Here’s a viewer’s guide to the Mountain West title game between New Mexico and UNLV which tips off shortly after 6 PM ET on CBS.
Both teams rely on a very good defense (UNLV 9th overall, New Mexico 13th) which defends the paint well. And both defenses carry less-than-stellar offenses. In UNLV’s case the offense is borderline dysfunctional, with senior Anthony Marshall playing his first season as a full-time point guard. While he hasn’t been bad in the position, both his own and his team’s turnover rate has risen this season. New Mexico’s defense doesn’t really take advantage of this weakness, but UNLV committed 17 turnovers anyway in the first matchup between these two in Albuquerque.
The Lobos’ man defense actually gets labeled as “Some Zone” by the Defensive Fingerprint algorithm. Part of it is that New Mexico doesn’t force many turnovers. More of it is that they allow a lot of three-point attempts, with opponents taking 38.6 percent of their shots from beyond the arc, 23rd most in the country. Colorado State’s defense was similar in that respect and UNLV owas able to take advantage of open looks for Katin Reinhardt and Anthony Bennett to post 75 points in 71 possessions against a Ram defense that hasn’t been all that special this season. It also helped they got 35 free throw attempts. The latter is extremely unlikely to repeats itself in this game as New Mexico owns the eighth-lowest free throw rate in the nation. The Rebels took a total of 20 free throws in their previous 80 minutes against the Lobos. They also hoisted 45 three-pointers.
Offensively, New Mexico might be a lot more balanced than people think. At least those people who are only familiar with the Lobos’ offense through Kendall Williams’ 46-point game against Colorado State three weeks ago. Williams is only the fourth-most frequent shooter in the starting line-up. Tony Snell, Alex Kirk, and Cameron Bairstow all shoot it more, and after spending his first two seasons as the last option in Steve Alford’s offenly, Bairstow is arguably option number one at this point, having posted usage rates in his last six games of 29, 28, 32, 30, 24, and 30.
The Lobos have made an atrocious 46.3% of their twos (228th) this season, but have been able to compensate for the weak-shooting with lots of free throw attempts. Kirk, Bairstow, and Williams all draw a bunch of fouls. Foul trouble was a bit of an issue for UNLV’s front-line in the first game between the two, but not so much in the second. In general, the Rebels are good at avoiding fouls, and Anthony Bennett specifically is pretty average for a big man in terms of committing them. Foul trouble may be an issue, but UNLV has the frontcourt depth to mitigate it.
Even though UNLV likes to run and the first two games between the two went over 70 possessions, neither team got anywhere close to a point per possession in those contests. Points will be difficult to come by and the predictor, giving the Rebels a home court boost, says UNLV 65-63 in 68 possessions.