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Everything that's worth knowing about Maryland-Denver in the championship of the NCAA Tournament.
From 10,000 Feet
Date and Time: Monday, May 25, 2015 at 1:00 ET
Location: Philadelphia, PA (Lincoln Financial Field)
Television/Internet: ESPN2 and WatchESPN have a traditional broadcast; ESPNU has a Spider Cam feed
Game "Fun Factor": 4.59 ("Solid")
Bradley-Terry Victory Probabilities on Massey Ratings Power Ratings (Through 5/17/2015 Games):
HIGHER SEED | LOWER SEED | FAVORITE | UNDERDOG |
(4) Denver | (6) Maryland | Denver // 52% | Maryland // 48% |
The Massey Ratings' matchup probability -- one that illustrates the Pioneers as expecting a 10-9 victory over the Terrapins -- is aggressive, providing the Pioneers with a 58 percent chance of victory. Utilizing the site's power ratings material in a Bradley-Terry model, though, Denver is closer to a 52 percent favorite against Maryland, a probability that aligns much more consistently with other approaches to creating a success probability (including a tempo-free analysis). Terps-Pioneers is decidedly a toss-up game with Denver residing as a tenuous one-goal favorite, a situation that carries forward an insane Championship Weekend in which no team held a probability advantage that advanced past toss-up status. Regardless of whether these are the two best teams in the nation, Memorial Day will feature two concerns that are competitively equivalent, the perfect capstone to an excellent Division I season.
What's Your Deal?
Denver
NCAA Tournament First Round: Beat Brown, 15-9
NCAA Tournament Quarterfinals: Beat Ohio State, 15-13
NCAA Tournament Semifinals: Beat Notre Dame, 11-10 (OT)
Spirit Animal: A Chevrolet LSX 454R crate engine
Maryland
NCAA Tournament First Round: Beat Yale, 8-7
NCAA Tournament Quarterfinals: Beat North Carolina, 14-7
NCAA Tournament Semifinals: Beat Johns Hopkins, 12-11
Spirit Animal: Dr. Christian Szell from Marathon Man
Truncated Scouting Reports
METRIC | MARYLAND | DENVER |
Estimated Pace | 57.84 (61) | 57.41 (63) |
Estimated Opportunities per 60 Minutes Margin | +2.81 (14) | +9.42 (1) |
Estimated Lost Functional Opportunities Margin Ratio | +11.42% (1) | +6.93% (8) |
Adjusted Offensive Efficiency | 34.11 (21) | 42.64 (2) |
Shots per Offensive Opportunity | 1.29 (3) | 1.16 (28) |
Ratio of Shots on Goal to Total Shots per Offensive Opportunity | 53.60% (63) | 64.13% (6) |
Offensive Shooting Rate | 26.66% (49) | 36.01% (3) |
Offensive Assist Rate | 15.82 (48) | 25.21 (4) |
Adjusted Defensive Efficiency | 22.80 (2) | 33.70 (50) |
Shots per Defensive Opportunity | 1.07 (19) | 1.37 (68) |
Ratio of Shots on Goal to Total Shots per Defensive Opportunity | 56.02% (9) | 56.16% (11) |
Defensive Shooting Rate | 23.31% (2) | 26.31% (16) |
Defensive Assist Rate | 12.83 (7) | 22.40 (63) |
Faceoff Percentage | 52.55% (22) | 67.10% (1) |
Clearing Percentage | 86.67% (28) | 84.67% (39) |
Turnover Margin | +10.66 (2) | +6.94 (13) |
"Run of Play" Groundballs Margin | +6.77 (4) | +0.48 (26) |
Penalties Margin | -0.19 (39) | +0.97 (16) |
Saves per 100 Defensive Opportunities | 34.87 (27) | 40.88 (6) |
Team Save Percentage | 58.39% (4) | 53.15% (24) |
Both Maryland and Denver are comfortable and prefer a deflated pace, and that should generate circumstances in which the Terrapins and Pioneers offer a tempo that hovers around 56 or 57 total possessions. That's slow -- about six opportunities off of the estimated national average -- and it isn't likely to deviate significantly from the expected volume of possessions: Against opponents ranking among the nation’s most efficient at the offensive end of the field, Maryland has averaged about 57 total opportunities per 60 minutes; against opponents ranking among the nation's most efficient at the defensive end of the field, Denver has averaged around 54 total possessions per 60 minutes. The profiles of these two teams -- especially in the context of the offense-defense struggle that will heavily influence the result of the game -- indicate an hour of pragmatism and patience, the residual issue inuring from this situation being whether Maryland-Denver will have sufficient heat around the deflated tempo each team is expected to support: Will this be a tedious sub-60 possession game or a compelling sub-60 possession feud?
Two Things
- Against opponents ranked in the top 20 in adjusted offensive efficiency (Yale, Princeton, North Carolina, Loyola, and Johns Hopkins), Maryland's defense has excelled in important ways, averaging a raw defensive efficiency rate that ranks below the national adjusted average while yielding only an average of nine goals per game:
MARYLAND'S DEFENSE AGAINST ITS BEST OFFENSIVE OPPONENTS METRIC VALUE BEST WORST Raw Defensive Efficiency 31.23 17.39 (Princeton) 53.37 (Hopkins (Reg. Season)) Raw Defensive Shooting Rate 25.93% 13.33% (Princeton) 40.54% (Hopkins (Reg. Season)) Raw Shots on Goal Shooting Rate 46.37% 25.00% (Princeton) 65.22% (Hopkins (Reg. Season)) Team Save Percentage 53.63% 75.00% (Princeton) 34.78% (Hopkins (Reg. Season)) - Utilizing Patrick McEwen's Elo-based faceoff ratings going into Championship Weekend, Trevor Baptiste is going to have his hands full against Charlie Raffa. Baptiste, the nation's leader in faceoff percentage, is projected to win 50.7 percent of his draws against Raffa, a significantly lower rate than the Pioneers overall faceoff percentage of 60.56 percent. This is problematic for Denver as faceoff victories have been the primary function underlying the Pioneers' nation-leading possession margin, but more importantly, Denver has relied on faceoff wins to create offensive possessions:
DENVER'S ESTIMATED OFFENSIVE POSSESSION PROFILE METRIC VALUE NT'L RANK Estimated Percent of Offensive Opportunities from Faceoff Wins 51.41% 1 Estimated Percent of Offensive Opportunities from Clearing Postures 43.28% 69 Estimated Percent of Offensive Opportunities from Opponent Failed Clears 5.31% 65