As requested, I've provided a preview of the Western Michigan game, but I'm going to change my usual style up a bit to fit the tournament setting. Since this is such an unfamiliar opponent, it seems best to start with the overly basic stuff, then move gradually into a more broad discussion both of the game itself and of the tournament as a whole.
The first thing I always ask myself when Syracuse plays a mid-major is if they have the height to guard us. When the answer is no (like it was with Montana last year) things usually get ugly rather quickly. Unfortunately, Western Michigan does have the height to guard us, and is actually quite a big team. Their starting lineup runs 6'3, 6'4, 6'6, 6'6, 6'11, and even their bench is big at 6'1, 6'5, and 6'7.
The second thing I always ask myself is how the mid-major performed against other high-major competition. Its more unusual than you think for a mid-major to pull an upset in March without already having accomplished a similar feat earlier in the year. The good news here is Western Michigan only played two high-major teams this year, and lost both games. A bad 51-35 loss to a bad Northwestern team, and a halfway decent 66-60 loss to a halfway decent Missouri team.
The third thing I always ask myself is how they match up with us stylistically.
Most of Western Michigan's scoring comes from two players, Brown and Whittington, who are both fifth year seniors.
Shane Whittington is the best player on the team by a mile. He's a 6'11 center with a quick spin move that reminds me of Rick Jackson's go to move as a senior, and he is capable of hitting mid-range jump shots to go along with it. He's not a strong guy at all, and I expect him to have trouble establishing position against Christmas (who will be a much better weapon against him than Keita will), but he is crafty enough and enough of a veteran to get some points anyway. I expect him to score double figures against us, at least.
David Brown is a big muscular 6'4 shooting guard that will physically remind you of Brandon Triche. He averages 19.4ppg and is Western Michigan's (and the MAC conference’s) leading scorer. Brown is by far the most athletic player on Western Michigan (and the only player on the team you could comfortably label as athletic) but his game has a lot of holes. Brown is not an efficient shooter and needs a lot of shots to generate his nineteen points per game. Even against mid-major defenses Brown is only averaging 41% from the floor and 32% shooting from three. Against the two high-major teams Western Michigan went up against, his numbers are even worse - shooting just 8-33 (24%) from the field, and 1-16 (6%) from three against Northwestern and Missouri. Brown is at his best when he is driving to the basket and drawing fouls. Against MAC competition he was pretty good at doing this, but I have little doubt that Syracuse is going to go behind screens and force Brown to take deep jump shots which is something he is not afraid to do despite the fact that he is clearly not very good at it. Brown averages 8 three point attempts a game, which is far more than anybody else on the team. In fact he has taken almost 50% of the entire team's three point attempts for the season.
Brown and Whittington are going to take the VAST majority of Western Michigan's shots. The other three starters are the epitome of role players and the bench almost never scores. Though they go eight to nine deep, their bench serves the same role Gbinije and Keita do for us, which is essentially to give the starters a rest and fill in defensively but take over very few offense responsibilities.
Austin Richie is Western Michigan's point guard, and the only good shooter on the team (averaging 41% from three for the season). However he is not a volume scorer at all, only averaging eight points per game and one made three per game. He is a pass first point and is very unlikely to put up big scoring numbers himself.
Tucker Haymond is a relatively unathletic 6'6 freshman forward who averages seven points per game and only shoots a mediocre 32% from three, but if you are looking for that random nobody who might have a career day from three against us, he is the most likely candidate.
Connor Tava is the 6'6 forward who will play inside more often. They will alternate putting him in the high post and having him try to feed Whittington in the low post, and putting him in the low post as a decoy to give Whittington open shots. Tava is a solid mid-major player, but he's not big, strong, or athletic enough to bang with Grant or Fair and should be out-classed in this game.
To sum up, Western Michigan will play three out (Richie, Brown, and Haymond) and two in (Tava and Whittington) against our zone. Brown will take most of their perimeter shots, and will try to find driving lanes and draw fouls whenever he can. Whittington is going to alternate between the high post and the low post and is a threat to score in either position.
The last question you want to ask about Western Michigan is how they performed against Eastern Michigan, who, of course, is coached by Syracuse's own Rob Murphy and plays the same 2-3 defense that Syracuse does.
The first game against Eastern Michigan did not turn out too well for Western. They lost 56-37 and only managed 28% shooting for the game.
The second game was quite a turn around. Western scored almost 40 points more, winning 75-67. So, did Western Michigan figure out the zone? Despite the score, the answer seems to be no. Even though they put of 75 points, Western Michigan only managed 40% shooting for the game. A substantial improvement from the 28% they shot in the first game, but still a poor number. The real reason for the offensive explosion in this game was the 44 trips to the free throw line they earned. Think about how many free throws that is. In the first game they only scored 37 points total. In this game they had 44 free throws.
This was not such an unusual outcome for Western Michigan. They are not an efficient offensive team, and their wins are generally the product of solid defense and a propensity to get to the line a lot. These are probably the two worst qualities a mid-major team trying to upset a major conference team can have. Any basketball fan will tell you that the best athletes make the best defenders, and any referee will tell you that the best athletes get generally get the most calls (and thus shoot the most fouls). The things that Western Michigan could do in the MAC – namely shut people down and draw a lot of fouls - are things they simply should not physically be able to accomplish against a team like Syracuse.
Western Michigan is going to play tough man to man defense, but Grant and Ennis are going to have big time mismatches (I am assuming that Brown will be assigned to Fair, even though he could cover either Fair or Ennis. Technically Fair could be the one with the big mismatch if Western Michigan chooses to put Brown on Ennis) that will undoubtedly throw their defense rotations out of whack.
On offense, Western Michigan is going to need Brown (a very low percentage shooter) to shoot a very high percentage to even stand a chance.
Obviously Syracuse is not inspiring a lot of confidence with its play, but in my opinion Western Michigan simply does not have the horses to pull this upset. I make no claim as to what the margin of victory will be (we know that more often than not with Syracuse its not overly large), but this is a game Syracuse wins ninety-nine times out of a hundred.
If Syracuse pays exactly like they did against NC State (in a word, bad) they will still come away with a win. It will take a performance unlike anything Western Michigan has shown itself capable of so far to beat even a cold shooting Syracuse team.
Odds are I'm not going to have time this weekend to write up anything for our next game, so I will touch on it here. I'm rooting for Ohio State. They are as bad offensively as Syracuse is. They rely on their defense to win, and especially on forcing turnovers. Syracuse simply does not turn the ball over much, so they eliminate Ohio State's best weapon. Ohio State is arguably the best match up for Syracuse in the entire tournament. Obviously this is not guarantee of victory (if Syracuse played bad enough to lose to BC then then can play bad enough to lose to Ohio State) but I think there is a real possibility that Syracuse can play as poorly as they did against NC State and still come away with a close win in this match up.
Dayton is an interesting team. They remind me a little of a poor man's Duke in that if they are an offensive team that plays little defense, so when they hit shots they are very tough to beat, but when their shots are not falling they can lose to anybody. My guess is Ohio State's defense bothers them, and Ohio State gets the win, but there is a very good chance that Dayton gets hot, and if that happens they will most certainly win the game, because there is no way Ohio State can score with them.
Unless Syracuse plays Dayton AND Dayton happens to be hot from three, Syracuse probably only needs a C performance to reach the Sweet 16. Syracuse has shown they are capable of D and performance's recently, but you have to be happy knowing that its unlikely Syracuse needs to bring its A game to win.
If Syracuse reaches the Sweet 16 I will have another write up then covering how they got there and what they have ahead of them. Until then, I want to take a very quick look at the tournament as a whole. For the first time in my memory there are literally no favorites. The good teams fall into two groups. Teams that pass the eye test and have great records but have beaten NOBODY (Florida, Louisville, Wicihta State) or teams that have some good wins but also some major blemishes to their records (Kansas, Duke, Syracuse).
I believe Lousiville is the best team in the tournament and has the best chance to win it, but only by the tiniest of margins. If last years Louisville team (which was the best team in that tournament) had a 30% chance of winning it all, this year's Louisville team has maybe a 5% chance. There is a much better chance that something crazy happens than there is that any of the favorites win. If you haven't filled out your bracket yet, I recommend staying away from Louisville, Michigan State, and Florida (to win the championship, its fine to have any one of those three in the final four, especially Florida who does not have much competition in their bracket). Sure they are among the best teams but together they probably only have a 10 or 15% chance of winning, and almost everybody is going to pick one of them. I say go for broke and pick an underdog. If you choose right, you will almost guarantee you win your bracket. If you choose wrong but none of Lousiville, Michigan State, or Florida win, then you still have a chance.
Choosing an underdog this year (when nobody is a prohibitive favorite) greatly improves your odds, because when you choose the same teams everybody else chooses, you have to be right AND win the rest of the bracket too. That's a losers bet.
I personally wanted an underdog that was capable of getting hot and scoring in bunches for 6 straight games. I wanted someone battle tested and playing good basketball. I chose Iowa State to win it all. Do I think they are the most likely team to win it all? No. Do I think they give me the best chance of winning a bunch of money? Yes.
That's my tournament two cents.
