by Justin Perri
The winner of our twitter poll today, The MVC, is due to kick off in just about an hour at the time of posting. Day basketball is great, but its also rapidly approaching as I write this so let’s get right into Arch Madness!!
The SQ Standings for these teams this season line up decently with the seedings. The top two seeds in this single-bye style bracket are the top two teams in adjusted ShotQuality as well. Bradley won the regular season as our 117th rated team and Drake will be the 2-seed and is just a bit above them at 105. Both these teams have rather large negative Record Luck, meaning SQ expected their win-loss record to be worse than it is. Careful with teams like that ATS as their efficiency projections might come from lucky performances, alternatively they could simply play better than expected on a routine basis. That’s your call, or anyone’s call, when we use this data to place bets.
Southern Illinois and Belmont are the 3 and 4 seeds, respectively. Belmont checks out but seeing Southern Illinois in the bottom half of the conference’s SQ ratings gives me a bit of pause. They’re set to play the winner of today’s 6v11 match, Missouri St vs UIC. You might have noticed, but Missouri State is 3rd in MVC SQ… theres a very good chance that if MO St beats UIC that we at SQ will project them to upset a lesser Southern Ill. squad who also has a massive negative record luck. SQ has the Salukis at 15-15 rather than 21-9.
I suppose thats me saying I do not oppose a MO. St. future here, 20:1 is out there I believe, they should get past UIC tonight so this is basically an early bet on that 3v6 matchup.
From the SQ standings it also appears that Illinois State at the 9 seed might have some trouble with UNI. Thats the 1pm ET game that tips shortly so lets dive right in…
Oh, but quickly, one important note- I discussed this with Greg Peterson on VSIN last night: the rims at this location are always terrible and the games are always slow because teams shoot terribly from deep. We’ve seen all of the totals get steamed down today and you basically had to get the Unders in last night. I wont be playing any totals here but will be choosing sides. Still don’t hate a few 1H unders if you pick the right spots.
Anyway…
9 Illinois State vs 8 Northern Illinois
SQ Projects UNI 71.9 – 68.3
A nice in-state rivalry to start out our day in the MVC, UNI currently sits as a 3.5 point favorite and SQ’s projection largely agrees. UNI jumps off the page to me here a bit because they’re expected to have four more wins, are rated over 100 spots higher in the adjSQ rankings, and should have the defense to hold this weak ILST team to less than expected. UNI has largely dominated this matchup, winning all of the last 5 meetings by an average of 7.8 points.
Illinois State is the 354th best at defending half court sets… thats not really what you want to see. UNI runs out of the half court at the 58th highest frequency in the country, which is good for first in the MVC. ILST is also 348th in shot selection against, putting them in the bottom 5% of the country in keeping opponents from getting good looks. Not sure how you trust a team like that.
UNI’s defensive shot selection allowed is in the top 100 of the country, so they will be hopefully giving ILST some trouble. The Redbirds run the P&R Ball Screen at the 11th highest rate, so expect a lot of action off that leading to catch and shoot threes. UNI should be ready though, only 9 teams in the nation have seen more catch and shoot threes than them. I think the rims being notably bad in St. Louis should help the UNI defensive effort given the style of play that ILST is going to attempt to execute.
Illinois State is just a 33% 3Pt shooting team, and they’ve lost 6 of their last 7 coming into today – keeping just one of those losses close and beating Evansville. So, if you can’t already tell by how I’ve been talking about this matchup, I’m laying the -3.5 with Northern Iowa to start the afternoon.
~~ Welcome Back~~ UNI is up 16 at the half and we’re checking in for the second game of Arch Madness
12 Evansville vs 5 Indiana State
SQ Projects: INST 78-63
The line here is currently at +/- 17, and this looks like a blowout is what people are banking on and I’m with it. I am playing Indiana State -17. I think this one can get to 20 easily. Last season Evansville got beat by Valparasio in the first round by 22, Valpo was outside the top 200 at that time. This year their matchup is better, Indiana State is 131st team in SQ which lands them 4th in the rankings for MVC teams.
The Sycamores have the best Rim & 3 rate in the nation, nobody takes more of the valuable shot types than they do. Perfect for extending a lead against a weaker team. Interesting that Evansville carries a 21% positive record luck, but I think that can be attributed to the Purple Aces being the 8th worst Shot Making team in the nation. They’re going to routinely have better SQ scores because they just can’t hit the shots they’re supposed to.
Looks like the number could close at 16.5, which would be great, so maybe be patient? but I’m pretty happy to fade an Evansville team that has routinely suffered 25+ point losses against other MVC teams. The Purple Aces (top tier team name) take the second most Isolation shots in the conference, but are 349th in producing SQ points from those possessions.
I could go on about the blowout potential here but I’ll finalize my thoughts with the offensive SQ PPP ranks that stand out for Indiana State: 3rd in Isolation, 8th in Midrange, 6th in P&R Ball Screens, 13th in Shot Selection, 34th in Post Ups, 76th in Off the Dribble 3s. These guys can get buckets, and they will.
Stay on the trend of favorites to cover here and let’s get a blowout.
~~~
10 Valparaiso vs 7 Murray State
SQ Projects: MUR 71.7 – 69.6
These teams just faced off on Feb 26th and played to a 1 point game that Murray State won, barely surviving on their home floor. Now, a few days later they meet again in St. Louis on a Neutral court which should make this one a true toss up.
Both of these teams are in the top 25% in midrange frequency and bottom 30% in Rim & 3 rate, so don’t expect many fireworks from the halfcouft sets. This one might not be the most fun to watch in that regard.
Murray (193) rates a bit higher than Valpo (262), and I think in a game where the teams aren’t great you want to look at what they may fail to do. Valpo is inefficient at shooting the three and at defending the rim. They also struggle to get offensive rebounds and don’t force many turnovers on defense, which is a shame because they’re pretty good in transition.
Murray also doesn’t turn the ball over much, their TO% is 64th in the nation. So it might be hard for Valpo to generate those important transition possessions. Murray isn’t going to take too many three pointers, as was mentioned, but they’re good at defending catch and shoot 3s, which could stunt a potential comeback for Valpo if they are losing early on. I don’t think either of these teams is really built to regain a lead effectively, but I do not trust Valpo.
This is going to be an interesting one, I’m not as certain here as I have been on past picks but it feels like the line is too short and I’ll be making a half unit play on Murray -1. SQ gives them a 57% chance to win this game at the projected score and I think there’s likely fouls and all that jazz that would lead to the cover even if it was tight at the end. Murray should have the FT frequency advantage, easier points and whatnot. Let’s go Racers!
11 Illinois Chicago vs 6 Missouri State
SQ Projects: MOSU 73.7-63.6
I discussed this matchup a for a moment at the top because Missouri State is 3rd in the MVC in SQ but 6th seeded. They played to an expected record with two more wins than their actual performance. They very well might be underrated here and for this entire tournament.
These teams have played twice, and I’ll get a little fancy and throw down the SQ Bets game pages for you.
What do these games have in common? Double digit expected wins, superior performance from Mo. St and a good amount of bad luck. The Nov 30th game is nuts, 66-51 on the floor but SQ expected 90-69. That was on the road for Mo. St. … sheesh! Then at home, more recently, which is maybe shading the market’s view, Mo St won by just four points. ShotQuality expected that one to be almost 10.5 points. So in back to back games it seems things have fallen UIC’s way. I think maybe that gets a bit of correction tonight.
This is a UIC team that just played Evansville on the road and struggled to win. I think Missouri state is on a bit of a different level than that tonight. They are 94th in defense in the country according to SQ and 161st in offense. UIC ranks 247/283 respectively. Just not close.
The only metric these teams are close on is Shot Making, as both teams rank in the bottom 40 in D1 in the metric. This cover will likely come down to who can break the curse of bad shooting, because the shot selection isnt nearly as bad. The base metrics point towards Missouri State but if they’re simply ice cold from the floor don’t be shocked. It’s either that or they should cruise to a double digit victory. I lean the latter so I’m going another half unit play on Missouri State -8.
Good luck and enjoy the hoops!!