#5 Florida vs. #28 Louisiana

Sorry for the delay. I was having trouble with blogger yesterday, so you get a two for one today. Tune in this evening for Maryland/North Carolina.

#5 Florida
G Gilbert Arenas G Vince Carter F Tracy McGrady F Udonis Haslem F Amare Stoudemire

#28 Louisiana
G Chris Duhon G Danny Granger F Rashard Lewis F Antawn Jamison C Tyrus Thomas

Florida has to be the pre-tourney favorite. They've got four of the top 25 players in the league and a solid power forward in Udonis Haslem, not to mention Trevor Ariza and Reggie Evans on the bench. If your fourth scoring option is a little Vinsanity, you've got a pretty good team, I'd say. Chemistry could be a problem for this team. Gil and Stoudemire are famously impressed with their own abilities to the point where their teammates hate playing with them; and Vince is a sulky whiner who might well sabotage things without enough shots coming his way. McGrady and Haslem are by all accounts good guys who should be happy to make sacrifices to make things work. The offense will probably be Gil and Stoudemire running pick and rolls; McGrady spotting up (which is a waste of his talents), Haslem doing the dirty work, and Vince pouting and not going to the basket enough.

Louisiana is a nice team, especially for #28. It's a bummer that they have to run into this juggernaut so early, because they're just a little bit worse than Florida at almost every position. It's uncanny, actually; Duhon is a nice starting point guard; Granger and Lewis are excellent jump shooters with athleticism and size, Thomas is an incredible athlete who could dominate the league if he figures out how to play. Jamison does many things well at power forward; he's a scorer, not a shooter, but he's big and creates matchup problems with his size and athleticism. But it's hard to see how they'll match up with a bunch of guys who are All-NBA every year.

Team: Florida
Wins: 699
PPG: 100.78
RPG: 54.86
APG: 16.04
TPG: 16.62

Team: Louisiana
Wins: 301
PPG: 92.31
RPG: 40.52
APG: 15.324
TPG: 16.45

Solid showing by Louisiana against a great team in Florida. The difference was on the boards for Florida: otherwise, the team statistics were very close. Unfortunately, the simulation understates the advantage for Florida, because four of their guys would ordinarily draw double-teams, and Louisiana is going to mostly have to play them straight-up. All of the Louisiana players are good defenders except Lewis, but that's enough. He's going to have to guard either McGrady or Carter, and he can't do it: Florida will spend all day running isolations on him. At least, they would if they were smart, but there's no guarantee that Arenas, running the show from the point, won't spend all game jacking up bad threes, or that Stoudemire won't bitch and moan until a disproportionate number of shots come his way. On the Louisiana offensive end, Duhon won't be capable of much against Arenas' pressure defense, but Vince doesn't work hard on defense anymore and can be taken advantage of by either Granger or Lewis. The Florida coach would probably stick him on Lewis, since he attacks the basket less, but Vince isn't the dominating athlete that he was in his youth and Lousiana would do well to find ways to attack him. Stoudemire is not hard worker on defense either and tends to get into foul trouble, but Jamison is more of a perimeter player and Thomas doesn't have a refined offensive game in the post. Florida takes this one, and the offense of their four stars gives good reason to be optimistic about their title hopes, but defense and chemistry might cost them a close game down the line. It might have been better, from a team perspective, for Florida to take Ariza over Carter for defense and chemistry. However, I tried to pick the best five players first, without considering team makeup beyond position, which I think is the right move-if Florida should lose, I'll feel more confident in the results with Ariza on the bench than I would if Vince were there.

Florida plays next on 3/31.
Later today: #12 North Carolina vs. #21 Maryland
Full Bracket Here.