Thursday, March 11, 2010

Bracket Buster: Oakland

This'll be the last of the brackt busters as I'll focus on potential Marquette matchups after this (Unless Carolina wins the ACC, then we'll look at them ;). And Siena has busted brackets the last two years. If you're surprised this year, well, you're dumb.

Surprisingly, Oakland (MI) out of the Summit has a nice RPI of 52. They've also won their last 10 heading into the tourney. They have zero significant wins but played a tough schedule that included Bucky, Kansas, Syracuse and Michigan State. Bad thing? They got trounced in those games.

Other than scoring, Oakland doesn't do much else. They don't play defense (253rd). They turn it over too much (221st). They don't make many bombs and shoot too many, 212th in 3pt. FG %. Everything else is pretty middle of the road or worse. They have a nice rebound margin and block shots, a lot of that built against their weaker opponents.

They do bring something that may give problems to a small team, in they have a bona fide center in junior Keith Benson. He can be a productive offensive player and a solid rebounder but he is prone to foul trouble and has a reputation (Among NBA scouts, anyway) as being soft. He held his own against Bucky and Kansas.

Currently sitting as a likely 14 seed in Brian's bracket, take a look at them if you think this is a year a 14 could upend a 3 (First time since Northwestern State shocked Iowa in 2006 - Also the year Xavier and Murray State hung around as 14's).

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