The Week of Christmas is a light one in the college basketball world. With many schools out on winter break, there’s not a huge demand for home games. However, a lot of students are going to want to head back to school on Saturday — that’s when we have an absolutely loaded slate, and that’s where most of these upsets will come from. It’s our job to figure out who’s not going to come back ready to play for the Holidays.
Utah State over San Diego State
The calling card of San Diego State under Brian Dutcher has been their stifling defense. But they can really struggle to score at times and don’t often get to the foul line. This, to me, spells trouble against a Utah State team that can really light up a scoreboard, ranking 49th nationally in offensive efficiency. The contrasting style will force SDSU to have to score more points than they are typically comfortable with. These two teams split last year, so all it would take is an Aggie win here to ensure at least a split this year.
Loyola Marymount over San Francisco
This one is a bit more of a long shot, but I see the potential. First off, San Francisco played their last game without starting power forward Ndwedo Newbury and rotational wing Jason Rivera-Torres. Without those two, their most recent two games have been a loss to Bradley and a 4-point win against lowly Montana. And add that to the fact that Loyola Marymount (ranked 161st on KenPom) has already shown the ability to punch above their weight class — they have beaten 54th-ranked Nevada, and USF is 61st.
UCLA over Gonzaga
These two teams are polar opposites, almost like the old fable about the tortoise and the hare. In this metaphor, give me the tortoise. UCLA is going to look to slow the game down and play inside-out, the exact opposite of run and gun Gonzaga. The Zags have struggled this season when playing against teams who play two true big men, like Kentucky and UConn. I think UCLA will be able to exploit that with Tyler Bilodeau, Eric Dailey, and Aday Mara playing a 3-big rotation down low. One of Gonzaga’s best defensive attributes is that they defend the 3-point shot well, ranking 2nd in the nation in 3-point percentage defensively. That won’t really matter against a UCLA team that ranks 290th in 3-point rate offensively. I think UCLA’s strengths will exploit Gonzaga’s weaknesses, and Gonzaga’s strengths won’t be a point of emphasis in this one.
