#4 Northern California vs. #29 Oregon

Before I get to the contest, a few administrative issues: 1) This contest was supposed to be played on Friday, but I had a laptop power adapter failure that left me computerless for the weekend. I'll post Monday's contest later tonight. 2) Everyone in America is using bracketmaker.com to create NCAA tournament brackets this week, it seems, and their servers are overwhelmed, so you might have trouble loading the full bracket in the near term. I expect things to be very busy until the tournament starts on Thursday, and hopefully things will settle down. I might have trouble loading the full bracket myself, so if you do get it loaded, I might not have been able to update it. If anyone has a possible different hosting solution for the bracket, suggestions are hereby solicited.

#4 Northern California
G Jason Kidd G Paul Pierce F Ray Allen F Drew Gooden C Tyson Chandler

A strong team that should be a contender for an overall title. Kidd is a future Hall of Famer whose play has declined considerably this year, but since I'm using last years stats for the simulation, that won't hurt the team. Pierce and Allen complement each other nicely, just like they do in real life on the Celtic wing. Both are perennial All-Stars who will have borderline Hall of Fame cases. Gooden is a solid fourth offensive option, who has a nice jump shot to eighteen feet and can be effective on the block; I'm really sorry that the Cavs traded him. Chandler is strong and athletic, with a weaker jump shot but excellent post defense and toughness. This might be the best rebounding team in the tournament: Gooden and Chandler are each excellent, Kidd has long been one of the best rebounding guards in basketball, and Pierce and Allen are adequate. This will be a running team, since every player is a superior athlete for their position and no one runs the fast break like Kidd. But they'll still have a lot of ways to hurt you: pick and roll with some combination of Kidd/Pierce and Gooden/Chandler; Pierce and Gooden on isolations; Pierce or Gooden or Kidd in the post. They'd be really fun to watch.

#29 Oregon
G Damon Stoudamire G Ronnie Brewer G Salim Stoudamire F Luke Jackson F Ime Udoka

This team doesn't have any post players; this is a terrible matchup for them. Damon is on the downside of what has been a surprisingly long and adequate career for a short point guard. Brewer has good size and strength for his position; he's more of a scorer than a shooter, but he's probably not up to carrying the load for this offense. Stoudamire has been in and out of the rotation in Atlanta. He's the sort of player that does everything sort of ok, but most teams prefer players on the bench who have an exceptional skill. Jackson is a bust who has fallen out of the league. Udoka has had some bursts of quality play with the Spurs, who need to get younger, but he's not a top shelf ball handler or athlete and is basically a three point specialists. With five guys who want to play on the perimeter, it's hard to know how the offense will work. Jackson is tall but soft and prefers shooting threes; the coach will have to make him play down low, along with Brewer, who is tough but severely undersized. They're going to be jacking up a bunch of contested three pointers (each player save Brewer has a two point rate of around 60%) and they're not tall enough to rebound the misses

Team: Northern California
Wins: 990
PPG: 112.72
RPG: 78.78
APG: 21.95
TPG: 20.618

Team: Oregon
Wins: 10
PPG: 78.7
RPG: 18.13
APG: 16.35
TPG: 12.737

It's the biggest blowout so far, says the software. Basketball rule of thumb: if you outrebound the other team by 60, you're probably going to win. It's all about the incredible size advantage that Northern California has at every position: Northern California goes 6'4", 6'6", 6'7", 6'9", 7'. Oregon goes 5'11", 6'1", 6'5", 6'7", 6'10". The simulation might overstate the California advantage a little bit, since Gooden and Chandler will have to try to guard a perimeter players at the defensive end, and that might turn out badly. But it can't turn out nearly as badly as at the other end, where Jackson and someone small will just get endlessly dunked on by the California bigs. That's before we even mention the five inch advantage that Kidd and Allen will have on whoever tries to guard them. When matchups like these actually happen on the court, everyone on the offense clears out to the other side while the little guy playing defense screams for help and then either fouls or gives up an easy basket; you see it once or twice a game. Northern California has that kind of advantage at four positions. This one wouldn't be too fun to watch.

Northern California next plays on 4/1 against #13 New Jersey.
Later today: #3 Southern California vs. #30 Iowa/Wyoming.
Full Bracket Here.