NIT Third Round: Utah Valley

[Queens_NYC]

Wednesday, March 22nd, 2023
9:00 pm
UCCU Arena
ESPN2

The Bearcats (22-12 [11-7 AAC], NET #70, KenPom #48) make the long journey to Orem, UT to take on Utah Valley (24-8 [15-3 WAC], NET #74, KenPom #64) with a trip to Las Vegas on the line.

The WAC regular season champions started their NIT run with back-to-back road wins at New Mexico (83-69) and Colorado (81-69) last week.

The Wolverines are led by 4th-year head coach and 2x NBA Champion, Mark Madsen, who recently took home WAC Coach of the Year honors. The men’s basketball program is enjoying their most successful season to date after only becoming a full-fledged Division 1 member in 2009.

Utah Valley features a three-headed monster in the backcourt with a trio of playmaking 6’4 guards who each average over 13 ppg. 5th-year guard and 1st Team All-WAC selection Trey Woodbury is their most dynamic player and led the Wolverines with 25 points, 7 rebounds, and 7 assists against Colorado on Sunday night.

Their frontcourt is spearheaded by WAC Defensive Player of the Year, WAC Newcomer of the Year, and 1st Team All-WAC selection 3rd-year 7-footer Aziz Bandaogo who averages 11.4 ppg, 10.4 rpg, and 2.9 bpg.

The winner of this game advances to the tournament semi-finals at Orleans Arena in Las Vegas where they will face the winner of #4 seed UAB and #2 seed Vanderbilt on March 28th.

 

[sedziobs]

Utah Valley is 10-1 at home this year, so this is definitely a tough assignment despite the lack of name recognition. The WAC isn't a bad conference. 9 teams are in the top 160 on Torvik and a couple are top 75. They also went on the road to Utah St, Wake Forest, Boise St, BYU, and Oregon, winning 2 of those 5 and sending another to OT. The altitude could be a factor - we aren't used to playing nearly a mile above sea level.

Utah Valley is an elite defensive team, ranking top 30 overall and #21 over the last 10 games. They defend inside and outside the three point line well, resulting in a #4 national ranking in field goal defense. Utah Valley is especially good at the rim, where they are the only team in the country holding opponents under 48%. Alabama and Arizona St are the only other teams to allow under 50%. They lead the nation in blocks by a considerable margin (6.6 per game, 2nd place is Illinois at 5.6) and have given up only 32 dunks all year.

Utah Valley's offense has been just ok most of the year, ranking #120 in efficiency. It has been good over the last five games though, a stretch where they have put up over 1.05 points per possession in every game. Some of the raw stats are deceptive because they play at a top 50 pace. Woodbury scores a lot of points but only with decent efficiency. He takes a lot of midrange shots at under 40% and doesn't get to the rim or free throw line much. He's a very good three point shooter though, hitting over 40% on 5 attempts per game. Justin Harmon leads the team in usage rate, but he turns the ball over a lot and is a below average shooter. He does however get to the rim and free throw line a lot. Le'Tre Darthard seems to be the guy to key on. He leads the team in three point attempts (at 36%) and free throws (at 90%), and he doesn't turn the ball over. Big men Bandaogo and Fuller are the most efficient scorers, they both convert 73% at the rim.

I think we should run Woodbury off the three point line but not double him. Let him get his points from the midrange where he isn't efficient, and don't let him dump off to Bandaogo and Fuller who are lethal inside. Harmon and Woodbury are both turnover prone, so we should be pressuring them. Darthard can hurt us from three and the stripe, so we need to be smart on him, maybe an assignment for MAW.

On offense, we don't get to the rim much anyway, so Utah Valley's elite rim defense might not be so important. They are a poor defensive rebounding team, so I wouldn't mind letting it fly from three and crashing the glass. In their one home loss they gave up 12 threes, so that could be key.

 

[sirthought]

Yeah this team sounds pretty tough. Maybe they aren't the best shooting team, but they are fairly complete in their skill set at most positions. I see the programs they've beat this season and think UC would have been lucky to beat many of those teams. Should be interesting to see how UC steps up. I'd say one more NIT game would be a good accomplishment for this particular team.

 

[Queens_NYC]

Current betting lines have the game varying from a Pick-em to UVU being favorited by 1.5 points.

 

[TheRealMick]

Eric Gaines from UAB is my nephew. Be epic if we both win tonight. He was coming with Nolley, buddies from Atlanta. UC took Indiana PG over him.

 

[sedziobs]

We came out very lazy to start this game. Poor effort on the glass, lazy passes, and not getting back in transition.

 

[Bcatfollower]

Looks like a Wes Miller coached team.

 

[sedziobs]

We're lucky to be down only 6 after hitting some outside shots. We got beat down the floor in transition several times, and our interior defense has been bad with Lakhin out. This is a winnable game if we can settle down a bit and make better decisions.

 

[sedziobs]

The offense is much better when we work through Vik. Hopefully he can stay on the floor.

 

[Bcatfollower]

I think we looked best tonight with Ezikpe on the floor. Can’t believe how lazy we are.

 

[Lawrugby]

Utah whatever is a good team. We played in a tough environment and certainly never quit. Just a night when our shots were not falling. If anyone is to blame it is our administration who could not revise a construction schedule for these kids. We gave them an impossible task after they earned a home game. To take that away from the team is a travesty.

 

[sedziobs]

We struggled to find offense outside of Nolley's threes all night, which was expected against this team. We did a pretty good job defensively, but couldn't recover from the uncontested transition baskets we gave up. I think they had at least 4 of them.

 

[Queens_NYC]

Tough game but we got what we deserved. Woodbury and Bandaogo were the two best players on the court. Nolley and DDJ both tried to will the team to victory but UVU proved they were too good to be beaten by hero ball.

We finish the season having beaten only one other team in the KenPom top 80: UCF (#53) x2

 

[sedziobs]

In many ways this game went exactly as the scouting report suggested. Woodbury and Harmon scored 17 each but combined for 7 turnovers so their ORtg was just ok. Bandaogo and Fuller combined for 27 points and 21 rebounds, and Bandaogo had 4 blocks. Darthard got to the free throw line 9 times, but he went just 1-6 from three. As a team they had 7 dunks (we had zero). Utah Valley scored 1.02 points per possession, good but not great.

We were held to 0.94 points per possession, one of our lowest of the season. Nolley was 5-11 from three, but the rest of the team was 1-14. We did a good job on the offensive glass, grabbing a third of our misses (but we allowed Utah Valley to do the same). We turned it over on only 11% of possessions, which is very good.

I've been a broken record on this all year, so perhaps it's fitting that we ended the season by putting up 40 midrange shots. One every minute! That's more than our rim looks and three point attempts combined! We made 25% of them - a paltry 0.5 points per possession. DDJ alone put up 16 midrange shots, matching Utah Valley's team total. And Nolley was right behind him with 12. It's just a terrible offensive philosophy.

We were very efficient when we attacked, converting 79% at the rim and 80% at the free throw line. I think we were scared to have our shot blocked though. Only 14 rim looks and 10 free throws in 73 possessions. I guess bricking a midrange shot doesn't hurt our feelings as much as getting a layup swatted, but it hurts the score sheet.

I'm happy that we improved as the year went on and got to play and win some postseason games. I think our defense has a chance to be really good as we add length and athleticism to the guard spots. I am still concerned about how we run an offense, and I'm worried it may never be efficient regardless of the talent we bring in.

 

[Queens_NYC]

UVU lost to UAB in a 88-86 OT thriller last night to end their season.

North Texas beat Wisconsin 56-54 in the other semi-final to set up an all-future-AAC NIT Final in Vegas on Thursday.

 

[sedziobs]

UVU lost to UAB in a 88-86 OT thriller last night to end their season.

North Texas beat Wisconsin 56-54 in the other semi-final to set up an all-future-AAC NIT Final in Vegas on Thursday.

Those were great games. North Texas held Wisconsin completely scoreless over the last 9 minutes. They ended the game on a 10-0 run, and zero points by either team were scored in the last 2 minutes. It was kind of bizarre to watch.

CUSA having an incredible postseason. An NCAA Final Four team, both NIT finals teams, and the CBI champion. The conference is 16-1! All four of those teams are joining the AAC next year.