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March Madness: Previewing Friday’s Round of 64 Matchups

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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