Saturday night at 8:49 pm EST, the Alabama Crimson Tide will attempt to defeat the defending national champions, the Uconn Huskies. Bama has had an impressive season on their way to the final four, but they will have their hands full Saturday night.
There has not been a team more dominant in all of college basketball than UCONN. As hard as it is to repeat as national champions, the Huskies look destined to accomplish just that. Can Alabama shock the sports world and end the Huskies’ hopes of becoming only the 8th team to repeat as national champions in NCAA tournament history?
No matter how strong a team is and how dominant they have been all season, anyone can be beaten on any given night. I can think of no better example of this than the 2015 Kentucky Wildcats. Kentucky was clearly the best team in the nation that year and entered the final four undefeated only to lose to the Wisconsin Badgers.
Just last year, in the women’s tournament, South Carolina exited the tournament in identical fashion as an undefeated team in the final four. These recent examples show clearly that anything is possible and the best team does not always win. So, if history is any indication, Alabama definitely has a shot.
To the game itself, these two teams play contrasting styles.
Alabama features a high powered, fast pace offense that shoots a lot of threes and is led by guard Mark Sears. A large portion of Bama’s offensive scoring comes from 3s, 37.1% to be exact . According to KenPom, they have 9th fastest tempo and want the game to be played in the 80s or above. Their defense is not nearly as impressive as they are surrendering 81.1 points per game and rank outside the top 100 in terms of efficiency.
In the tournament, they have had an impressive run including a win over their region’s 1 seed, the UNC Tar Heels, but continue to rely on their offense and on outscoring teams to win.
The Connecticut Huskies play with the 315th ranked tempo and limit the number of possessions they have to defend. This obviously limits scoring opportunities for their opponents which creates immense frustration. Offensively, they are not overly reliant on any one facet of scoring and have 5 players scoring in double figures.
They rank as the top offense in terms of efficiency according to KenPom while their defense is ranked 4th. They’re only surrendering 63.3 points per game while allowing teams to shoot 30.9% on 3 point FGs and 43% on 2 point FGs which rank top 5 and top 30, respectively. The Huskies’ final four run has been nothing short of dominant with an impressive win over the 3 seed Fighting Illini, a game in which Uconn went on a 30-0 run and held one of the nation’s best offenses to 52 points.
This game will come down to one thing: who can dictate the pace of play? It is clear how each team wants to play and that they’re both difficult to beat when they play their game. The best way to control the pace of any game is to rebound the basketball well, limit mistakes/turnovers, and play good defense.
Looking at rebounding, both teams are fairly even in terms of the absolute number of boards per game. However, considering the discrepancy in pace of play, it makes sense that Bama would have a high amount of rebounds per game on average. The rebound rate favors Uconn at 56.4% compared to Bama’s 52.8%. A small difference, but in a close game, that could be what decides the outcome.
Both teams play a relatively clean game with Uconn averaging under 10 turnovers per game while Bama turns it over 12 times on average. We all know the saying “a bad shot is the same thing as a turnover” and I think this applies more so to the team that shoots 3s at a high volume like Alabama. That’s not to say that all of their 3s are ill-advised, but they are naturally a lower percentage shot than most 2 point FGs. Uconn is getting about 51.2% of their offensive production from 2 point FGs compared to Bama’s 43.4%. Even on misses, Uconn will be able to get their defense set-up more often than not to limit transition/fast break points.
Lastly, and this is a point that needs little elaboration, Uconn is significantly better defensively than Bama. Slowing the game down by making your opponent work deep into the shot clock on offense not only runs time off the clock, but usually results in a low percentage and/or contested shot. This is a big advantage for Uconn.
All of that said, I think the 3 areas of the game that play a big part in dictating pace of play heavily favor Uconn. There is a reason you play the game, though. Anything is possible. We all know what happened to Virginia in 2018 when their usually stout defense was picked apart by a hot shooting UMBC team. Alabama has the pieces needed to stretch Uconn’s half-court defense, make shots, and get the game played at their pace.
In the end, however, I think Bama keeps the game close, avoids a dominant defeat, but runs out of gas in the 2nd half. I like Uconn to win 78-70 and advance to the national championship.