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Three picks tonight, all in college basketball.
As always:
- Lines come from the Vegas Consensus at the time this is written, or the best approximation I can find of it online.
- Data and predictions from KenPom, FanGraphs, Baseball Savant, Team Rankings, and ESPN is/are often used and/or cited.
- The blurbs often aren’t justifications of the picks. Often, they’re instead just notes about something or someone related to the pick. Something that interests me. I don’t explain the picks because in general, the rationale behind each pick is the same, so it would be boring to say over and over again that the numbers I use project a good return on investment and I see no red flags significant enough to make me hold off.
Creighton @ Michigan
In Creighton’s opener with Kennesaw State, they flashed a tempo that could burn down the Big East, averaging just 12.9 seconds per possession (for context, the fastest team in Division I last season—FIU—averaged 14.1 seconds per possession). They played this tempo efficiently, too, totalling 1.08 points per possession.
One game, though, does not make a full data set, and Kennesaw State is not Michigan. Michigan hasn’t ranked outside the slowest forty in adjusted tempo since 2015-16, and while new head coach Juwan Howard is reportedly intent on the Wolverines pushing the pace more this year, doing so may require sacrificing some offensive efficiency. In their opener against Appalachian State, Michigan scored only 1.03 points per possession. That’s fine, but Appalachian State is likely a slightly below-average Division I defense, and extrapolated out over a season, 1.03 points per possession might not put a team among even the eighty most efficient in Division I—not exactly where a hopeful Big Ten contender wants to be. As with Creighton’s result, it’s just one game, but it does suggest Michigan may experience some transitional pains associated with the change of scheme.
On the defensive end, one would assume Michigan will try to keep things as they’ve been the last two years, when they finished second and third in KenPom’s adjusted defensive efficiency metric. But, as with the offense, some efficiency may be sacrificed by playing fast, especially when carrying over much of Beilein’s personnel.
Overall, this total comes down to three questions: how efficiently Michigan will score, how efficiently Creighton will score, and how fast a tempo the two will conspire to play. Trusting KenPom’s adjusted efficiencies to answer the first two, it comes out that the teams will need roughly 78 possessions to hit the over. Even adjusting for changes to the shot clock rule, Greg McDermott’s never had a team play faster than 74 average adjusted possessions per game. If Michigan really is intent on particularly up-tempo basketball (not just up-tempo relative to the Beilein era), this total stands to be tested. Still, the median possibility falls confidently on the side of the under.
Pick: Under 154 (-110). Low confidence.
Cal Baptist @ Texas
At Texas, Shaka Smart has liked to slow things down. His teams have never finished in the top half of KenPom’s adjusted tempo ratings. They’ve routinely forced teams into slow possessions. When they’ve sustained success, it’s often come through grinding out victories.
This year, though, Smart has what could be his best offense since arriving in Austin. Even with three of last year’s four strongest offensive options gone, the Longhorns have an experienced core on the scoring end, one that put together a 1.09 points-per-possession performance against a highly competent Purdue defense on Saturday.
Texas still figures to play its slow brand of basketball. Those 1.09 points-per-possession Saturday were spread across only 64 possessions. Those possessions, however, figure to be highly efficient, especially if turnovers, which have been a problem so far, can be limited. Cal Baptist is a solid team, but one thing they haven’t done since entering the Division I ranks at the beginning of last season is force takeaways. Texas should score tonight and score often.
Pick: Over 134.5 (-110). Low confidence.
Washington State @ Santa Clara
Herb Sendek’s been a Division I head coach nearly non-stop since 1993. In that time, he’s only rarely had a team play faster than the median D-I program, with the average Sendek offense among the nation’s slowest.
Which is why Santa Clara’s 14.1 seconds per offensive possession against Cal Poly were surprising. That’s the 19th-fastest in the country so far, and while it’s significantly likely that the Broncos are going to return to their methodical ways tonight, it’s possible Sendek thinks speeding things up is the way to go with a team looking to cause trouble for the West Coast Conference’s incumbent powers. Almost all of last year’s contributors are back, and Wake Forest transfer DJ Mitchell is newly eligible after sitting out the mandatory season. It’s not a new-look team, but Mitchell changes the equation considerably, and with little recent success to which Sendek can point, it wouldn’t be out of the question for him to shake things up.
Even if Santa Clara’s offensive shift is, in fact, a mirage, Washington State’s offense has shown early signs of a transformation of their own. Expected to battle with Cal for last place in the Pac-12, the Cougars posted an eye-opening 1.20 points-per-possession against Seattle, a very average Division I basketball team. No Cougars starter turned the ball over, and sophomore CJ Elleby scored 27 on only 18 shots.
As with Santa Clara’s tempo, Washington State’s offensive potency is probably a lot closer to expectations than the meager results so far have shown. Even with each operating around expectations, though, the KenPom adjusted efficiencies and adjusted tempos point to 142 in this one, not 135.
Pick: Over 135 (-110). Low confidence.
