March Madness: Previewing Friday’s Round of 64 Matchups
Oklahoma State (10) vs. Michigan (7)
Friday tips off with two of the best offenses in the tournament. The Oklahoma State Cowboys take on the Big Ten Conference Champion Michigan. The biggest difference with these teams is the pace in which they play -- the Cowboys play at the third-fastest pace of any tournament team while the Wolverines play at the third-slowest pace. As you can see below, both teams have strong nERD ratings, which measures the number of points we'd expect a team to win by against an average squad on a neutral court.
Below are three players to keep an eye on from each team.
| Player | Team | PPG | RPG | eFG% |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Derrick Walton | Michigan | 15.2 | 4.7 | 0.453 |
| Zak Irvin | Michigan | 12.8 | 4.5 | 0.407 |
| Moritz Wagner | Michigan | 12.0 | 4.2 | 0.532 |
| Jawun Evans | Oklahoma St. | 19.0 | 3.3 | 0.479 |
| Jeffrey Carroll | Oklahoma St. | 17.4 | 6.6 | 0.609 |
| Phil Forte | Oklahoma St. | 13.3 | 2.6 | 0.564 |
Here is a quick breakdown of the team stats comparison.
| Team | nERD | O Rtg | eFG% | Reb% | TOV% | D Rtg | Opp. eFG% | Opp. TOV% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| #7 Michigan | 14.42 | 116.1 | 0.567 | 48.5 | 13.2 | 102.1 | 0.519 | 17.6 |
| #10 OK St. | 15.01 | 117.3 | 0.537 | 52.5 | 15.4 | 107.0 | 0.531 | 18.4 |
