NCAAW Tournament College Park 1st Round Preview: Maryland-Holy Cross and Arizona-West Virginia

The first and second rounds of the NCAA Tournament pass through College Park and I'll be there so let's preview these great women's basketball matchups

Ball and Order is a newsletter with basketball analysis, reporting, and takes that strives to cover the game no matter who is playing. My name is Gabe Ibrahim (twitter: @gabe_ibrahim). I cover the Washington Wizards for Bullets Forever, women’s basketball for Her Hoop Stats, and coach the JV basketball team at Meridian High School. Subscribe for free and tell your friends! Also, check out our YouTube channel!

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IT’S FREAKING MARCH, Y’ALL. I just picked a bracket with my friends at Her Hoop Stats and you can hear a bunch of explanations on the podcast. I’ll post my bracket down at the bottom of this post if you’re interested. Brackets are great, but the basketball is what we’re here for. I’m lucky enough to attend 1st and 2nd round games in College Park for the second consecutive year. Shouts to Brenda Frese and the Maryland women for earning hosting privileges.

I’m also lucky that we have four interesting teams to watch and discuss coming to town: Maryland, Holy Cross, Arizona and West Virginia. I looked into each team’s stats and tape as much as I could and tried to envision how the games would play out. I’m sure this will look silly by the end of the weekend. But I learned a lot about these teams through this exercise and hope you do too!

2 Maryland vs 15 Holy Cross, 3/17, 2:30 p.m. ESPNews

Prediction: Maryland by a lot

With all due respect to my beloved Pat League, I highly doubt that Holy Cross will be the first 15-seed to win in the NCAA Women’s Tournament. Not only do the Crusaders face an apparent talent disparity, but Maryland is also a bad matchup in terms of style of play. The Terps will turn the Crusaders over, get out of the break, and roll into the second round.

5 reasons why

1. Maryland is just too big at every position. In Maryland’s six losses, they either got hammered in the paint by a dominant big (South Carolina, Indiana), ran into a hot three-point shooting team (DePaul, Nebraska), or both (Iowa). The Terps are a small team in major college basketball with 6’3” former shooting guard Diamond Miller as the team’s tallest player. They rely on speed and shooting to get past bigger teams. Luckily, Holy Cross is smaller at every position and will have trouble with Maryland down low.

2. Holy Cross doesn’t have the outside shooting to pull an upset. The classic March Madness upset involves a hot-shooting lower seed draining three after three as the favorite watches the game slip away. That doesn’t seem like an avenue for Holy Cross Their three-point percentage (32.3%) is mediocre, but the Crusaders rank in the 27th percentile for three-point rate. Every double-digit that pulled off an upset last season took more threes than Holy Cross and all but one (Villanova) shot a higher percentage. The Crusaders would have to get extra hot to pull off a shocker.

3. Holy Cross turns the ball over too much. Another hallmark of an upset is the underdog taking care of the basketball. Last year’s upsets involved teams in the 85th percentile or better for turnover percentage. Holy Cross ranks in the 43rd percentile. Against Maryland’s top-tier transition attack, turnovers could kill any hope for the Crusaders.

4. Holy Cross won’t be able to slow down Maryland. Let’s talk a bit more about Maryland’s transition abilities. According to Synergy Sports, about 27% of the Terps’ possessions come in transition, the third-highest mark in Division I. They score 1.029 points per possession on the break, which puts them in elite territory. Given Holy Cross’s turnover concerns and lackluster offense, it’ll be very hard for the Crusaders to limit Maryland’s transition opportunities. As an added (whatever the opposite of a bonus is), Holy Cross could have a slight advantage on the offensive glass that will be difficult to take advantage of as they hustle to get back on defense.

5. Brenda Frese has never lost in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.

Depth Chart

Stats

• Her Hoop Stats prediction: Maryland 95.9%

  • Score: 78.6 - 56.0, Margin: +22.5, Total: 134.6

7. Arizona vs 10. West Virginia, 3/17, 12 p.m. ESPN

Prediction: Arizona wins going away

5 reasons why

1. The things that West Virginia does best, Arizona also does well. The calling card for WVU is turnovers. They rank in the 87th percentile for offensive turnover rate and 93rd on the defensive end. Their ability to take care of the ball mitigates their subpar offense by allowing them to get back on defense (along with their abandonment of the offensive glass). Causing turnovers gives them easy baskets, which are in short order in the half-court. That’s a great way to win in March. However, Arizona is just as good in both regards. They rank in the 98th percentile for offensive turnover rate and in the 87th percentile defensively. The Mountaineers’ biggest advantage against most teams in the tournament is a stalemate in this matchup.

2. Arizona will have an advantage in the half-court. If the offensive turnover numbers hold, we are looking at a game played mostly in the half-court. According to Synergy Sports, Arizona scores 0.837 points per possession in the half court (78th percentile). West Virginia musters only 0.768 points per possession (51st). Digging a little deeper, you’ll find that Arizona’s offensive strengths matchup well with West Virginia in this area. The Wildcats thrive on getting to the rim often where the Mountaineers don’t defend particularly well. Cate Reese will likely have a mismatch on the low block and Arizona will surely feed her. The numbers suggest an advantage for Arizona. But West Virginia takes a lot of threes and only need one outlier performance in terms of making threes to win.

3. Arizona can corral West Virginia’s guards. While post players may decide the game in the half-court, the guards on both teams will capture the imagination. Ja’Naiya (aka JJ) Quinerly and Madisen Smith are both dogs who compliment each other. Quinerly blazes down the court and has some astonishing finishes at the rim over bigs. Smith can also get down hill, but makes her name as the team’s shooter with 7.3 three point attempts per game. She’s shooting 41.7% on threes in her last 10 games, as well. You need speedy perimeter defenders to stop them. Luckily, Arizona has that in Shania Pellington and Lauren Fields. Both players have the size advantage against WVU’s backcourt and have the speed to match them. They’ll need to play smart and not gamble as much as they normally would to stay in front of Quinerly and not allow Smith open shots. But I think they’re up to the task. Also, Quinerly limped off in WVU’s last game in the Big 12 Tournament and may be limited in this one.

4. Her Hoop Stats and Net don’t like West Virginia. The Mountaineers are the lowest-ranked team in both HHS rating (87th) and Net rating (60th) to get an at-large bid to the tournament. HHS favors Arizona by 8.2 points. Last season, just one underdog predicted by HHS to lose by more won their first-round game: Villanova +11.2 vs BYU. #71 Villanova was also the lowest team by HHS rating to win in the first round. The Mountaineers have plenty of wins this season that can make you believe in them. But they would need to make some history to advance.

5. Bodyclock doesn’t matter. My guy Calvin Wetzel has made the argument that Arizona will face an uphill battle after flying to the East Coast and playing the early game (12 pm EST, 9 am PST). I don’t buy it. The team has had a week to prep and likely a couple days to get used to eastern standard time. If they lose, it’ll be because West Virginia just played better.

Depth Chart

Stats and whatnot

• Her Hoop Stats prediction: Arizona 76.4%

  • Score: 69.0 - 60.8, Margin: +8.2, Total: 129.8

My Bracket