UNLV won by 10 earlier this season, and covered against the Aztecs. I figured SDST would be favored because they play extremely well at home (11-1 overall and 4-1 in conference). Their lone home loss was to BYU by 1. However, UNLV has been great on the road this season (8-1 overall, with only loss coming at BYU). I think UNLV is the more talented team, but they are pretty evenly matched. The few advantages I see for either team are:
While their statistics are similar, the makeup of the teams is very different. UNLV is guard oriented, slashing team that looks to score. SDST is a physical, defensive team. According to Pomeroy, SDST is the number 1 offensive rebounding team by percentage of misses in the country. This makes UNLV's rebounding discrepency all the more important. UNLV is coming off a bad home loss to NM where they struggled to score, especially Willis and Stanback. In that game, UNLV allowed 15 offensive rebounds and were outrebounded overall by 21!
I'm leaning Aztecs at home, but the poor FT shooting scares me. So what is everyone else thinking?
- UNLV advantage in FT shooting (Rebels 71.5%, Aztecs 59.2%)
- SDST rebounding (Aztecs +7.5 reb margin, Rebels -1.5 reb margin)
While their statistics are similar, the makeup of the teams is very different. UNLV is guard oriented, slashing team that looks to score. SDST is a physical, defensive team. According to Pomeroy, SDST is the number 1 offensive rebounding team by percentage of misses in the country. This makes UNLV's rebounding discrepency all the more important. UNLV is coming off a bad home loss to NM where they struggled to score, especially Willis and Stanback. In that game, UNLV allowed 15 offensive rebounds and were outrebounded overall by 21!
I'm leaning Aztecs at home, but the poor FT shooting scares me. So what is everyone else thinking?
that would be worth the price of admission alone