Coaches of teams heading into the postseason stress to their players that the postseason is an entirely new season. In the postseason, everyone is 0-0 and anything can happen.
The statement is true; George Mason and VCU have made the case for these coaches. But, that does not mean the games themselves will not look eerily similar.
To open the 2012 NCAA tournament,Alabama, the Southeastern Conference’s best defensive team, will take on one of the nation’s best offenses in the Creighton Blue Jays. Alabama taking on a statistically superior offense is a normal occurrence after ranking last in the SEC in three-point shots made and field goal shooting percentage.
Creighton (28-5, 14-4 Missouri Valley Conference) had the best regular season shooting percentage in the country, at 50.9 percent. The Blue Jays were second in the country in assists per game, 17.9, and points per possession, 1.16. Creighton claimed the No. 7 spot in points per game, averaging exactly 80 points.
Those numbers create an interesting contrast withAlabama’s stingy defense, which holds opponents to 58.1 points per game and 28.3 percent shooting from behind the three-point line, good enough to rank 9th and 5th in the country in those statistics.
Alabama’s defense has held teams below their season averages in points in 29 of 32 games, and it will certainly need to do so again in order to beat Creighton. The need for a stellar defensive performance from the Tide stems from an inability to score on pace with the Blue Jays. For example,Alabamaplayed to double-overtime at home against Ole Miss and managed to score only 69 points.
In Southeastern Conference play,Alabamawas forced to focus its defensive efforts on the three-point line, having to deal with teams that can shoot well from deep likeVanderbilt,FloridaandKentucky.
Against Creighton,Alabamacan focus those efforts to the interior in an effort to stop Creighton sophomore forward Doug McDermott, the son of Creighton’s head coach Greg McDermott.
Doug averaged 23.2 points and 8.2 rebounds per game this season, enough to earn him First Team All-American honors. Doug is the first Creighton player to ever earn such an honor. Doug also shot 61 percent from the field and just under 80 percent from the free-throw line this season.
Doug will likely be butting heads withAlabamasenior forward JaMychal Green in Friday afternoon’s game. It is safe to say that whichever player performs better in Friday’s game will earn the win for his team, seeing as both teams struggle when their post player is either not playing well or on the bench with foul trouble.
