New Mexico St Scouting Report

[auror]

So I cranked through a couple truncated games on YouTube and pored over their stats and lineups.

Season Summary
26-6 (13-4 WAC).
Shared WAC regular season crown and then won 2 games against 4th seed and 6th seed to win conference tournament.
Their Athletic Director gave an interview and admitted they expected to be a 13 or 14 seed. Snuck in as the last 12 seed according to the seedlist. 96/100 brackets on Bracket Matrix had them as a 13.

Best wins - N-Davidson by 11. @Washington State by 3, @Grand Canyon by 16, H-Utah Valley by 16, N-Abilene Christian by 14.
Worst losses - H- New Mexico by 7. @Chicago St by 2, H-Stephen F. Austin by 2, N-Utah St by 27, @Sam Houston St by 25.

Generally trending upward. Similar to how we had a late year strong stretch with 1 stinker in the middle (@Creighton), they have had 5 of their best 9 results over the last 7 games. But the other 2 games were among their worst games all year.

Players Summary
Experienced roster (like many teams this season). Last game their top minute getters were: 4th year, 5th year, 5th year, 5th year, 3rd year, 3rd year. And a 6th year guy gets minutes. No freshmen get any minutes at this point in the season.
Tall roster, especially for a mid-major. 6'4" and up in the starting lineup.

• Clayton Henry - 6'4", 201 - Mostly just a shooter/defender. 3&D guard, but doesn't shoot very often. Has him initiate offense like the PG, but doesn't really playmake. Comp - Mid-major Myles Cale.
• Sir'Jabari Rice- 6'4", 185 - Goes by just Jabari on broadcasts. Long, thin, wiry combo guard. 5 3s attempted per game, good shooter with a pure stroke. Can drive and finish but often looks to kick. 2nd Team All-WAC. Comp - Looks like Dejon Jarreau, plays more like Marcus Sasser.
• Teddy Allen - 6'6", 212 - On-ball wing. Stronger than fast. High usage. Mid range, driving, and iso game. Will chuck from 3, but only okay accuracy. Plays at his own speed. Bad, flat-footed defender. WAC Player of the Year. Comp - Jarron Cumberland.
• Johnny McCants - 6'7", 229 - Short roll and face up and attack. Active defensively. High effort. Always moving. Can pass a bit. Takes a couple 3's a game, but bad shooter. Good finisher at rim. WAC blocks leader, 2nd Team All-WAC. Comp - Shorter Isaiah Whaley. No seriously. Once I saw it, I couldn't un-see it. Their play style, accessory style, and even their movement mannerisms are oddly similar. Enjoyed watching him play.
• Will McNair - 6'10", 277 - Wide body. Slow. Doesn't do much. Passes out a lot when posting up. Scores mostly on big to big passes from McCants, off dump-offs from guards, or offensive rebounds. Comp - Wider, worse Joel Soriano.
  
  
• Donnie Tillman - Out injured. (20 minute per game guy). Was a starter to start the year but lost job due to injury, didn't get it back, hurt again now.
• Yuat Alok - 6'11, 211 - Deep bench rebounder/shot blocker. Bit undersized to play C. 25 years old. Via JuCo, TCU, UCF, Coppin St, NMSU.
• Mike Peake - 6'7", 218 - Good on the offensive boards, can protect the rim a bit, can shoot from 3 a bit.
• Nate Pryor (6'3", 4th year) and Mario McKinney (6'1", 3rd year) split up the backup guard minutes and I have found no pattern for how those minutes are distributed. Seems random. Both incredibly turnover prone, neither can shoot. Coach would probably prefer to play neither, but neither Jabari or Clayton are really PGs.

I was going to do a whole section on lineups, but the plus/minus and impact data all basically comes down to: Rice, Allen, and McCants are very good and very important. Everyone else is replaceable and not as good. Rice had a couple bad games over the last 30 days due to a back injury, but seemed fully healthy in the conference tournament.

Coach & Style of Play Summary
Chris Jans - 5th season at NMSU - 121-31, 4* tournament appearances (*2020 projected autobid), 0-2 NCAA record, both losses as 12 seeds.

• Peculiarly, they play slow on offense (281st), but fast on defense (75th). Defense isn't caused by press or pressure, as they don't really force turnovers and almost never steal the ball.
  • In an interview, Jans seemed to hint that they give up some non-optimal shots easily in an effort to goad offenses into them.
• They play mostly man to man defense, but mix in zones somewhat frequently, both 1-3-1 and 2-3. Opponents tend to take a lot of off the dribble 3's against them (317th 3PA rate, but low opponent assist rate 110th... these usually correlate, especially for zone Ds).
• They employ a number of ball screen defenses and switch up on the fly (high hedge, ice, force hand, show, switch, drop) based on opponent scheme, opponent personnel, and their own personnel. In the SFA game they did employ lots of drop coverage like Creighton did against us, parking McNair in the paint. Like us, SFA plays 2 or 3 non-threatening shooters. Often McCants plays free safety weakside in the paint way off non-shooters. I expect them to employ similar tactics as Creighton, but hopefully not having Kalkbrenner makes a difference. Or we solve it this week in practice.
• They will double the post at times on defense big to big.
• They take an above average amount of 3's, but shoot only average on them. (105th in attempt rate, 216th in accuracy, almost median 170th in % of points from 3's). Rice and Allen take a lot of off the dribble 3's.
• They throw the ball to the other team quite a bit (313th), both just being careless, and sometimes forcing things (Allen especially guilty of this). Partially caused by not having a true PG worth playing.
• Good offensive rebounding team (39th - McNahir, McCants, and Peake especially)
• They gang rebound, but Teddy Allen often rips and runs in a similar manner (just much slower) to Andre Jackson.

Shot Charts
UConn offense vs. New Mexico defense (top)
New Mexico offense vs. UConn defense (bottom)

One interesting thing to note is that the corners is a weakspot of our defense, but they do not shoot well or often from these spots. We hope that part of SFA's success guarding the paint is due to the competition level, and/or that our volume (offensive rebounding, turnovers forced,) will make up for low efficiency

 

[ucp990411]

Thanks. Looks like we match up well with them. I would think we will really try to force the tempo, they may be a decent rebounding team but they will be seeing the most physical team they have played. Andre on Allen looks like the key match up.

 

[awfuldan]

Hard to imagine that Teddy Allen was had anyone like Andre Jackson and Tyrese Martin defending him in the WAC. Nice that we have two big, skilled, athletic defenders to throw at him.

Hopefully we can make some three-pointers this game. Would be big.

 

[auror]

Andre on Allen looks like the key match up.

Yeah I think we match up pretty well from a personnel standpoint.

We can "hide" Cole on Henry, Pryor, or McKinney, whomever is in, so it doesn't matter that they are all 6'4". Have Martin and Jackson to cover Smith and Allen. Whaley covers the Whaley clone, and then Sanogo on their true big.

They don't really have a small ball lineup. All their best lineups have McNair in. They can play Peake and McCants together without McNair which gives them the most shooting, but they haven't used that lineup in the last 6 games, and I think Sanogo and our rebounding would probably beast that lineup.

 

[NotADime89]

If Adama stays out of foul trouble I think he has a field day against NMSU. McCants is too weak to guard Adama and McNair is too slow. Also, you know for a fact Adama is disappointed in his last 2 performances so he will have some extra motivation going into Thursday. LETS GO HUSKIES!!!

 

[RichCTBB]

Great work here. Thanks for posting

 

[Kolumbo]

So I cranked through a couple truncated games on YouTube and pored over their stats and lineups.

Season Summary
26-6 (13-4 WAC).
Shared WAC regular season crown and then won 2 games against 4th seed and 6th seed to win conference tournament.
Their Athletic Director gave an interview and admitted they expected to be a 13 or 14 seed. Snuck in as the last 12 seed according to the seedlist. 96/100 brackets on Bracket Matrix had them as a 13.

Best wins - N-Davidson by 11. @Washington State by 3, @Grand Canyon by 16, H-Utah Valley by 16, N-Abilene Christian by 14.
Worst losses - H- New Mexico by 7. @Chicago St by 2, H-Stephen F. Austin by 2, N-Utah St by 27, @Sam Houston St by 25.

Generally trending upward. Similar to how we had a late year strong stretch with 1 stinker in the middle (@Creighton), they have had 5 of their best 9 results over the last 7 games. But the other 2 games were among their worst games all year.

Players Summary
Experienced roster (like many teams this season). Last game their top minute getters were: 4th year, 5th year, 5th year, 5th year, 3rd year, 3rd year. And a 6th year guy gets minutes. No freshmen get any minutes at this point in the season.
Tall roster, especially for a mid-major. 6'4" and up in the starting lineup.

• Clayton Henry - 6'4", 201 - Mostly just a shooter/defender. 3&D guard, but doesn't shoot very often. Has him initiate offense like the PG, but doesn't really playmake. Comp - Mid-major Myles Cale.
• Sir'Jabari Rice- 6'4", 185 - Goes by just Jabari on broadcasts. Long, thin, wiry combo guard. 5 3s attempted per game, good shooter with a pure stroke. Can drive and finish but often looks to kick. 2nd Team All-WAC. Comp - Looks like Dejon Jarreau, plays more like Marcus Sasser.
• Teddy Allen - 6'6", 212 - On-ball wing. Stronger than fast. High usage. Mid range, driving, and iso game. Will chuck from 3, but only okay accuracy. Plays at his own speed. Bad, flat-footed defender. WAC Player of the Year. Comp - Jarron Cumberland.
• Johnny McCants - 6'7", 229 - Short roll and face up and attack. Active defensively. High effort. Always moving. Can pass a bit. Takes a couple 3's a game, but bad shooter. Good finisher at rim. WAC blocks leader, 2nd Team All-WAC. Comp - Shorter Isaiah Whaley. No seriously. Once I saw it, I couldn't un-see it. Their play style, accessory style, and even their movement mannerisms are oddly similar. Enjoyed watching him play.
• Will McNair - 6'10", 277 - Wide body. Slow. Doesn't do much. Passes out a lot when posting up. Scores mostly on big to big passes from McCants, off dump-offs from guards, or offensive rebounds. Comp - Wider, worse Joel Soriano.
  
  
• Donnie Tillman - Out injured. (20 minute per game guy). Was a starter to start the year but lost job due to injury, didn't get it back, hurt again now.
• Yuat Alok - 6'11, 211 - Deep bench rebounder/shot blocker. Bit undersized to play C. 25 years old. Via JuCo, TCU, UCF, Coppin St, NMSU.
• Mike Peake - 6'7", 218 - Good on the offensive boards, can protect the rim a bit, can shoot from 3 a bit.
• Nate Pryor (6'3", 4th year) and Mario McKinney (6'1", 3rd year) split up the backup guard minutes and I have found no pattern for how those minutes are distributed. Seems random. Both incredibly turnover prone, neither can shoot. Coach would probably prefer to play neither, but neither Jabari or Clayton are really PGs.

I was going to do a whole section on lineups, but the plus/minus and impact data all basically comes down to: Rice, Allen, and McCants are very good and very important. Everyone else is replaceable and not as good. Rice had a couple bad games over the last 30 days due to a back injury, but seemed fully healthy in the conference tournament.

Coach & Style of Play Summary
Chris Jans - 5th season at NMSU - 121-31, 4* tournament appearances (*2020 projected autobid), 0-2 NCAA record, both losses as 12 seeds.

• Peculiarly, they play slow on offense (281st), but fast on defense (75th). Defense isn't caused by press or pressure, as they don't really force turnovers and almost never steal the ball.
  • In an interview, Jans seemed to hint that they give up some non-optimal shots easily in an effort to goad offenses into them.
• They play mostly man to man defense, but mix in zones somewhat frequently, both 1-3-1 and 2-3. Opponents tend to take a lot of off the dribble 3's against them (317th 3PA rate, but low opponent assist rate 110th... these usually correlate, especially for zone Ds).
• They employ a number of ball screen defenses and switch up on the fly (high hedge, ice, force hand, show, switch, drop) based on opponent scheme, opponent personnel, and their own personnel. In the SFA game they did employ lots of drop coverage like Creighton did against us, parking McNair in the paint. Like us, SFA plays 2 or 3 non-threatening shooters. Often McCants plays free safety weakside in the paint way off non-shooters. I expect them to employ similar tactics as Creighton, but hopefully not having Kalkbrenner makes a difference. Or we solve it this week in practice.
• They will double the post at times on defense big to big.
• They take an above average amount of 3's, but shoot only average on them. (105th in attempt rate, 216th in accuracy, almost median 170th in % of points from 3's). Rice and Allen take a lot of off the dribble 3's.
• They throw the ball to the other team quite a bit (313th), both just being careless, and sometimes forcing things (Allen especially guilty of this). Partially caused by not having a true PG worth playing.
• Good offensive rebounding team (39th - McNahir, McCants, and Peake especially)
• They gang rebound, but Teddy Allen often rips and runs in a similar manner (just much slower) to Andre Jackson.

Shot Charts
UConn offense vs. New Mexico defense (top)
New Mexico offense vs. UConn defense (bottom)

One interesting thing to note is that the corners is a weakspot of our defense, but they do not shoot well or often from these spots. We hope that part of SFA's success guarding the paint is due to the competition level, and/or that our volume (offensive rebounding, turnovers forced,) will make up for low efficiency

Look how weak our offense in the paint is, that's surprising, but their defense is very weak. Yet the Aggies offense in the paint is very strong.

If I read this correctly, it is saying our corner defense is strong, red.

 

[Frank06830]

Auror. Amazing breakdown. Thanks

 

[J187Money]

Thanks for the effort - all pumped for the game now!!

 

[Icehawk]

McNair is 277? Sheesh that's big. I think we matchup pretty well here but I don't want to kick the mojo gods in the nuts.

 

[elmcityboy]

yeah, this is great! thanks @auror.

i was listening to the ct scoreboard interview with one of their beat writers (shoutout @gwhuskyfan i believe) and was happy to hear that they use mccants in a lot of pick-and-rolls. with whaley guarding him, and both ballhandlers averaging a ton of to's, i like our chances to turn nmsu over and get some easy points on the fast break.

if we are scoring easily off of turnovers, i have a hard time seeing how we lose -- my big concern with this uconn team is always a half-court game where we go 2/18 on threes and turn it over a bunch ourselves.

 

[auror]

Look how weak our offense in the paint is, that's surprising, but their defense is very weak. Yet the Aggies offense in the paint is very strong.

If I read this correctly, it is saying our corner defense is strong, red.

What we sometimes lack for accuracy in the paint, we make up for with volume. All those missed tip-in offensive rebounds count as a paint shot miss. Some teams' shots in the paint are just transition layups and lob dunks. Sanogo's jump hooks aren't as accurate in comparison, and he does need to improve this accuracy a bit in the offseason. He's much more efficient when he's pivoting and getting a layup instead of doing the baby hook.

Corner defense is "strong" but the site doesn't change the terminology. It's giving up a higher % than D1 average.

 

[UConnKev]

Re: McKinney/Pryor

McKinney was in Jans doghouse for quite sometime but got a good amount of run in the WAC tournament and played exceptionally well. He’s a Big East caliber athlete who can get to the hoop. I’d look for him to get more run than Pryor who is not a threat offensively and in my opinion shouldn’t get playing time.

 

[auror]

Re: McKinney/Pryor

McKinney was in Jans doghouse for quite sometime but got a good amount of run in the WAC tournament and played exceptionally well. He’s a Big East caliber athlete who can get to the hoop. I’d look for him to get more run than Pryor who is not a threat offensively and in my opinion shouldn’t get playing time.

McKinney has a 47.8% turnover rate in 9 KenPom A+B games. That's so hilariously high. It's definitely a little bit of small sample size theater, but in those games he has 2 total assists vs. 16 turnovers in 74 minutes.

I don't think him getting to the rim against our defense is going to be particularly effective, either. He was being guarded by a 5'7" guy or 6'0 sub 200 lbs guy when he played well against Abilene Christian.

 

[Tenspro2002]

We're weak at the rim and they're strong at defending it -- going to have to get a lot of offense from Cole and Martin mid-range shots.

The interesting strength vs. strength matchup will be their interior offense vs. our shot-blocking.

 

[Tenspro2002]

Look how weak our offense in the paint is, that's surprising, but their defense is very weak. Yet the Aggies offense in the paint is very strong.

If I read this correctly, it is saying our corner defense is strong, red.

No, blue universally means low percentage (bad offense, good defense), red is the opposite.

They have strong defense both inside and outside. Their interior offense is good.

Our offense is so-so. Our defense is strong inside and decent outside.

Of course, those are raw percentages not adjusted for quality of competition. Our Kenpom adjusted efficiency is better on both offense and defense (we're in the 20-30 range for both, they're in the 70-80 range for both).

 

[ucp990411]

If Adama stays out of foul trouble I think he has a field day against NMSU. McCants is too weak to guard Adama and McNair is too slow. Also, you know for a fact Adama is disappointed in his last 2 performances so he will have some extra motivation going into Thursday. LETS GO HUSKIES!!!

If left one on one Adama should be able to score but they rely heavily on big to big doubles which will negate Adama somewhat.

 

[awfuldan]

Their coach might be a little distracted this week..

 

[UConnKev]

Their coach might be a little distracted this week..

His name has been mentioned in coaching searches for the last 3 years. It’s inevitable that’ll he will be gone soon.

 

[gsmooth]

So I cranked through a couple truncated games on YouTube and pored over their stats and lineups.

Season Summary
26-6 (13-4 WAC).
Shared WAC regular season crown and then won 2 games against 4th seed and 6th seed to win conference tournament.
Their Athletic Director gave an interview and admitted they expected to be a 13 or 14 seed. Snuck in as the last 12 seed according to the seedlist. 96/100 brackets on Bracket Matrix had them as a 13.

Best wins - N-Davidson by 11. @Washington State by 3, @Grand Canyon by 16, H-Utah Valley by 16, N-Abilene Christian by 14.
Worst losses - H- New Mexico by 7. @Chicago St by 2, H-Stephen F. Austin by 2, N-Utah St by 27, @Sam Houston St by 25.

Generally trending upward. Similar to how we had a late year strong stretch with 1 stinker in the middle (@Creighton), they have had 5 of their best 9 results over the last 7 games. But the other 2 games were among their worst games all year.

Players Summary
Experienced roster (like many teams this season). Last game their top minute getters were: 4th year, 5th year, 5th year, 5th year, 3rd year, 3rd year. And a 6th year guy gets minutes. No freshmen get any minutes at this point in the season.
Tall roster, especially for a mid-major. 6'4" and up in the starting lineup.

• Clayton Henry - 6'4", 201 - Mostly just a shooter/defender. 3&D guard, but doesn't shoot very often. Has him initiate offense like the PG, but doesn't really playmake. Comp - Mid-major Myles Cale.
• Sir'Jabari Rice- 6'4", 185 - Goes by just Jabari on broadcasts. Long, thin, wiry combo guard. 5 3s attempted per game, good shooter with a pure stroke. Can drive and finish but often looks to kick. 2nd Team All-WAC. Comp - Looks like Dejon Jarreau, plays more like Marcus Sasser.
• Teddy Allen - 6'6", 212 - On-ball wing. Stronger than fast. High usage. Mid range, driving, and iso game. Will chuck from 3, but only okay accuracy. Plays at his own speed. Bad, flat-footed defender. WAC Player of the Year. Comp - Jarron Cumberland.
• Johnny McCants - 6'7", 229 - Short roll and face up and attack. Active defensively. High effort. Always moving. Can pass a bit. Takes a couple 3's a game, but bad shooter. Good finisher at rim. WAC blocks leader, 2nd Team All-WAC. Comp - Shorter Isaiah Whaley. No seriously. Once I saw it, I couldn't un-see it. Their play style, accessory style, and even their movement mannerisms are oddly similar. Enjoyed watching him play.
• Will McNair - 6'10", 277 - Wide body. Slow. Doesn't do much. Passes out a lot when posting up. Scores mostly on big to big passes from McCants, off dump-offs from guards, or offensive rebounds. Comp - Wider, worse Joel Soriano.
  
  
• Donnie Tillman - Out injured. (20 minute per game guy). Was a starter to start the year but lost job due to injury, didn't get it back, hurt again now.
• Yuat Alok - 6'11, 211 - Deep bench rebounder/shot blocker. Bit undersized to play C. 25 years old. Via JuCo, TCU, UCF, Coppin St, NMSU.
• Mike Peake - 6'7", 218 - Good on the offensive boards, can protect the rim a bit, can shoot from 3 a bit.
• Nate Pryor (6'3", 4th year) and Mario McKinney (6'1", 3rd year) split up the backup guard minutes and I have found no pattern for how those minutes are distributed. Seems random. Both incredibly turnover prone, neither can shoot. Coach would probably prefer to play neither, but neither Jabari or Clayton are really PGs.

I was going to do a whole section on lineups, but the plus/minus and impact data all basically comes down to: Rice, Allen, and McCants are very good and very important. Everyone else is replaceable and not as good. Rice had a couple bad games over the last 30 days due to a back injury, but seemed fully healthy in the conference tournament.

Coach & Style of Play Summary
Chris Jans - 5th season at NMSU - 121-31, 4* tournament appearances (*2020 projected autobid), 0-2 NCAA record, both losses as 12 seeds.

• Peculiarly, they play slow on offense (281st), but fast on defense (75th). Defense isn't caused by press or pressure, as they don't really force turnovers and almost never steal the ball.
  • In an interview, Jans seemed to hint that they give up some non-optimal shots easily in an effort to goad offenses into them.
• They play mostly man to man defense, but mix in zones somewhat frequently, both 1-3-1 and 2-3. Opponents tend to take a lot of off the dribble 3's against them (317th 3PA rate, but low opponent assist rate 110th... these usually correlate, especially for zone Ds).
• They employ a number of ball screen defenses and switch up on the fly (high hedge, ice, force hand, show, switch, drop) based on opponent scheme, opponent personnel, and their own personnel. In the SFA game they did employ lots of drop coverage like Creighton did against us, parking McNair in the paint. Like us, SFA plays 2 or 3 non-threatening shooters. Often McCants plays free safety weakside in the paint way off non-shooters. I expect them to employ similar tactics as Creighton, but hopefully not having Kalkbrenner makes a difference. Or we solve it this week in practice.
• They will double the post at times on defense big to big.
• They take an above average amount of 3's, but shoot only average on them. (105th in attempt rate, 216th in accuracy, almost median 170th in % of points from 3's). Rice and Allen take a lot of off the dribble 3's.
• They throw the ball to the other team quite a bit (313th), both just being careless, and sometimes forcing things (Allen especially guilty of this). Partially caused by not having a true PG worth playing.
• Good offensive rebounding team (39th - McNahir, McCants, and Peake especially)
• They gang rebound, but Teddy Allen often rips and runs in a similar manner (just much slower) to Andre Jackson.

Shot Charts
UConn offense vs. New Mexico defense (top)
New Mexico offense vs. UConn defense (bottom)

One interesting thing to note is that the corners is a weakspot of our defense, but they do not shoot well or often from these spots. We hope that part of SFA's success guarding the paint is due to the competition level, and/or that our volume (offensive rebounding, turnovers forced,) will make up for low efficiency

This is an excellent write up. Thanks for your effort.

 

[Palatine]

Thanks, best write up I've seen.

 

[UConnKev]

If Adama stays out of foul trouble I think he has a field day against NMSU. McCants is too weak to guard Adama and McNair is too slow. Also, you know for a fact Adama is disappointed in his last 2 performances so he will have some extra motivation going into Thursday. LETS GO HUSKIES!!!

I don’t see McCants being too weak to guard Adama but I also don’t think he will guard him often unless they double him down low.

McCants will more than likely take on Whaley. I like that @auror compared him to Whaley, they do a lot of the same things for their respective teams. Whaley is definitely a bit more polished offensively. McCants is prone to get into foul trouble due to being over aggressive on the defensive end.

If McCants gets into foul trouble then they’ll put in Mike Peake if Donnie Tillman is out. Peake started off at Georgia and then went to Austin Peay. Capable stretch four off the bench, pretty athletic as well. Can be exposed on the defensive end against physical guys.

 

[HooperScooper]

ESPN has an article where Jay Bilas picks every game. FWIW here is his write up on the game. He has UConn beating Vermont in the next round and then losing to Gonzaga.

No. 5 UConn vs. No. 12 New Mexico State

UConn is an undervalued team that can really defend and has great size and shot-blocking. The Huskies have all-league talent at multiple spots, and New Mexico State has no matchup for Adama Sanogo, the dominant UConn big man who can score, rebound and protect the rim. R.J. Cole is a lefty who can score and is dynamic, Tyrese Martin is an athletic wing who shoots almost 43% from deep, and Isaiah Whaley can defend and block shots. Add in Tyler Polley and Andre Jackson and UConn has a lot of weapons. UConn is the best offensive rebounding team in the country, grabbing almost 38% of its misses.

New Mexico State can defend, rebound and block shots, too. The Aggies can shut down what you like to do and keep you out of the paint. The only issue is ball security, as New Mexico State turns it over on almost 21% of its possessions. The well-traveled Teddy Allen is the leading scorer at 19 points per game and Sir'Jabari Rice fills the stat sheet in every category, averaging 12 points, 5 rebounds and 3.3 assists. New Mexico State is top-10 in the nation in blocked shots and the Aggies defend the 3-point line, a good combination. Wins over Davidson and Washington State show this team is capable and a tough out.

Winner: UConn. The matchup problems that the Huskies pose will be a bit too much for the Aggies. Take UConn in this one.

Jay Bilas picks every single game in the 2022 NCAA men's basketball tournament

The Bilastrator is back with his unmistakable, incomparable look at the complete bracket. As always, you're welcome.

www.espn.com

 

[HuskyHawk]

ESPN has an article where Jay Bilas picks every game. FWIW here is his write up on the game. He has UConn beating Vermont in the next round and then losing to Gonzaga.

No. 5 UConn vs. No. 12 New Mexico State

UConn is an undervalued team that can really defend and has great size and shot-blocking. The Huskies have all-league talent at multiple spots, and New Mexico State has no matchup for Adama Sanogo, the dominant UConn big man who can score, rebound and protect the rim. R.J. Cole is a lefty who can score and is dynamic, Tyrese Martin is an athletic wing who shoots almost 43% from deep, and Isaiah Whaley can defend and block shots. Add in Tyler Polley and Andre Jackson and UConn has a lot of weapons. UConn is the best offensive rebounding team in the country, grabbing almost 38% of its misses.

New Mexico State can defend, rebound and block shots, too. The Aggies can shut down what you like to do and keep you out of the paint. The only issue is ball security, as New Mexico State turns it over on almost 21% of its possessions. The well-traveled Teddy Allen is the leading scorer at 19 points per game and Sir'Jabari Rice fills the stat sheet in every category, averaging 12 points, 5 rebounds and 3.3 assists. New Mexico State is top-10 in the nation in blocked shots and the Aggies defend the 3-point line, a good combination. Wins over Davidson and Washington State show this team is capable and a tough out.

Winner: UConn. The matchup problems that the Huskies pose will be a bit too much for the Aggies. Take UConn in this one.

Jay Bilas picks every single game in the 2022 NCAA men's basketball tournament

The Bilastrator is back with his unmistakable, incomparable look at the complete bracket. As always, you're welcome.

www.espn.com

Between this and @auror's writeup, am I wrong in thinking that UConn speed and transition game are keys here? I have to wonder if NMSt is really prepared to have Andre coming at them at 25mph every time we get a rebound. They also turn it over and we will push it every time they do.

I'm not sure we fully appreciate how weird this UConn team is and how difficult it will be for most teams to prepare for. Just a wide variety of guys who pose problems for the other team on both ends.

 

[navery12]

Seth Davis posted his bracket on The Athletic. He proceeded to go mostly chalk, and then in the comments hedged by saying just about every good underdog could pull off the upset but might not do it