which you will get plus more in March alone) is only $20. It is literally too cheap not to buy.
Secondly! He is a champion of Shot Volume and just wrote an extremely interesting piece about it and how it can help predict who will do well in the Tourney. Will wrote this last year before the Tournament started:
The point is this: shot efficiency, AKA actually making the shots, is great. That’s the first step. The differentiator, especially on nights when your team isn’t shooting well, is shot volume. Can you find a way to make up for poor shooting? If so, you’re going to be harder to put down than a team that doesn’t.
Shot Volume was a thing that John Gasaway thought up back in 2016. The original, quite simple, equation was: Shot Volume = 100 + OREB% - TO%.
Gasaway has since updated the equation to be a bit more complicated to do, but still produce extremely insightful info. There are a number of other “shot volume” metrics, including a proprietary one that Will came up with himself.
Let’s take a look at some of those numbers to see how Wisconsin stacks up and whether or not they’ll be able to survive a game where the shots aren’t falling!
Shot Volume Index
Houston, +11.5 (best in nation)
Average among top-10 teams, +9.5
BYU, +2.9
Wisconsin, +1.1
WHACKS (from Jordan Sperber of Hoop Vision: it basically says does your team get more “whacks at the pinata” than other teams)
Wisconsin, +10.67
BYU, +6.80
Easy Shot Volume (100 - TO% + OREB%)
BYU, 116.0
Wisconsin, 113.9
National avg., 112.5
The Cougars have an extremely efficient offense and shoot nearly 58% (fifth best in the country) on all of their two-pointers. They’re no slouches from beyond the arc either (37.0%, 31st nationally) and they are above average on the offensive glass. While BYU isn’t a dominant force in terms of shot volume, they are better than Wisconsin at it. I will be interested to see how well the Badgers are boxing out and grabbing defensive rebounds in the first few minutes of the game, because that could be an early indicator on who will have the advantage.
Some Final Thoughts
An often overlooked stat by the national media: was Drew in attendance the last time these two teams played? Well, dear reader, impress you friends by telling them that I WAS there the last time Wisconsin and BYU played in men’s basketball. The year was 2011 and the Chicago Invitational Challenge (which was actually played in Hoffman Estates, Ill.) was the talk of the college basketball world.
The Cougars were coming off JimmerMania the previous year, but Fredette had exhausted his eligibility and BYU was forced to rely on Known Honor Code Violator (Premarital Sex With Girlfriend Version) Brandon Davies to lead the team in the 2011-12 season. Wisconsin (no known BYU Honor Code violators on their team!) proceeded to blow the doors off the Cougars, 73-56, and claim the Chicago Invitational Challenge title.
Ben Brust made seven threes off the bench, Jordan Taylor had 18 points, eight assists, five rebounds, and won tournament MVP, and future National Player of the Year Frank Kaminsky played seven minutes and scored two points. Davies, who was born in Philadelphia (like me!) but grew up in Utah (unlike me), scored nine points and turned it over four times. He ended up earning All-West Coast Conference honors as a junior and senior and, hopefully, has had sex since that didn’t cause him to get kicked off a basketball team.BYU gives up a TON of three-point attempts as they are focused on making teams attempt difficult shots at the rim or deny them rim attempts all together. The Cougars don’t have a traditional 7-foot monster as a rim protector, but 6-foot-8 Keba Keita blocks an impressive 6.9% of the shots attempted at him which is in the 99th percentile nationally.
The free throw line is an area where Wisconsin has a tremendous advantage. The Badgers are the top free throw shooting team in the country (82.7% as a team) but could stand to get to the line a bit more often (33.8% free throw rate, 151st nationally). BYU, on the other hand, is a below average free throw shooting team (70.4%, 245th) and gets to the line way less often than UW.
John Tonje needs to be in attack mode all game. If he draws seven or more fouls in this one, I think the Badgers win.
I wonder how often the Badgers will deploy Big Steven and Nolan Winter at the same time against BYU. The tallest player in BYU’s rotation is freshman Egor Demin (6-foot-9) and he is their point guard. On the other hand, though, with Crowl and Winter on the court at the same time will Wisconsin be able to just shoot over the Cougars’ attempts to defend at the rim? It’ll be an interesting struggle to see which team imposes their will in that regard.
Speaking of Demin…I’m not worried about him. Yes, I know he is an NBA Lottery pick and has an overflowing toolbox of skills that has scouts drooling, but I don’t think he’s built to carry a team to the Sweet 16. He is a high usage (highest on the team), low efficiency (lowest ORtg on the team), turnover prone (worst turnover rate on team) point guard that doesn’t shoot well (27.9% from deep on 140 attempts). He’s a below average rebounder and he isn’t strong enough to overpower a John Blackwell or Carter Gilmore on his way to the basket. Were he a couple of inches shorter he’d just be a Russian exchange student on campus!
Demin is a talented play-maker and will get his teammates open shots in this one, especially in transition, but I don’t think he’ll be taking over the game like you might expect a first round pick to do in his only tourney run. Some are saying he is just Borscht Ben Simmons?????One thing I AM worried about? Dallin Hall and Trevin Knell on the court together. This has only happened on 32.9% of BYU’s possessions this year, but Knell has an astonishing 79.8% eFG% when paired with Hall (backup point guard) and a 58.1% mark from beyond the arc. This sample size is juuuust under the threshold for the data to be “reliable” but I think this is a duo worth keeping an eye on.
When Hall is on the court, BYU is outrageously dangerous on “drive and kick” action. It happens on 19.4% of their possessions (92.6 percentile) and they score an obscene 1.19 points per play (100th percentile) when adjusted for the opponent. For a baseline, the average D1 play results in 0.89 points.
Man-balls, eh? In retrospect, ironic, seeing how they played into the last minutes of this game. Hope Max's have recovered. This was overall a keeper archive article, Dillon; I enjoyed it completely. Read it before and after the game. THIS team will remain in my memory.