America East Tournament Odds, Pick for UNH vs Vermont

UNH vs Vermont Odds, Pick

I’m back to provide picks and leans for my beloved America East Conference Tournament semifinals.

Let’s start with the shooting variance bloodbath that was the first round.

RIP to our Maine 50-1 futures. So unfair.

With Vermont hosting New Hampshire and Lowell hosting Bryant, we should stay focused on future results instead of crying over spilled milk.

I had a few questions when exiting Patrick Gymnasium on Saturday evening.

Did Albany just shoot over their head? Were the Danes able to effectively attack Nick Fiorillo on drag-screen switches? Did Albany effectively zone Vermont to take away cutters and other secondary actions?

Looking at the ShotQuality data, the answer seems to be an emphatic yes to the first query.

Sebastian Thomas was electric. He was locked in, looking like an All-First Team AmEast guard. He also made several impossibly tough shots and banked in two 3s before halftime. You don’t score 31 points on the road in the playoffs without making a few shots you shouldn’t have – he finished 11-for-16 (4-for-6) from the field.

Meanwhile, Vermont was getting everything it wanted on short and hard rolls with Ileri Ayo-Faleye and Nick Fiorillo – as I expected – but missed most of its shots and had some easy layups roll out. Albany shot 6-for-14 (43%) from 3 in the first half, while Vermont shot 1-for-8 (13%).

While I thought Albany’s zone worked well to mess with Vermont’s rhythm, the Cats were ultimately fine, scoring 12 points on nine half-court zone possessions (1.33 PPP). I asked Becker if he expected Coach Dwayne Killings to hit him with the zone, and his answer mostly backed up what I saw with my eye:

“I thought that was something we were just OK against, but then we started to figure out where our cuts were and where our reads were, so it got better as the game went on,” he told me, and he's right.

Late-game execution has been a surprising problem for the Catamounts, and it was again on Saturday. They went up five points with about eight minutes left before allowing another impossibly tough Thomas and-one bucket …

… and then posting a few uncharacteristic turnovers down the stretch, ultimately trailing by one with 30 seconds left. I thought their current lack of depth with the Matt Veretto and TJ Hurley injuries may have come into play, as Shamir Bogues looked exhausted after an incredible performance – he tallied five steals and 16 points on 7-for-13 (54%) 2-point shooting, including a million bully-ball layups with their championship lives on the line.

Still, when they needed it, TJ Long came through again.

Long has made too many clutch shots to count this year. Becker and Long talked about the play in the post-game press conference.

Becker knew that Albany would attempt to trap Bogues above the arc, bringing weak-side defenders from the wing. That created a two-on-one opportunity on the back side, which Deloney and Fiorillo saw perfectly, feeding the ball to Long with the Albany rotation coming far too late for the America East’s top sharpshooter.

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So, what does this all mean for the semifinal game against the Catamounts’ border rival?

For starters, I think Vermont will have a much easier time hitting those 3s that (almost) never came against Albany.

The Wildcats spent the entire season getting lucky on defense, with opponents canning 28% of their 3s through mid-February. Yet, they ranked last in the AmEast in 3-point rate allowed and seventh in Open 3 Rate allowed. Opponents are still only generating .89 PPP on unguarded jumpers against New Hampshire, the sixth-lowest mark nationally.

The regression train pulled into Durham toward the end of the year, with the Wildcats losing their final four regular-season games because those four opponents shot 42-for-100 (42%) from 3.

The Catamounts are a perimeter-oriented five-out motion offense, and if you give them 3s, they will take and make them. So, even when resting three of their top six players, they shot 10-for-20 (50%) from 3 in a four-point road win over the Wildcats in the regular-season finale.

On the surface, the Catamounts should also be able to generate efficient interior offense via roll-men and cutters, as the Wildcats’ interior defense is easily exploitable – Jaxson Baker and Trey Woodyard are two horrific interior defenders.

That said, New Hampshire was mostly effective at denying Binghamton’s cut-heavy offense in the quarterfinals (10 points on seven cuts, 1.43 PPP but low-volume), which was very unexpected.

And in the first matchup with Vermont at Patrick, the Catamounts couldn’t generate any post-up (four points on nine sets, .44 PPP) or roll-man (two points on five sets, .4 PPP) offense. When the dust settled, Vermont managed only 22 paint points, its third-lowest total in conference play.

While Matt Veretto was largely ineffective in that game (four points on 2-for-8 shooting), his absence worries me against UNH. His deadly pick-and-pop and screen-and-roll game theoretically plays so well against the Wildcats.

I’m hearing Veretto is likely out for the year with a shooting shoulder injury. Not great.

Instead, Vermont will need another hero game from Deloney, who scored 28 in the first head-to-head matchup on 10-for-15 (4-for-9) shooting, becoming superhuman when rim-running into New Hampshire’s lackluster rim protection.

Or the Cats need Bogues to step up again after looking exasperated in his give-it-all effort against Albany.

When Vermont built that five-point lead in the second half against Albany, they immediately gave up a five-nothing run afterward. Becker wasted no time putting his best defensive point guard directly back in the lineup, and he ended up playing an effort-filled 33 minutes.

Essentially, I’m starting to worry about Vermont’s depth without Veretto and Hurley. Hurley might return for the semifinals, but I highly doubt Veretto will be in the lineup.

That’s more concerning considering that New Hampshire was among the only teams that could break Vermont’s impenetrable transition defense. Across the two head-to-head matchups, the Wildcats scored 49 points on 38 transition possessions, a 1.29 PPP mark on relatively high volume.

Suppose Deloney and Bogues tire from carrying the Cats for a second consecutive game because the Veretto-less roster continues struggling to create an interior offense against New Hampshire. In that case, the transition defense might flail more.

Jace Roquemore will have to keep giving the Cats impactful bench minutes. His playmaking, ball handling, and sneaky shot-making are such calming influences on that second unit.

But more Jackson Skipper minutes might prove costly. He only played three in the quarterfinal game but showed some wildly poor IQ on rotations. That's no knock on Skipper — he's just inexperienced.

Vermont still has Ileri Ayo-Faleye, who had my vote for defensive player of the year, and Becker agreed with me the other night:

And Ileri is likely the best possible matchup for Conference Player of the Year Clarence Daniels, given Ayo-Faleye can leverage his athleticism to match up with the three-level scorer paint-to-perimeter.

With Fiorillo and Veretto sidelined in the regular-season finale, Daniels had a relatively easy time exploiting switches onto smaller defenders in a 23-point effort.

However, Ayo and Co. held Daniels to 11 points on 3-for-10 shooting in the early February matchup up at Patrick, his fourth-lowest point total of the season.

That said, New Hampshire should make a few more 3s against the Cats after shooting 12-for-49 (24%) across the regular-season series. Vermont is a good perimeter defense but still ranks sub-300th nationally in Open 3 Rate allowed, and the Wildcats have quick-twitch point guard Ahmad Robinson and his 33% assist rate driving-and-dishing to the elite shooting frontcourt of Daniels (37% from 3 this year), Baker (35%) and Woodyard (40%).

Ultimately, I think New Hampshire has a fighting chance in the semifinal matchup. Vermont's monster depth advantage from the first matchup is rendered mute by the Veretto and Hurley injuries, which could feed into extra transition offense for the Wildcats.

The Wildcats need a few more shots to fall, and they need to avoid these defensive mishaps:

But they can keep it within single digits.

Pick: New Hampshire +13.5 (Play to +10.5)

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