The EvanMiya College Basketball Show

Evan (00:00)
the best teams are often teams that are really good at not allowing kill shots against them. Because that means they're very safe with a lead, especially when they're playing as the favorite in games.

Ryan Hammer (00:09)
do think Michigan is worth just talking about for a second, just because They're a super volatile team. They've had ups and downs and performances all over the place. like the UCLA game this past weekend, I literally blinked my eyes and up by 30. And they went, I'm like, I have no idea how that happened. And that's what they do. That's what they do

Evan (00:12)
For sure.

Evan (00:00)
Hey everybody, welcome to the Evan Mia College basketball show. I'm your host, Evan Miakawa, and we are under four weeks from selection Sunday and there is a lot to get to. The Big 12 is on fire right now. There is a ton of stuff going on in that conference. A week ago, Arizona was undefeated and ranked number one. Now they have lost two in a row to Kansas and now Texas Tech.

goes on the road against Arizona and gets the biggest win of the weekend. Tremendous game. We will definitely spend some time there. Also in the Big 12, Iowa State wins convincingly over Kansas at home. That was huge. Elsewhere, some major injury news for both North Carolina and BYU that we will touch on the impact for both of those teams. This is a huge week in general for big college basketball matchups. We have some mammoth games. We're taping this on Monday before

⁓ Iowa State hosts Houston. So that's a big one. But then on Tuesday, Michigan goes on the road at Purdue. And then next Saturday, we have the best four teams in the sport all playing each other. Michigan plays Duke on a neutral court in Washington, DC. Arizona goes on the road at Houston. Those games are going to be incredible. So there's a ton of theater going on right now. Super PAC show today. Ryan Hammer is on deck with me in a second to talk about the weekend.

And later on the show, we've got Terrence Oglesby joining us to talk about some more games and pick our current All-American teams right now. That's gonna be super fun. In this week's analytics corner, we're talking about the kill shot, everyone's favorite metric at evanmia.com. And I'm actually gonna do that with Ryan Hammer in just a little bit. At the end of the show, we're also doing another listener contest. So you can win some free Evan Mia merch like this hat that I'm rocking here. If you're on YouTube.

So stick around to the end so you can find out how to participate in that. All right, it is time to get into the big storylines from the week. And here with me to do that is the great Ryan Hammer, who runs the Blue-Blooded Podcast. Ryan, this was a massive week in the big 12, and there's a lot more to come over the next several days. We have to start with Texas Tech's massive road win over Arizona on Saturday. Texas Tech wins 78 to 75 in overtime.

Arizona was up seven in this game with about three minutes to go and given how consistent Arizona is that's a pretty big margin for them to drop but Texas Tech is a team that never ever quits I love watching this team play Donovan Atwell hit a massive three with about 25 seconds left in the corner to go up to and he had been pretty cold from three up to that point that was a huge bucket Arizona ends up going to the line and hit some free throws to send it to overtime and then in overtime JT Toppin

absolutely sensational performance. And then late, think Texas Tech was up two and Arizona was trying to get a stop so they could score. Texas Tech puts up a shot, Leon Horner comes out of nowhere to get a huge rebound. And then they ended up putting up another shot. JT Toppin gets another offensive board. This is a coming against an Arizona team that typically great on the boards. And so they ended up securing the win there through a great sequence late, just a massive, massive win.

for Texas Tech on the road. Ryan, what stuck out to you most about their performance in this game?

Ryan Hammer (03:27)
Yeah, I mean, on the grand scheme of things, look at how Arizona has lost their last two games. Their rebounding margin has been minimal plus two for on average for each game. And they haven't been forcing turnovers less than less than 10 a game in their last two losses where they're forcing usually 13 to 14 against high major teams when they've been winning. So in the grand scheme of things, big picture. That's what I see. But Texas Tech, man, like there is something about the culture and resiliency. I caught that everyone says this guy's a dog, their dog that they are the truth of a dog pound of teams. Texas Tech.

Evan (03:55)
Those are the actual dogs.

Ryan Hammer (03:57)
Like they are terrified. I said with Fran for sure yesterday, like if I'm not in the big 12, there are great teams. I'm not in the big 12. I'm looking at the bracket. They're the one team I want to avoid. They are absolutely terrifying the way they play and their depth getting better and better between Horner, Luke Bambouye making plays. Donovan Atwell has been great. Like outside of their trio, Jalen Petty is obviously like that's my one of the fair to players in the country. Like they are, it's insane. It's something in the culture. Grant McCaslin, he has hard love for the guys. They're intense.

They're super, super resilient on the road at number one Arizona. It doesn't get any better than that, obviously. ⁓ all credit to them, obviously. And Arizona's great team. And I don't want to say they choked the game away. I think that was more Texas Tech kind of grinding it back. So that's kind what I saw.

Evan (04:41)
I mean, we have to talk about JT Toppin here because he has been on an absolute, I mean, he's always been a tremendous player, always capable of this, but on a heater right now and in this game against Arizona, arguably the best team in the country on the road against, you know, I know that, you know, Arizona was dealing with some foul trouble in this game, but he's playing against a front court of Krivus and Awaka who are both great defenders and rebounders in their own right. And he ends this game with 31 points.

13 rebounds, zero turnovers in 44 minutes played. This is his sixth time this season, whereas he scored 30 points and 10 rebounds in a game. That's incredible. Obviously, Christian Anderson, also great. He had six threes in this game, which I think were huge eight assists. He also played pretty much the whole game. ⁓ And then obviously, the depth thing you mentioned too is a piece here. I am Ben on record saying I'm worried about Texas Tech because of their depth. ⁓ But in this game,

Ryan Hammer (05:11)
Okay.

Evan (05:37)
They really stepped up, like you mentioned. Horner and Bangboi were huge. I mean, they had critical plays in this game and they both played under 200 minutes each this season. So for them to have that level of impact late was great. Donovan Atwell also had some huge threes down the stretch. But I think JT Toppin here is the story for me. Like, ⁓ yeah, what impresses you about what he's been doing?

Ryan Hammer (05:59)
Well, on the depth too, like they're not asked to be doing crazy things and make have 20 point game. Like if they do great. I don't know how those games happens, but the Leon Horner and the rest of the depth, like you don't need that. Jalen Petty is like the smallest player on the court every game, but he has games where he has like nine rebounds, like doing little things in the hardware and work ethic and hustle plays. I think is what it does it for the depth. But J team, like he's crazy. He was my pick for national player of the year to start the year. I think because of the early season skid they had and the team success, quote unquote team success, because they've been

Evan (06:05)
Mm-hmm.

Ryan Hammer (06:28)
Arguably a top three four team in the country in conference play or since the Duke win really ⁓ But he's been making the quietest case for national player of year He might not win it because cam boozer and Duke might have better team success or something like that That's fine, but I haven't heard a single person talk about him as national player of the year until this game. He is Unbelievable when he gets the ball in the right block. It's a left hook shot every time and it's going in It's a literal layup no matter who it they double it doesn't matter. It literally doesn't matter. It's so fascinating

The zero turnover part is incredible. Like he's relatively undersized. If you look at his physical profile versus the guy like Crevasse too, like maybe not a walk on height wise, but he's unbelievable. And we talk about, everyone likes to, this team is really deep. They're going to go far in March. Teams that if you go back, you go back in history, like teams that win national championships, go to final fours. They normally don't go like super deep into the bench because when it comes down to brass tacks in the tournament.

You have to rely on your guys more than you did in the regular season. That's just the truth of any postseason play in any sport in history. Like your guys need to win you games. That's the truth. You saw it Florida last year. We see it every year. They have the best one, two punch in the country. These are two all Americans. They're unbelievable. So I would, like I said, we keep going back to it. They are terrifying.

Evan (07:29)
Mm-hmm.

They are terrifying and I think they have shown the ability this season to, regardless of where they're seated and all that stuff, they can beat anyone in the country. I mean, doing it on the road against Arizona, like that's as good as it gets. So they're capable and I think they're, I don't know, maybe the most entertaining team to watch in the country. And they're certainly gonna be a hot pick when we get to the tournament to go far. On the Arizona side of things, like obviously I think Koopeats injury, him not playing in the second half for OT, like that certainly hurts.

Jaden Bradley and Braden Burys were both not great in this game. think Jaden Bradley shot 4-14 from the field, Burys 4-12. Awaka, I think, stepped up really big with his increased minutes. He's a guy who has been selfless and coming off the bench for them all season long. But his efficiency when he's on the court is insane. And he had scored 16 points and had 12 rebounds in this game. ⁓ So I'm not super worried about Arizona. Like they've lost two games in a row.

⁓ But these are again the big top of the big 12 is so loaded and Texas Tech like you said when they're on it like they're gonna kill anybody so again not the performance you want to see from Arizona a slight slip but it's not like this is a Incredibly different outlook on this team than we had a week ago when they were still undefeated

Ryan Hammer (08:50)
Yeah, it's I was very adamant about like going into this stretch of games right before these two games It was Kansas, Texas Tech BYU, Houston, Baylor, Kansas, Iowa State Probably the hardest stretch of any team in the entire country all season. It just happens to be leading in the March It's a good opportunity and it also could be seen as a bad opportunity I was on record saying losing two or three games is gonna be good one you get the loss out of the way mentally It's not there. It's like get you're not gonna be undefeated good get that out of the way, but to like

especially as a fan perspective, like you can fill out brackets, you want to see a team lose. You want to see them face adversity. You want to see them be resilient. You don't want to see them go through injuries, obviously, co-op, we'll see what happens, but you want to see them lose. But losing back to back, the first two games of this crazy stretch, that I didn't want to see from a pro Arizona perspective at least, because now the games don't get any harder. Sure, they might be able to win the next three and beat Houston. Then you're like, okay, great. They've proven it. They got, they're resilient. They had a two game stretch where they lost their games. That's great. But.

they're probably going to lose one, two, if they lose three more, like there will be a conversation of did they peak too early? Kind of like Auburn has a couple of times like last year. And I think those things do worry me a tad. The things I mentioned before about the rebounding margin being minimalized by these two teams, Texas Tech, not a big team at all, but they just grind on the boards and not forcing turnovers on the defensive end because their defense has been why they haven't been able to get to a final four under Tommy Lloyd and contend for national championship. Like his first year with the Benedict Matheran team is a one seed. Their defense was not good.

and it's very very different this year they've been much improved that majority of the year but if they're not going to be able to just get extra possessions out of that and force extra turnovers that does worry me a little bit for them to win a national championship

Evan (10:28)
Yeah, you mentioned the rebounding. Arizona only out-rebounded Texas Tech in this game by two. That's tied for their smallest rebounding margin of the season. So they always out-rebound their opponents, but normally it's more by 10 to 15, you know what I mean? So that was big from Texas Tech, and I feel like that just should have been a story when I've seen Texas Tech's big wins this year. It's like, oh my word, they did this thing against Houston or Duke that their opponents never done before this season. And it's like, Tech just finds a way to win these games. It's incredible. They're up to...

Ryan Hammer (10:38)
14. Yeah, that's crazy.

you

Evan (10:57)
⁓ 11th in the country at Evanmia.com. know they're hotter than that, but on the aggregate of the season predicting going forward. But that's up six, seven spots from last week. So they're really trending in the right direction there. ⁓ I wanna talk on another big result in the Big 12, which you were on hand for in Ames, Iowa State, crushes Kansas at home 74 to 56 ⁓ on Saturday. Obviously a game that a lot of people are looking forward to. Will Darren Peterson play the whole game?

Iowa State hasn't had a big notable game like this in a while and how are they gonna show up? Ultimately, I think, you know, a lot of guys played well in this game for Iowa State. It was a very balanced effort offensively. Five guys for Iowa State had 11 or more points. They lost to TCU earlier in the week. This was obviously a huge bounce back for them and makes you think that that loss was just kind of an aberration. Defensively though, I think this is where it really sticks out for me. They held Kansas to 39 % from two.

which is Kansas' lowest two-point field goal percentage of the entire season. So defensively, they were able really to lock them down. Darren Peterson did not have a great game by any stretch of the imagination. 10 points, three of 10 from the field, zero assists or rebounds, and three turnovers. So for a guy who you're hoping to be a statistical monster when he's in there, that wasn't there. So the defense for me, I think really was impressive for Iowa State. What kind of stuck out about their performance to you?

Ryan Hammer (12:23)
Yeah, defense for sure. mean, that's how they've been winning games for five years under TJ Altshulberger, right? But the offense has been where the three games they've lost this year, their offense has been terrible and their offense is much better this year than it has been in the last few years under TJ. And that's what gives them that national title ceiling. But when their offense gets cold, it gets ice cold. They don't shoot well. They turn the ball over a lot. They were great offensively in this game. Having guys outside of Milan Mamchilovic being able to draw the defense out is huge. Jamariam Bateman, the freshman.

had his best game as a clone for sure. He had a massive first half, only like eight points, two boards and two assists I think, but plus 20 and plus minus. You could feel it in the arena. They're calling him Curtis Jones Jr. Baby Curtis Jones in the crowd a little bit. I see the resemblance at least a tiny bit long-term hopefully. But that on top of getting what you get out of Mila and Mom Chilovitz is huge. And if Tame and Lipsy can hit a couple of shots, Killian Torey, not a shooter, they're gonna let him shoot. You have to hit one shot, make them come defend you. It opens up the entire offense. It helps. then...

The whole entire flow kind of hits there. T.J. and Bill Self both kind of after the game talked about the environment, Hilton being awesome and it being that almost a morale type of a victory also where they need it goes beyond the stat sheet. Allen Fieldhouse is the exact opposite. And Allen Fieldhouse and Hilton are two of the best home environments in the country and obviously in the Big 12. So it was kind of like an aggregate of means of those things. Also, Kansas on the hottest streak in the country coming into the game. Iowa State off the loss to TCU. They shouldn't they obviously didn't want to lose that game.

So it was great to see Iowa State look like Iowa State. The ball pressure was incredible. They made Darren Peterson so, so frustrated. He wasn't hurt. He didn't have muscle cramps. He wasn't feeling sick. Bill Self, he had foul trouble early. And then Bill Self said, game flow, he wasn't playing well. And he made up a bunch of stuff to be completely honest with you. But Darren Peterson was very visibly frustrated and was not playing well. And they're the only team to be able to do that this season so far. So it bodes well for them. Obviously, I think this is Tuesday episode.

Evan (14:09)
Mm.

Ryan Hammer (14:17)
We're recording right before the Houston game. So we'll learn a lot tonight in an absolute dog fight.

Evan (14:19)
Correct.

Yeah, yeah, you're gonna be on hand for that one. Okay, in terms of just what Hilton Coliseum is, Hilton Magic is a thing. And I have heard so many Iowa State fans and others in the Big 12 talking about how great the home court environment is there. And you got to experience that on Saturday. Just like, do you think that stacks up as being one of the best home court environments in the country? And also like, what was it like seeing Milan Mamchilovic hit that crazy three point shot falling away in the corner? That must have been unbelievable.

Ryan Hammer (14:50)
I did, it was right in front of me. was maybe 10 feet away. My brother sent me an angle on the TV. I'm right behind him. I just put my hands on him and I turned around. I there's no way. I was with Milan on Friday. And we have a YouTube video coming out of like, basically like the best shooter in the country teaches me how to shoot type of thing. Didn't teach me very well, although it did work. I had to do a competition and I won a tractor. That's another story. But that shot, he did not practice that. His body was literally curved and turned like.

It was unbelievable. And he said it. He should have taken the first shot on the catch and shoot and he didn't. And then he's like, I might be screwed here. And then he dumped himself at the corner and hit it anyway. Like, I have never seen a shooter like him in my life. You'll see it on the broadcast in the Houston game tonight. Fran, myself and some Iowa State staff were doing some stat work last and he's the only six, eight, six, eight shooter that's shooting 50 % from three at a certain minimum of three point attempts since 96, 97. Someone from Sienna did it that we never heard of. So he's in.

Uncharted territory in the history of the sport of college basketball. You can argue he's having the best shooting season ever, especially at his size. So absolutely ridiculous. Hilton Magic is very, very real. I was here last year for the Kansas game. Actually, it was just funny. I was here this year, obviously, for Kansas, and I'll be there for Houston tonight. it's awesome when you get out to communities like this that, frankly, there's not much else to do. They live and die for their schools. They live and die for cyclone basketball here in Hilton Magic. And it is so real. The environment's great. I'm keeping this list of

the game day environments in the country. In terms of just fans alone and the atmosphere, 10 out of 10, it competes with anybody in the country that I've been to. I haven't been to Allen Field House, Breslin, Cameron. I still need to get to big places like that. ⁓ But Mackie, BYU, et cetera, like it's up there with all of them. And I'm sure it'll be very, very high up the ranking list once I put it to a number.

Evan (16:38)
Yeah, and I agree with you on what Mom Chilovich is doing from three. On Evanmia.com, I basically have a skill grade that projects every single player's three-point percentage going forward, and he's comfortably number one on that list. What's basically saying is, at this point in time, he is the best shooter in the country, and there's not a lot of other players that are close to sniffing him right now, so he has been absolutely prolific from three. It's been really fun to see, and I think he is now their leading scorer on the season. So such a fun player to watch, and...

Ryan Hammer (16:50)
Hehehehe

Evan (17:07)
⁓ You know seeing his development from he already showed flashes as a freshman and now up to this point his career Seeing it really all come together. It's been great. Okay sticking in the big 12 I want to get your thoughts on this some big Injury news Richie Saunders is out for the season with a torn ACL for BYU This is a a massive massive hit obviously Richie Saunders in his own right is a great player. He's been averaging

18 points per game, six rebounds per game, shooting almost 40 % from three, almost two steals a game. He's been really efficient and he is one of their big three. And the way that BYU is structured is they have three players who are all rock stars and then everyone else is kind of roll pieces around them. And you've seen them play in person. This is how they operate. So losing a player of his caliber, especially for a team like BYU that is so star reliant is a massive, massive, massive impact for them.

And on my website, I have these injury adjusted team ratings where you can actually see how much a player's injury impacts a team. And this injury for Saunders drops BYU from being the 22nd best team in the country to the 45th best team in the country. Do you think that ⁓ makes sense? Like what are your thoughts on this injury and impact for them?

Ryan Hammer (18:16)
OOF

It's hard to argue against that, right? Like, and I'm going to trust you more than anybody. I'm not going to lie to you there. So ⁓ it's hard to go to argue against that. ⁓ It's tough. is, I feel for him more than anything as a senior and like his last year, that's tough. And he, I still think could be an NBA player. It obviously changes his path tremendously. But I think people think of him as a shooter and a scorer, but he's much more than that. He's been a good secondary playmaker when he needs to be.

He's been a great defender and unbelievable offensive rebounder at times and making the hustle plays that frankly there are other stars, AJ and Rob just don't really make. They're a very heliocentric team around the three, which I think is fine. People will point to that being the issue. Sure, you can point that and the depth isn't good enough, but the idea of playing around three guys is fine. Texas Tech does it, Iowa State does it. There are teams all around the country that do it at a very high level and do it well. It's tough. It really is tough. There's not much else they can do. It's February 16th, 17th, like.

You can't just change your trajectory of your season and your rotations in two weeks with March coming up. Like it's not easy. They're going to have to do everything they can obviously. And they're going to keep playing the games and they're still not a bad team. They're still going to be a tournament team. And frankly, they're going to be maybe a seven, eight seed. I still wouldn't want to play them if I'm a one or two seed in the second round and rather not play AJ DeBansa and Rob Wright. But it's tough. It is what it is. And they love them out there and I feel for them.

Evan (19:33)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, think resume right now, why is there like a five to six seed? You would expect that to drop a little bit by the time they get to the tournament. But if they can get in as a seven, eight seed and have a second round matchup against a one or two seed, that will be must watch television, especially if they're able to really figure out how to give the keys to AJ De Bonsa and just allow him to cook at the max level and figure out how to make everything else work around that. That could be a recipe that no other team can combat with.

So again, this really does limit their ceiling. Final Four hopes are pretty much off the table, most likely. ⁓ Disappointing season, no question, especially now with this injury, but it's not like they're not gonna be in the tournament. They have a chance to make some noise, and ultimately, it's what you do in the tournament that really makes people remember your season. So there's still some life there, but that's certainly tough. Okay, I wanna spend some time now talking about your and my favorite metric in college basketball, the kill shot. So... ⁓

Ryan Hammer (20:24)
You know.

Woo!

Evan (20:35)
Normally I do an analytics corner segment on my show where at the end of the show I will talk about some interesting metric. We're just gonna do this right now because you are the kill shot guy. I don't think there's anyone else in college basketball who advocates for this metric more than you do. So if you're listening to this show and you don't know what the kill shot is, I'd be very, very surprised. ⁓ But basically the kill shot is any time that a team scores 10 or more unanswered points. And it's a really great way of measuring a team's.

Ryan Hammer (20:54)
Hahaha!

Evan (21:02)
spurt ability if you want to call it that their ability to kind of shift the momentum greatly in their favor and before we talk about some of the

teams I just put a graphic up of kind of an update of where every team falls in terms of their their kill shots that they go on and their kill shots that they concede and this graphic is adjusted for opponent strength so basically it gives more weight to your games against good teams and less against bad teams so that this can ultimately be more indicative of how teams perform in the tournament

Some quick stats on this just to give people a refresher if you didn't know this. So if you have a kill shot, a 10-0 run in a game at any point, that means you'll win 71 % of the time. If you have more kill shots than your opponent in a game, you win 81 % of the time. If you have two kill shots in a game or more, you win 88 % of the time. And then if you're able to string two of those together in what we call an avalanche, a 20-0 run, that's 91 % win rate. so...

It's in general, it's just something teams want to be doing. And I have found often, we've both looked at this, the best teams are often teams that are really good at not allowing kill shots against them. Because that means they're very safe with a lead, especially when they're playing as the favorite in games. And so that's often something I'm looking for. So we're looking at this kill shot graphic here. And I first want to start with the group that I'm calling this electric group. It's Michigan and Arizona. They are so far ahead of everyone in their run disparity. Basically what that means is,

They go on lots of kill shots and they are better than anyone else in the country at not giving them up. I think Arizona has allowed one single 10-0 run against them this year and it was against Northern Arizona in a game they were up by like 40. So that doesn't count. That doesn't count. ⁓ Yeah, so they're averaging like 1.1 per game and then Michigan has been prolific. They've only allowed three as well. So does that track for you that those two teams would be ahead of everyone else?

Ryan Hammer (22:37)
I think it was a BYU game probably.

wow. ⁓ wow.

Yeah, it makes sense. do think Michigan is worth just talking about for a second, just because like, look at your consistency versus volatility chart. They're a super volatile team. They've had ups and downs and performances all over the place. But then you think about their game, like the UCLA game this past weekend, they're like tied a half time. I literally blinked my eyes and up by 30. And they went, I'm like, I have no idea how that happened. And that's what they do. That's what they do best. It'll be interesting to see them do to see what they can do against really good teams in Purdue, obviously this week and whatnot. it makes sense. Michigan, Arizona.

Evan (23:01)
For sure.

Ryan Hammer (23:25)
have been number one and number two best teams in the country literally the entire season. hey, 100 % makes sense.

Evan (23:31)
Yep, okay, so in this strong teams group, this is basically the teams that are not quite as good at Arizona and Michigan, but they still have a really strong run disparity. I'm just gonna list these teams and I want you to tell me which one sticks out the most to you. So we've got some predictable teams in this group, Houston, Florida, Duke, Illinois, but then we also have Nebraska, Vanderbilt, and St. Louis. St. Louis actually has, in terms of raw kill shots, they have more per game than anyone else in the country. This is adjusted for a

competition so they end up falling a little bit behind Michigan in the overall adjusted kill shots for metric side of things but they've been great. So which of those teams stick out the most to you and makes you kind of excited for them? Yeah.

Ryan Hammer (24:11)
How does St. Louis not stick out?

It's pretty obvious. I rate the A10. I don't think their strength of schedule is a problem, aside from being like, they win? Can they get to a final four in Elite Eight? That's a very, very high mark for them, obviously. But I think they're very legitimately good. ⁓ The A10 is good. They've been able to do it versus every single kind of A10 team possible, which I think speaks volumes. They have to stick out. Like I said, raw kill shots, adjusted. They're second in the country. That's fine.

They're absolutely electric. Their offense is good. The best thing is they have athletes and shooters that are high major level players. Every player that they play, Ishaan Sharma, Trey Green, Robbie Avula have either played high level ball or they're pretty obviously when you watch them eye test wise, a high major player. So St. Louis definitely jumps off the page. The other teams here make sense. Vandy has done it for especially the earlier part of the year where they're still lingering around here. Duke, Florida, Nebraska, Illinois, Houston have been some of the best teams in the entire country. Although Nebraska, I would have thought have given up.

a few more than they have. So I do like that they're down here.

Evan (25:12)
Yeah, yeah, I think Nebraska shows that they are capable of ⁓ flipping a switch and taking over games, and I think that's gonna keep them in a lot of games going into the tournament. I still think they have a chance at getting to an Elite Eight or a Final Four this year. Iowa State is just an interesting one here because they do not, they're one of the best teams in the country, obviously. They don't fall in this group, and it's because they have allowed, they're doing great on the offensive side of going on runs, but they have allowed 10 total kill shots on the season, which is a lot more than these other teams.

I found that one to be very interesting. Does that kind of align with what you think about this group?

Ryan Hammer (25:46)
Yeah, and I think when we talk about, we mentioned before, like their offense slows down. their defense has really not had like massive holes and gaps. I think it's more their offense slows down and then they just can't score. So naturally other teams are going to score points eventually. They're going to go on these runs. It does alarm me a little bit. And it is surprising to see how high hop they are defensively without a doubt. I don't love that at all. There's still some season left. still like, I wouldn't put it past them to classify them as the Nebraska, Houston, Illinois, St. Louis group, because like,

They are relatively close, it's not off that far. And as long as it doesn't get worse, then it's not really a worry at all.

Evan (26:21)
Okay, let's move next to the streaky category. This is probably my favorite part of the graph typically It's basically looking at teams who go on lots of scoring ones But also are very prone to giving them up and what that often means is the experience of watching these games is It's all over the place The game is never over till the final whistle happens because these teams could be up and down and all over the place so the teams that fall in this category are Purdue Texas A ⁓ Cincinnati Belmont Cal, Iowa San Diego State

Ryan Hammer (26:26)
Yeah.

Yeah

Evan (26:50)
and Georgia. Those are the teams that are in the streaky category. feel like fans of a lot of these schools would be like, yep, I identify with that experience. Which one's the most interesting to you there?

Ryan Hammer (26:59)
This is the most hilarious group of all time. Like, if you just listed out these schools and said, what do you guys think to people? What do you think this group has in common? You would never think Purdue, Cal, Georgia, and Belmont would be in the same group in anything, which is so funny. Belmont, by the way, best team in the MVC. They're unbelievable right now. Shout out Casey Alexander, my guy over there, the head coach. they're super, super fun. I didn't think they'd be giving up as many, but they're an offensive minded team, analytically very, very sound and beautiful. I think they're still.

Evan (27:06)
Ha

Ryan Hammer (27:26)
number one, an effective field goal percentage in the entire country. If I'm not mistaken, or might be St. Louis, but they're awesome. I think these volatile teams are fun when they're underdogs. Purdue being here is alarming for sure. And Purdue has had a lot of volatility throughout the year, so it makes sense. But Belmont, I've talked about Cal. They've been able to compete with and beat good teams, but have really bad losses where if they can get in the tournament, that's not fun to play against if they can kind of click right. ⁓ NC State's kind of lingering also. They've been similar to that. Tech, Sanam. Iowa is surprisingly here because

Evan (27:37)
Yes.

Agreed.

Ryan Hammer (27:56)
I wouldn't

think that I would think that they're on the exact opposite side of the spectrum bottom left with how slowly they play and how little streaks and points there are. But the fact they're in the top right is odd. They also have had a really rough week. So that probably didn't help them.

Evan (28:10)
For sure, yeah. feel like sometimes people underrate the fact that it's defenses that can often decide kill shots because it's not just like being able to hit a bunch of threes really quickly, it's also like being able to clamp down defensively and just stop an opponent from scoring. And so I feel like for a team like Iowa who's so systematic, some of these kill shots that they can go on can be more like they're able to just like, you know, be really sound defensively and then just slowly knock the score up here and there. But then they have shown the ability against

Ryan Hammer (28:24)
Yeah.

Evan (28:40)
teams like Purdue, for example, to just suddenly give up a lot of points. But like you said, teams in this group, circle them as upset potential in March. Because that means if they're, yeah, exactly. Because if they're in a second round game against a top three or four seed, they could actually get lucky hot and the streakiness works in their favor. On the opposite side of things, we have the least streaky group. This is basically the opposite. These teams don't go on many score runs. They also don't give them up often either.

Ryan Hammer (28:49)
Yeah, round of 64 exit or sweet 16. There you go.

Evan (29:09)
If you're getting towards the end of the game, there's five or six minutes left. Typically the team that has the lead is going to win. What's fascinating to me is, so I'll just list the teams here, Kentucky, Yukon, Tennessee, Akron, Yale, Texas, Miami, Florida, Stephen F. Austin. Kentucky is wild that they're on this list because they had some crazy comebacks this season as we've often seen. What this probably doesn't show is that like some of these comebacks, they've just not actually had

Ryan Hammer (29:29)
Same.

Evan (29:37)
consecutive periods where they've scored 10 points altogether necessarily. So sometimes it's the exact like threshold that can cut some of this stuff off. ⁓ But on the flip side of things, Kentucky has not been very susceptible to giving up scoring runs. In some of the games earlier this season when they were outplayed, it was probably more just an overall thing that just happened over the course of a game. But they've not necessarily been in many spots where they've just like blown a big lead on the opposite end of what they've done with their comeback wins.

Ryan Hammer (29:40)
Yeah.

Evan (30:06)
I find that one to be interesting. Yukon being in that group is also interesting as well. ⁓ Yeah, what sticks out to you about this group?

Ryan Hammer (30:12)
If you asked me to predict this chart, pick one team in every spot before I looked at it, I would predict Kentucky to be the exact opposite. I predict them to be where we just talked about the most streaky all the way top right. They must have gone on a lot of eight, eight, nine runs and given up a lot of eight, nine runs, which you would think at some point turned the tenor, but I guess it's a good thing that they don't let that happen. But not a good thing that they don't like I still classify them as the cardiac cats. Like they can still be that which is good. I think this is good for them to be here actually, for sure. You kind of definitely interesting because they won national championships being

the elite teams where Michigan, Arizona are, we call it a Husky, right? The 30-0 run or whatever. Like when they had Illinois in the lead eight or whatever it was, that is what they have won. That's how they've won the national championships that they've won. They've won on being the most elite team in this exact chart. So that does alarm me. And I think their offensive ceiling is why you saw it in the Providence game in overtime. You saw it against Seton Hall. You saw it against BYU. They were able come back on them in a streaky game in that one. But like their offensive ceiling.

because of the lack of it, they can't just stretch big leads out and close out every single game possible. They're still a great team. They're awesome. I wouldn't put a pass down here to kind of figure these things out, get into a final four or something, but it does make me question the national title contention. think SF Austin's a good call out. Like, you know, I'm a sicko for the mid-majors. SF Austin, McNeese State out in the Southland is a great battle and SF Austin's kind of had their number a little bit. And even Akron and Yale, Yale makes a lot of sense to be here. Akron usually goes on a lot more scoring runs than they have, but

between Akron and Miami, it's gonna be a battle on the max.

Evan (31:45)
Yeah, for sure. All right, before we get off this, I will just briefly mention a few notable teams that are in the suspect group. These basically are teams that don't go on tons of square runs. They give up a lot who are likely to be in the tournament or at least in the conversation. Santa Clara, UCF, Creighton, ⁓ don't love that they're in that group. Santa Clara, think, is going to need to win on the road against St. Mary's to really have a shot at getting an at-large berth. And so be watching for them to get kill shot.

kill shots in that game or lack thereof, could be the key there.

Okay, before we get out of here, I wanna ask you, I know you and I both love looking for dark horse teams who are outside the top 15, top 20, who could go on deep runs and make some noise. So I wanna ask you, who do you think the teams are most likely to make the final four or go on a deep run who are outside of my top 20 right now at evanmeh.com? So this list is like Alabama, St. Louis, Utah State, Texas, Kentucky, and you can go down the list.

Ryan Hammer (32:37)
Yeah.

Evan (32:42)
So these are all teams that are probably not going to be likely picks to make a final four, at least in this point in time, but maybe identifying teams here who have the ingredients, have the stylistic play, have the volatility to get hot and go deep. So what are the teams on this list that you think would be the most intriguing picks to kind of make a run that no one is expecting to happen?

Ryan Hammer (33:05)
Yeah, looking at it in a vacuum, like the things, you said, volatility is important. You have to prove to me, you have to have proven that you've been able to beat really good teams because at some point to get to a final four, you're to have to beat a one seed or two, or most likely going to have to beat someone very good, if not two or three teams to get on that path, especially as an underdog team. So that's one thing, being able to beat really good teams, even if you have bad loss in the year. And I think this is where like the trapezoid stuff, whatever the pace stuff, being outside of that is good. Being very one dimensional.

but so good that one dimension is actually good. So Alabama's 21. I think Alabama is an easy one to point to. They have gotten to a final four and he lead eight on the backs of this exact system with great guards, LeBaron file on eight and Holloway. think that they definitely could do that with the right path if everything is set up well for them. I'd be remiss if I didn't mention Wisconsin and just their ability to beat anybody. Now that Texas Tech has beaten Arizona also, I think Wisconsin's trio of wins, Michigan, Illinois, Michigan State are the second best in the country, but you could argue it's the first best. Like they have...

some weird losses earlier in the year, but they're playing much different, different basketball. And Nick Boyd has been unbelievable and they look absolutely fantastic getting towards postseason play. So Wisconsin is definitely a team and I'm going to throw in St. Louis out there. Like I don't North Carolina with Caleb Wilson. I don't want to like commit to that, but I think St. Louis, the way they play can legitimately match up well versus power teams. I think about the big teams that they would play well against. I love Nebraska.

But Nebraska forces teams to shoot a lot of threes. St. Louis will gladly take that. And I think that's a really good matchup for them. So if they're like a seven and Nebraska's a two, there you go, boom. All of a sudden you have a chance this year in the Sweet 16 and you got to win one more game to sniff a final four. So I think St. Louis is worth mentioning.

Evan (34:42)
Yeah, I think we're in agreement with a lot of these here. I think you have to mention Wisconsin. They've shown the ability to beat some massive opponents this year. in a second round or sweet 16 game, you can see them having a little bit of like an Arkansas type run from last year where it's like, Hey, this team is really shooting way over what their seat is and you know, has some killers on that team. So I think that's an obvious choice. St. Louis, I also think is a good choice here. Another thing that backs up them as being a potential dark horse here is of all the teams on this list, they're the

most positive and my opponent's strength adjustment metric, which basically measures how much better do you play against elite competition versus bad competition? They've not had opportunities to play top 20 teams, but if you look at the best teams they've played on their schedule, they've beaten George Washington, VCU, and Santa Clara, who are all tournament level type teams. George Washington, maybe less so, but VCU and Santa Clara are all inside the top 50, and they have played some of their better basketball in the performances in those games, so.

Again, different test if we're talking about high major teams that they might face in the tournament, but I think that they're gonna be dangerous. Utah State, I think I have to mention too, just purely because of the volatility. If you look at, on my website, if you pull up any team's matchup preview, you can see their consistency rank. Utah State is 362nd out of 365 teams in game-to-game consistency. In other words, they're super all over the place.

Ryan Hammer (35:59)
Okay

Evan (36:02)
That can work out in your favor if you just get lucky and get hot. If they can string two to three games together where they're playing their best basketball, their ceiling is higher than everyone else. Their floor is also low. But if we're talking probabilistically, which team could go on a heater? It could be Utah State. So that could be super fun.

Ryan Hammer (36:06)
I love it.

Yeah,

I don't hate that. was out there and those are my guys. I love them. I think they're much better suited to make runs than they have in the past. Their defense is much better. They know that they've been kind of locked in on that. That is actually a ridiculously unbelievable metric. they've even with that volatility, they've won almost every single game. And the losses they have are versus teams that South Florida is the best team in the AAC, GCU and UNLV scream volatility of like they have these crazy hot games. like things like that just happen. They're good. They're very, very good, but they're crazy all over the place.

Evan (36:47)
Yeah, well, I know we could keep chatting, but I'm gonna let you go. You've got important places to be, like in Hilton Coliseum for the Iowa State-Huson game tonight. That's gonna be a ton of fun. So thank you so much, Ryan, for joining me on the show today, and enjoy yourself tonight.

Ryan Hammer (37:00)
Thanks man, it's been an honor. I'm happy to be here.

Evan (37:02)
Great stuff from Ryan. I really appreciate him coming on the show with me today. I have been following Ryan Hammers content for years and now his new blue blooded podcast that he just launched this last summer has been a smash hit, super fun to listen to. Lots of great ⁓ interviews that he gets as well with players and coaches and analysts and things like that. You are not going to find a more energetic and passionate college basketball content guy out there. So be sure to follow all of his stuff on

Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Twitter, pretty much all the places. He's everywhere these days. So be sure to go check out Ryan's stuff there.

Evan (37:38)
Well guys, are some things happening in the sport over the weekend in the Big 10 and ACC that we haven't touched on yet. And so I am thrilled to have the great Terrence Oglesby with me today to dig into some of these results. Tio, I want to start with probably the biggest result in the Big 10, which was Wisconsin having a huge home win over Michigan State on Friday night. I think coming into this game, this game could have really gone either way. Obviously, Michigan State's a good team. Wisconsin has shown the ability to beat big teams this year. They already had

road wins over Michigan and then Illinois last week. And actually, if you look at it, Michigan State hasn't really had a notable road win yet at all this season. They have losses to Nebraska and Minnesota. This was probably one of their bigger road tests that they've had. ⁓ And ultimately, Wisconsin just kind of blew the doors open on this game. 51 first half points. I think for me, the story of this game was probably Nick Boyd and John Blackwell. Nick Boyd had 29 points, hit five threes.

John Blackwell also had 24 points at four three. It's just a really good three point shooting night overall for Wisconsin and against the Michigan State team that normally plays really good defense, Wisconsin kind of torched him. So I know you watched this game some Friday night. Like what were your takeaways overall for this win ⁓ over Sparty?

T.O. (38:51)
⁓ fantastic performances by guards still win. I think that's first and foremost. ⁓ look, Nick boy is terrific. Seen him at San Diego state a couple of years, like strong guard can create a little bit. I want to give a lot of credit to Greg guard and kind of how he's kind of evolved into what Wisconsin is now. You remember six, seven years ago, this was not the same Wisconsin team. was slow. was methodical. It was boring. No longer boring. No longer boring. He's a he's let he's cut these guys loose and

John Block Blackwell, I got a chance to interview him after the game. What an impressive young man. He played fantastic. Was it his most efficient night? No, but he was still able to get things going. And you know, when you have two guys that can create for themselves, it changes the game a little bit. And you have one go off in the first half and one go off in the second half. It's tough. Look, Michigan State, we know what they are. They're going to be hard nosed dudes. Where it kind of changes things is like where, if you have individual shot creation.

That's where these team defenses can have trouble. That's the biggest thing there because Michigan State, they're going to be in the right spots. They're going to be. They're going to be tough on help side, all that. But if you're over top of the help side, it doesn't freaking matter. So that's kind of my takeaway. I love Michigan State's team. I think they're they're physical. They're tough. How many guys are really going to be able to go off like that on a neutral side if we're looking forward and we're projecting towards conference tournaments in the NCAA tournament? Not all that many.

I think this year is different than most where there are some more, but at the same time, how do you not love what Michigan State is? You have to be able to shoot over the top of them to beat them and Wisconsin was able to do that.

Evan (40:27)
I'll talk a little bit more about Wisconsin in just a second, but are you at all worried about Michigan State? I was just looking at where they're ranked on my website now, and honestly, I'm kind of surprised by this because I think going into the Michigan-Michigan State game, probably if I remember correctly, Michigan State was like borderline top five team, had our argument to be the best defense in the country. Right now, I have them 19th, so they've slid all the way down to borderline top 20, and their defense is now outside the top 10.

So this overall has not been a good stretch for them at all, kind of starting probably with that Michigan loss at home. ⁓ So, you know, we know what this team is capable of and they have the story for them this season has been kind of outperforming what we thought their roster was capable of. Jeremy Fierce has been incredible. I think he's, you know, deserving to be in the all-American conversation. ⁓ But maybe this is a little bit of a regression to what we know that they are as a true team and maybe.

T.O. (41:15)
Yes.

Evan (41:22)
that they've been overshooting their talent levels so far and it's coming back to Earth a little bit, what do you think about that?

T.O. (41:27)
⁓ Michigan's a wagon, so I'm going to take them out. ⁓ Minnesota's got some weirdly good shot making. I think that's one thing that sticks out. I think Nico Medved is a heck of a coach and he can get any defense he plays against to move. And whenever you have Cade Tyson, who's been awesome for him, you know, those things can spur forward. you know, you lose three out of your last four, you look at kind of the human element of this whole thing. Like these are the dog days.

Evan (41:31)
For sure.

T.O. (41:54)
because this is before you really start talking about seeding for the conference tournament. is, you know, bubble conversation is in the conversation, but it's not necessarily like peak talk right now. You're in the dog days. You're right before conference tournament and seeding really happens. If I'm Tom Izzo, and I'm not, I'm not that smart, and if I'm Tom Izzo, this is where I feel good about my team, because I can get on them a little bit mid-February. The key is not to peak in mid-February. The key is to peak here at about, three weeks.

This is a perfect kind of breeding ground for his teaching and his toughness and what he wants his team to do. And they're still doing a lot of the same stuff. Like if they control the backboards, they attack the offensive glass. Like those are controllable things. He's loving this right now.

Evan (42:38)
I'm gonna mention a few things on Wisconsin and then we'll move on to the ACC here, but 15 threes in this game for Wisconsin, which has been a recipe for success for them this year in some of their big wins. They are 11 and 0 this season when they hit 13 or more threes, which there are not a lot of teams that even can hit 13 threes in a game that often. They also have 11 straight games of hitting nine or more threes, and that is very much in stark contrast to earlier this season. think they had before this last stretch of 11 games,

T.O. (42:53)
Pretty good.

Evan (43:06)
They had five games with seven or fewer threes. So they're really coming into gear where a lot of teams can struggle with inconsistency in shooting the three ball from night to night. Wisconsin has found it like nine plus threes every single game over the last 11 games. I haven't checked this, but there may not be another team in the country that can boast that. And you know, for Michigan State, Jeremy Fears had 12 assists and a turnover, but overall Michigan State shot 36 % from the field, which is a problem.

T.O. (43:34)
Mm-hmm.

Evan (43:35)
So not only was Wisconsin able to hit from three, but they were also able to hold them defensively. I think it's tough. Michigan State's offense obviously struggles a lot more than they would like. And when they're then allowing that barrage of threes as well, you're never going to really be that successful. So ⁓ not surprising for me.

T.O. (43:51)
Can I ask

you something just because outside looking in, and I'm not an analytics guy, is I read what you guys put together. A lot of times I don't know how you get to these numbers. I'm a feel guy. I've always been that way. ⁓ Wisconsin's volatility level has got to be up there. That's how I feel about a team that relies on the threes like you talk about.

Evan (44:14)
So in a way, yes, think stylistically I would absolutely agree with that. We certainly have seen the ceiling for this team is as high as any in terms of some of the wins they have. And my goodness, I against Illinois, against Michigan, against Michigan State. ⁓ I was actually surprised by this though, because they're not one of the teams that's ranked as one of the most volatile teams from performance to performance in this season. And they're also not a team that's labeled according to my analytics as being like really great against good teams and really bad against other teams.

I think some of that might be attributed to the fact that they just were a worse team earlier in the season. But if you look at how they played against their best opponents on their schedule, and you rank them according to their ranking, and you basically go from UCLA and better, they have nine games, it's basically win against UCLA, win against Ohio State, loss against Villanova, win against Michigan State, loss against Nebraska, win against Illinois, loss against Purdue. So it's not like they're kind of 50-50 whether they play well or not, and that kind of has been consistent with their schedule.

So I think they stylistically, they have as high a ceiling as anybody based on their three point shooting. And I think they're really on a heater right now. ⁓ So statistically, I don't necessarily know if there's anything else that contributes to that volatility other than the three point shooting. But I think when we get to the bracket, it's gonna be hard to not look at wherever their seeding to think, hey, they could knock off a one or two seed here and make a sweet 16.

T.O. (45:33)
So can I, all right, so now I'm gonna end up interviewing you. So what you're essentially telling me is they're consistently inconsistent? So when it comes to that, that lowers your volatility rate, because you know it's either gonna be feast or famine.

Evan (45:36)
Hahaha

Pretty much.

Yes, potentially. No, no, no, of course.

T.O. (45:50)
Potentially, we're not nailing it down to Wisconsin,

but I'm just, this always fascinates me. And by the way, for those of you listening, Evan helped me win my fantasy football league because he was my GM. So we ended up making that happen. Shout out to Roscoe Dash and Waka Flocka who actually took L's in that league. I'm a champion and we haven't played in two years. So I'm holding onto that belt for a long time. That all being said, this always fascinates me because...

Evan (46:00)
Hahaha.

You

T.O. (46:16)
Like for example, a lot of people are leaning into the analytics and obviously Wisconsin has to with these three point shots, but we see these giant swings in games and it, they've become more and more prevalent over the last seven, eight years. And it's obviously relying on a three point shot because like you said, it's consistently inconsistent, not just them, but a lot of teams. And to me, like I also covered the NBA, which you know, the data sets in the NBA are astronomical. You could just go nuts for days. Like

people are like, well, how come NBA teams they get up by 20 and then they're down and then they come back and then they're losing by 10. There's a 30 point swing. I was like, because the volatility of how they're playing, right? So to me, these are some of the big things that I look at. My question to you now is, and I've completely changed this, this podcast. Yeah, my like, are there certain things not shot making that as a person who looks at these things are more conducive to winning? For example,

Evan (47:01)
This is great, I love this.

T.O. (47:14)
controlling the offensive glass. ⁓ Which ones are kind of the biggest catalyst is what you've seen as far as winning is concerned.

Evan (47:22)
In terms of being consistently an excellent team, it is two point offense and defense because that is often very repeatable from game to game based on the personnel that you have in terms of your ability to score at the rim and preventing other teams. We've seen that with Michigan this year. That's a big reason why they're number one, similar case with Arizona. I also think being a turnover prone team or lack thereof often has is very repeatable from game to game often because teams that just

T.O. (47:25)
Yes.

Evan (47:51)
don't turn the ball over or constantly are forcing turnovers. You're just generating so many extra possessions that that ⁓ is a weakness that you can exploit in other teams if they're poor in or vice versa. So I think that's very repeatable. ⁓ Those are probably the two initially that I look at. Obviously, I think all that stuff is important. Like some of the best teams in the country, they look like a Florida or a Michigan. They are constantly out rebounding other teams because of their size and physicality. And that's pretty repeatable, generally speaking.

T.O. (48:05)
Sure.

Evan (48:19)
But with rebounding, that can be a little bit more conducive on is the other team making shots or not. Like if Wisconsin's hitting all the threes, you don't have chances to get rebounds. So those would be two of the things that I look at that there. Yeah.

T.O. (48:27)
Sure.

Okay, the two point

percentage part is interesting because I feel like we've gotten so perimeter driven. It's like, Hey guys, what actually wins? Like obviously there needs to be a healthy dose of threes just because, but are we, do you think there's a chance? And we've seen it a little bit where a lot of these rosters are going jumbo. You look at Arizona, you look at Michigan, you look at some Duke is huge. Like the effort to be better inside the three point line is kind of starting to.

recirculate. Like we went small for about seven, eight years. And I equate I equate it to like, you know, Sean at Texas, who his best teams at Arizona Sean Miller at Texas, his his for those listening that didn't just pick up on it like you and I did. But like, him at Arizona, you look at some of those rosters that he had huge physical overwhelming. And then you look at some of his recent teams at Xavier at Texas, it's like it's got a little too cute.

Like you're trying to shoot a lot of three, you're trying to go skill, but sometimes you're trading off three, four inches in height for just a tad more skill. I'm just kind of curious how that works. And even Florida, Like big, overwhelming physical, that in a college game wins much more so than what the NBA does, because everybody's big in the NBA.

Evan (49:47)
Well, the trend that we've seen this year, and I was talking to a coach at one of the teams that's ranked in the top 10 this year, is generally speaking, ⁓ we've seen a trend where teams are going more three-point shooting, right? Well, if you look at the very top teams this year, Michigan, Duke, Arizona, Houston, Florida, none of them are prolific three-point shooting teams. All of them are, they're controlling games by being big and physical and having big front courts.

and in Duke's case having a star player in Cameron Boozer, that you look at teams six through 20 and you see a lot of great three-point shooting, but the teams who are likely to end up on the one seed line this year, likely to win a national title, they're not doing that. And I think that's a testament to the portal and the fact that these teams can consolidate so much of that big athletic talent that it's so much of a strength for them that it's okay if they have a weakness in this other area. You could maybe say Florida.

is too weak in the three point shooting department, like really, really bad. But for those other four teams, Michigan Duke, Arizona, Houston, who I all have ranked comfortably top four in the country, like they all can hit threes, but that's certainly not a ⁓ strength of theirs. But it's because of everything else that they do well specifically ⁓ inside that allows them to be so successful, which has been a very interesting trend to monitor this year. Yeah.

T.O. (50:47)
Mm.

Yeah, I've kind

of been on that train the last couple of years. It's gone with my NCAA tournament picking whenever I pick the games. That's like who's big, rugged and physical. And if you take three points shooting out of it, like which team would you pick to win? Because everybody knows the referee swallow their whistles at the NCAA tournament, which hey, I'm all for because those games need to happen. like at the same time, like to me, everybody's gone. Basically, ever since Steph Curry came in, everybody's like, well, we all got to be able to shoot it.

And at the college game like how many guys are you going to have north of 42 besides you know Josh shirts at Saint Louis who have you looked at their numbers asinine how good they shoot the ball, but it's one of those things like how far can they make it if they run into one of these rugged teams? We've put such an emphasis on three point shooting and spacing out the floor. My my opinion is you need to have a couple that are a threat outside of that. You need to be huge and that's like that's what wins in the college game. If you're overwhelming physically because.

It's a dirtier game than the NBA. It's a dirtier game than the NBA and not everybody's huge. In the NBA, everybody's big. If you're not 6'10", 6'7", 6'8", 6'9", like you're not getting in the game unless you're C. On James who's 6'5", 280 pounds of solid muscle. You know what I mean? So it's like one of these things where I feel like there's always a trickle down effect from the NBA down to college. There's just not enough guys that are that good.

to be able to play this style of basketball like the NBA does. And I think there's a steep drop off in talent nationwide. And I'm not just saying that to be mean, but it's like one of these things where you just can't do the same things.

Evan (52:47)
Totally, and there's a huge discrepancy between the best players on the best teams and everyone else. And even on a given roster, it's hard to have that level of talent across the board to all do the same thing. Well, I mean, speaking of teams who are maybe okay at shooting threes but have a dominant front-court player, I wanted to briefly touch on some ACC stuff. Specifically, Duke and North Carolina both are led by a freshman who is really the heart and soul of what they're doing offensively, especially inside in Duke with Cameron Boozer and...

UNC with Caleb Wilson who now has a fractured hand could be out three to four weeks TBD on if we'll be back this season the hope is is there but this is a I mean North Carolina just beat Duke last week and now they have their best player out and This is a guy who is averaging 20 points and nine rebounds a game Highest rated player on the team on my side. He's top 10 in the country in terms of his statistical output

I have a injury adjustment on my website that looks at how a team is expected to perform when they have a player out injured. And this Caleb Wilson injury drops North Carolina from 26th best to 47th best team in the country when he's not playing. In addition, in this last game, they didn't have Henry Vesar in the game. If he's not in the game, that drops them to 65th best in the country. Or that's worth like seven points in an actual game if you're missing both those players. So.

T.O. (54:09)
and still

beat the brakes off a pit.

Evan (54:11)
Yes, which is, mean, that was not a given when you're missing your two front court players there. So what is your analysis overall in North Carolina? Like, what do you think the hope is for them? And how much do you think this Caleb Wilson injury really impacts them?

T.O. (54:22)
Have you read, have you read Bill Simmons talking about the Patrick Ewing effect? Yeah. I mean, like that's what's happened over the next couple years. And there's going to be a return to the norm or return to the mean or whatever. It's whatever you're a, you smart guys call it. You know what I mean? But like, I think it comes down to, you know, how good Seth Trimble going to be. I, in my opinion, man, you said they dropped what almost 20 spots. I think it's more than that because like not only

Evan (54:26)
Yes.

Yes.

T.O. (54:50)
And this is just a human element of me just looking at it. He, he's like a life raft, like for North Carolina, whenever everything goes awry, give it to Caleb and let's just figure out what happens. And that's what happened against Duke. Like he was so good in that first half against Duke. He held them on just long enough. And every time I thought Duke was going to take off and be up 20, 25, Caleb Wilson would go off for eight, 10, 12 points or whatever it was by himself. They no longer have that.

break glass in case of emergency, just throw it to one guy option and I'm not sure this team really moves it well enough or runs into their flow well enough to where you're going to be able to find shots consistently. Seth Trimble is going to have to hit another gear. ⁓ I'm worried. I think that's the best way I could put this. I'm worried and I think it's I think it's greater than 20 something odd spots as far as nationally is concerned because he booied everything.

Evan (55:40)
Absolutely.

T.O. (55:48)
They did.

Evan (55:50)
In terms of where I have them ranked without him, 47th best in the country, that's basically like borderline NCAA tournament team. Do you think that they're, do you think that's fair or do you think they're better than that?

T.O. (55:56)
It's out. Yeah.

I think it's absolutely fair. ⁓ unless they change their style of play dramatically and you're going to see them go a little bit smaller at times. They're going to play VESA at the five and then they're going to have four guards around and Jared Stevenson is going to have to have a harder, a higher workload. Of course. ⁓ they're going to have to rely on a lot more ball movement. I'd be interested to see if they're going to do a little bit more with VESA at the five and

around the perimeter, back door cuts, try to utilize his passing ability a little bit more. But right now, I think it's just really, ⁓ it's an uphill battle for him.

Evan (56:35)
Yeah, all right. I know you got to run, I want to get your thoughts briefly on right now. If you had to pick who your first team All-Americans would be. The timing of this, think, is really interesting because I think Cameron Boozer is safely a lock. I don't know if there is another single player that I would say is an absolute lock right now for first team All-American. I really struggle with deciding who I think my five would be. So I'd be very curious to hear from you. Who do you think would be your five players right now that would be?

As of this moment, most deserving to be first team All-Americans.

T.O. (57:06)
After JT Toppins last week, I would consider him a lock. I mean, he has been tremendous all season long. He reminds a couple of years ago when he was at New Mexico and I was doing the Mountain West Tournament. was like, man, he reminds me a lot of Gerald Wallace. Can't really shoot, all rugged, around the rim, super athletic if you wanted to move him to the three. Like all those things would work. No, hold on one second. My mom's calling me, of course.

Evan (57:08)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

T.O. (57:29)
But it's one of these things where he just does so many valuable things and his week last week, you know for Texas Tech going to Arizona and winning and just putting up some absurd numbers. I think I would throw him in there. DeBansa because he's leading the country in scoring. ⁓ Yaxle Landiborg because he's the best player on the best team in college basketball. And then ⁓ Thomas Hawk, who his stats don't jump out, but he just it seems like he just dominates games.

I just dominates games and you know injury played a part. Caleb Wilson was going to be in the mix there. Very much so in the mix for first team injuries play apart. Team success for me plays apart and those would be my five right now. Jeremy Fierce considered Braden Smith considered Christian Anderson considered. There's just a lot of really good players this year. I think Mike L Brown Junior what he did against NC State's laughably good. Average 37 points a game over the last week. Like what are we doing?

Evan (58:06)
For sure.

T.O. (58:27)
Like some of the stuff, if he were healthy, that's huge.

Evan (58:30)
So you've got Boozer, Toppin, DeBonsa, Yaxle, and Thomas Hauck right now. That's very interesting. I only share two of those names out of five. Now, the way that I often look at this is a little bit more analytics driven, as you might expect. I'm not necessarily often as blown away by pure volume. I'm not just looking at like 22 points per game and 10 rebounds. I'm also looking at how your impact on team performance and all this other stuff, right? So right now,

T.O. (58:36)
Mm-hmm.

Okay.

Sure. I love this. Yeah.

Evan (59:01)
Right now, my team, I agree on Cameron Boozer and I agree on Yaxle Lendeborg. I have those guys rated as the two most valuable players in the country. Yaxle and Boozer are the best players on the two best teams in the country right now that I have at Avamia.com. After that, I think this gets tricky. I think I'm taking both Jeremy Fears and Brayden Smith on this team. I think they have been excellent. I think they have been players who are carrying their teams.

T.O. (59:22)
Wow.

Evan (59:29)
Like if you look at most indispensable players in the country in terms of how much their injury would impact their team if they weren't available, I think those two guys are at the very, very top of that list because they're clearly the best player on their team. And then here is my, my fifth pick, which I think is going to surprise some people, but I actually want to like put some emphasis on this going forward. Silas Demery for UConn has been quietly really, really good. UConn obviously has been a great team this year. And I think both from the way that he has

like stepped up and been the best player on this team, how well UConn has played this season, what he has done at the point guard spot for them statistically, I think has been amazing. And I have not seen a lot of conversation about him being in this sort of first team, second team, all American ⁓ area. I think he deserves to be at least in this conversation. He might be my last pick. I also was very close on Joshua Jefferson, JT Toppin, Keaton Wogler, Christian Anderson, all of those guys are, I mean, any of those guys could be.

T.O. (1:00:22)
Josh Jefferson,

Evan (1:00:26)
on the first team by the end of the season. I think it's wide open. There's 10 or 11 guys who are all worth considering there. Eji De Bonta, obviously, in the conversation too. But yeah, I'm kind of glad that we have such a difference there because I think it's very fun.

T.O. (1:00:37)
Well, I'm

a field guy, right? You're a numbers guy. I'm a field guy. So whenever I watch it, who like who impacts it to me? Who does a lot of those right things? The Demary thing. I think some of his stuff could be inflated just simply because he's playing in the Big East and the Big East is the Big East this year and I'm not trying to. But I am. It's it's been pretty bad and so he's going to have some inflated statistics. He is very good. I wouldn't have him first team. Certainly an argument for fears and Smith.

Obviously understand that. ⁓ You know, I just yeah, as I watched those guys like the bantacon like everything's geared around him at BYU. ⁓ Hawk like everything Florida does is kind of predicated on his physicality. Landed Borg like that to me. That's the one where I'm like OK, I get it, but at the same time they are so dominant. That it's like well gonna gotta have one guy on there, right? So.

Evan (1:01:22)
Yeah, he's incredible.

Yeah.

T.O. (1:01:35)
And a lot of his analytics are pretty promising as well. He just doesn't shoot the ball great. It's just, you know, volume, the lack of volume is an interesting point. I like that point a lot. ⁓ But yeah, I mean, we're not that far off. We're not, we're not crazy far off.

Evan (1:01:38)
Mm-hmm.

The reality is all of

these guys deserved, should, if there's any year to have a 10 team first team, it's this year, which is stupid idea, but that actually kind of makes sense this year because there's so many guys who are deserving. Well, Tio, this is always a joy to talk to you. You've always have such a great pulse on college basketball. Super fun to get your insight today. So thank you so much for joining me on the show.

T.O. (1:01:54)
Yeah, yeah.

Hmm.

Yep, appreciate you having always a pleasure.

Evan (1:02:11)
Thank you to Terrence Oglesby for joining me today. As you guys can probably tell, I love talking to Tio. He's amazing. He's all over the place these days. He's an analyst for the Charlotte Hornets, but he also calls college games and is a regular on field of 68. So be sure to find him in all those spots. Okay. There's some other games that we haven't touched on that I want to give some light to from this weekend. Michigan, absolutely Molly WapT UCLA by 30 points, 86 to 56.

The big picture with Michigan here is they are the number one team at Evanmia.com and they have been number one on my site for, I think, since early December, maybe. I have to go back and check, but during the whole run when Arizona was undefeated, I still always had Michigan number one. ⁓ Again, that could change going forward, but I have always been, myself and my model have always been very convinced by what Michigan is doing and the way that they are absolutely dismantling teams.

at certain points certainly shows that. Right now, Michigan has the third ranked offense and number one ranked defense at evanmia.com. And they have a doozy of a week this week. They're playing on the road against Purdue on Tuesday in Mackey Arena. I will be there for that game. It seems like every national media person is flying in for this game because people have been circling this Purdue-Michigan game on the calendar ever since Michigan won in players era. That's gonna be a fantastic game.

I think Michigan is the best team in the country. I still think they could lose this game to Purdue. They are gonna be favored by two against Purdue on my site, but that's pretty close to a pick them there. Purdue on its own right has been great. Literally a week ago on the show, I was talking to Rob Doster and said, hey, I am not selling my Purdue stock right now. I think if there's any team that I can put faith in with the veteran players that they have, with the coach and Matt Painter,

to figure this out. They obviously have the talent to do it. I think it is Purdue. And this week they are moving absolutely in the right direction. Road wins over Nebraska and a very comfortable win over Iowa this weekend. I have them up to sixth in the country. ⁓ So they're knocking on the door of being a top five team again. So that game is going to be awesome on Tuesday. And then Michigan plays Duke on a neutral court on Saturday in Washington, D.C.

Right now I have Michigan favored by three and a half in that game over Duke, but these are the best two teams in the country according to my analytics at evameah.com. So this is going to be a real, real test of a week for Michigan. I think they'll probably split ⁓ those games ⁓ if not better, but they certainly could lose both of them because that's how good these opponents are. So big, big week for Michigan, but they're looking in good shape right now. Florida ⁓ had a nice home win against Kentucky 92 to 83.

I think the big story here is Xavier Lee, who has been inconsistent this year, had 22 points and hit four of seven from three. If Xavier Lee is able to even score 12 points a night or 15 points a night consistently hitting from deep going forward for Florida, that's massive because Florida's front court is massive, but the guard play has been inconsistent. So Lee having a good game is great there. I thought this was interesting. Five players on Florida in this game had two plus assists.

Which is really cool to see them spreading the ball around. No player had more than three, but a lot of players are kind of filling in the traditional point guard role, if you will. It just shows how many capable passing players they have on that team. The front court was dominant on the boards. Alex Condon had 11 boards, Chinalu at 11, Thomas Haug had eight. Really, really tough to beat Florida when their front court is that good. ⁓ So I have Florida ranked fifth right now. They're basically the next team out after the top four of Michigan, Duke, Arizona, and Houston.

⁓ So they have been really really good and I've said this before but Florida is gonna get a worse seed in the tournament than their actual team strength They're gonna be under seeded in that regard. So they will be a good pick to kind of outperform their seed line there ⁓ Okay, I want to spend some time on Duke beating Clemson at home 67 54 this particular game and result isn't that notable? But the reason I'm gonna spend some time on this is because I was at this game

In cameron indoor and this was my first time ever attending a game at cameron indoor And so, you know, maybe this isn't the best opponent that duke is bringing in but clemson is a very Capable team and this duke team has struggled with kems clemson recently in the past They lost them last year. I think they lost to them the year before And so this was still a very big game for them. The crowd was up for it. ⁓ cooper flag was in attendance at this game and so I

I had a great time there. The atmosphere there is unbelievable. And if you're sitting there as a media member, you literally have the Cameron Crazy student section standing more or less on top of you, almost falling over you as you're watching the game. So very cool experience there. The game itself, Duke was up by five at halftime. Clemson is a very capable team, especially defensively. And so I think Duke was struggling a little bit early, but an early second half run, they had a kill shot.

Where the lead was 11, they pushed this game to 21 and at that point there was really not much of a chance of Clemson coming back in this game. A lot of that was Cameron Boozer, he had a great stretch where he scored a bunch of points, some threes, set up some other people and really often times it's that, him taking over a game that really is what does it for Duke. Patrick Ngongba was back for this game and that is a big factor for Duke. He was limited in foul trouble against North Carolina last week. He was out with a

A hand injury in their win against Pitt earlier in the week. But having him back is big. ⁓ His on-off splits for Duke this year have been really good. Duke is performing, outscoring opponents by 12 more points per game when Patrick Ngong was on the court versus on the bench. So he was a big key. Isaiah Evans had a nice game. Duke, as I mentioned, is now up to second in the country at evanmia.com. They have passed Arizona after Arizona lost to Texas Tech.

⁓ And specifically I think the defense for this Duke team is the key and is probably an underrated part of their game Duke has obviously taken an offensive step back from last year's prolific team with Cooper flag and conk nipple and those guys But the defense this year I think has really been the catalyst for why they have been so good because their offense could be a little bit more hit or miss at times ⁓ They gave up point seven eight points per possession to Clemson in this game in non garbage time so on my website you can actually look at

Every single game, how many points per 100 possessions in a specific game a team is scoring or conceding in non-garbage time, which is a bit more of an indicative measure of when the game was really still in doubt, how did a team perform? They gave up 0.78 points to Clemson, which was their best this season against the top 75 opponent. This was also the worst offensive efficiency for Clemson in any game this season, 0.78. The second worst they had was 0.95 in a game against Syracuse.

So this was a massive drop for Clemson and really shows how difficult this Duke defense can be. And I think just looking at Duke on the season, how they performed defensively has been a little bit more of an indicator of whether they're winning games or not. Offense has been a little bit more all over the map, but the defensive consistency has been key for them. Their two losses this year against Texas Tech and North Carolina have both been in their three worst defensive performances when it comes to points per possession in non-garbage time.

They also, the other game that was in that bottom three was Florida State, a game that they won by only seven, or only four points, and Florida State's not that good. So that is really key for them. So we're talking about games against Texas Tech and North Carolina, they're giving up over a point per possession in non-garbage time. In this game against Clemson, they give up under .8. So that's a big one for them. Some other results, Gonzaga beat Santa Clara on the road Saturday night.

This was tough for Santa Clara. ⁓ Gonzaga, good team and I think they're performing well even without Braden Huff. They're hoping to get him back and they will be formidable when that happens. Santa Clara I think really needed to either win this game at home against Gonzaga or beat St. Mary's on the road later on the season in order to be kind of comfortably in the tournament. Right now I have Santa Clara just outside of the field in resume quality. They have an opportunity to go on the road against St. Mary's on February 25th.

Right now I have St. Mary's favorite in that game by four and a half points. So that's not a gimme by any means, but I Santa Clara needs that game in order to have an at large chance because otherwise there's just not enough opportunities there. So Santa Clara, good team. Right now I have them 40th in the country, but they're really gonna need that win. Vanderbilt beat Texas A 82 to 69 at home. Vanderbilt trending in the right direction. After they went so much of the season undefeated, they lost three in a row. Sky was falling.

But now they have won five of six and are really heading in the right direction. I have them back up to 12th in the country. And this stretch has been without some of their, you know, they've not had their whole roster available and they are still winning these games. So Vanderbilt has kind of studied the ship. I think some people thought they might fall off ⁓ just because of the lack of bigs that's been often catalogued with this team, but they have shown the ability to overcome that. And so I still think this is a very exciting team going into the tournament. Last one I'll mention today is

Louisville beat Baylor on a neutral Expected results, but Louisville has won five in a row and Michael Brown jr. Guys is putting up some ridiculous numbers In his last two games, he had 45 points Against NC State and then 29 against Baylor over the weekend 14 combined threes Across those two games. He also had six assists and five steals versus Baylor fun fact

If you look at on the player ratings page at Evanmia.com, you can actually see how much players have improved or gotten worse over a certain period of time. Mikel Brown Jr. is the most improved player in the country over the last week at Evanmia.com. His rating has gone up more than any other player. That just shows how incredibly dominant he has been. Louisville just has a completely different ceiling when Brown is healthy and playing well. And a lot of their struggles this season has been when he was either out

or inconsistent. So this is a really big development for Louisville. We know what they are capable of. Their guard play when they're playing well is as good as any. They're in a prolific three point shooting team. So great development for Louisville and it'll be interesting to see how they continue doing going forward, but good signs there.

Evan (1:13:05)
All right, before we get out of here, I want to just kind of set the table for some of these big, big games that we have this week. I've mentioned some of them on the show already today. ⁓ But on Tuesday night, ⁓ Michigan is going on the road against Purdue. That game is gonna be huge. The predicted score for that game at evanmia.com right now is Michigan 78, Purdue 76. So Michigan favored by about two points there. And then on Saturday,

The best four teams in the sport are all playing each other. Number one, Michigan, number two, Duke on my site, playing each other on a neutral. And the predicted score for that is Michigan 77, Duke 73. So Michigan favored by about four points. That will probably change by the time we get to the weekend based on how those teams performed earlier in the week. But then Houston is hosting Arizona. This is gonna be another great game. I have the predicted score for that game, Houston 73, Arizona 68.

⁓ Would be a great spot for Arizona to win given that they've come off of these losses But that's gonna be an incredible game. So just wanted to set the table there Listener contest I mentioned this at the beginning. I'm trying to do one of these once a month for all of our ⁓ Faithful listeners so that we can give out some free merch to you guys So we're gonna do another listener contest the winner of this will receive a free Evan Mia merch item of their choice from the Evan Mia comm merch store

which you can find by going to evanmia.com and clicking on the Merch tab there for anyone else. The way that we're doing this listener contest is I need you to submit which team do you think will improve their overall rating the most at evanmia.com between now and Sunday morning. Specifically the way this will work is whatever team that you submit to me based on the day that it's submitted, if it's Tuesday, if it's Wednesday, I will take their rating at that point in time.

and then see how much it goes up or down between that point and Sunday morning. Whichever person submits the team that has the biggest improvement in their rating at evanmia.com in that time span will win the listener contest. You can submit your teams, and you pick one team for this, you can submit your submission by sending me a direct message on Twitter or tagging me on Twitter, or you can send me an email at evanmiainfo at gmail.com.

Either tag me, message me, DM me on Twitter or Instagram if you follow me there. ⁓ Or email the show evanmiainfo at gmail.com with your submission and I will announce the winner of this in next week's show. So that should be super fun.

Evan (1:15:38)
That is a wrap for today's show. hope you guys all in. That is a wrap for today's show. I really hope you guys enjoyed it. I had a lot of fun doing this one. We will be back next Tuesday as we are every Tuesday leading up to March Madness. I've got some really fun plans in the work for shows that are going to be around that time frame. So be sure to stay around for that. As always, this is an ad free show. And so the best way that you can support this show is to.

Give a five-star review on Apple or Spotify, or if you watch on YouTube, subscribe, like, comment on the video. I'm gonna try and read out podcast reviews and YouTube comments as they come in. So ⁓ recently we had a podcast review on Apple from Ryan01217. Says, excellent podcast, filled with great data, highly recommend for any College Hoops fan. Thank you, Ryan. And on YouTube, at IraBohman5087 said, great pod.

Short and sweet, love that. So thank you guys, that really helps a lot with the show. I really appreciate everyone who is listening to this, it really means a lot to me and I will be back with you all next week, see you then.