NCAA Tournament First Round

No. 13 Ohio (16-7, 9-5 MAC) vs No. 4 Virginia (18-6, 13-4 ACC)

7:15 p.m., TruTV

Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall, Bloomington (IN)

After a stressful week of quarantine and COVID testing, Virginia is slated to open NCAA Tournament play tomorrow night. Its time in the ACC Tournament was cut short after a positive COVID test result on Thursday evening and, since the, the Wahoos have largely been in isolation before heading to Indianapolis today ahead of tomorrow’s game.

Awaiting them is Ohio, the champions of the MAC. The Bobcats enter the Big Dance winners of nine of their last 10 games, including a three-game run to the league title in the MAC Tournament last week. Like Virginia, Ohio has had COVID-related pauses during the season, including a 21-day break in February before returning to action to finish out the regular season.

The Bobcats only played six non-conference games, the most notable of which was their near upset win over Illinois on Black Friday. They took the Illini, now a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament, down to the wire, leading with less than three seconds to go before a heartbreaking two-point loss on the road. Ohio also took down current No.15 seed Cleveland State by a whopping 55-point margin in early December. In the third season under head coach Jeff Boals, Ohio hit a rough stretch in December, dropping to 4-4 after three straight defeats. But the Bobcats are 12-3 since and enter the Big Dance with a lot of momentum.

The winner of UVa and Ohio will advance to take on the winner of the first-round game between No. 5-seed Creighton and No. 12-seed UC Santa Barbara, also to be played on Saturday.

Ohio’s predictive metrics have improved significantly in recent weeks. On March 11th, just over a week ago, the Bobcats ranked 106th in the KenPom ratings. And now, after just three games played, they sit at 79th.

On the offensive end of the floor, they are one of the nation’s most-efficient teams, ranking 30th. Ohio is 13th nationally in effective field-goal percentage, and 11th in two-point field goal percentage (56.4). Ohio isn’t a team that is completely reliant on the 3 but the Bobcats do make them at a decent clip. They shoot 36.6 percent from deep, which is 56th-best nationally, and 32 percent of their scoring comes on made triples. They also do a great job sharing the basketball, ranking 23rd nationally in assists per made field goal ratio, and taking care of the ball, where they rank 76th nationally in turnover rate. Ohio doesn’t play at a blistering pace, but also doesn’t play anywhere near as methodically as Virginia.

On defense, the Bobcats aren’t nearly as imposing. They rank 178th in adjusted defensive efficiency and the only teams below them in the NCAA Tournament field are No. 16-seeds Appalachian State, Texas Southern, Drexel, and Norfolk State as well as No. 15-seed Oral Roberts. Opponents like to get the ball up and down against Ohio, with the 33rd shortest average defensive possession time for the Bobcats.

Their interior defense has been below par, as they allow opponents to make 51.5 percent of their two-point attempts. Ohio allows opponents to make 33.7 percent of their 3-point tries, which is above average. The MAC champs do a decent but not great job turning opponents over, but they don’t have a high “live” turnover rate and they very rarely block shots.

Ohio’s lineup features five players averaging double-digits in scoring, led by star point guard Jason Preston. The 6-foot-4 junior has the potential to become one of the stars of the NCAA Tournament if he has a big performance against Virginia, and it would be just the latest in a string of big games for him. Averaging 16.6 points per game, Preston leads his team in scoring and averages an astonishing 7.2 assists per game as well. He is a dead-eye shooter averaging 40.8 percent from long range and he is great at getting in the lane for pull-ups or drives to the rim. Preston will be a handful for the Cavaliers, and how they fare against him could determine the outcome of Saturday’s game.

Preston will have plenty of help and teammates to dish the ball to in this one. Forward Dwight Wilson has developed into a talented post option after transferring to Athens from JMU. Wilson is second on the team in scoring at 14.9 points per game and is the team’s leading rebounder at 7.5 boards per contest. He is an old-school big man that doesn’t really step out for deep shots, and how he matches up with Jay Huff inside will be interesting to watch.

On the wing, Ben Vander Plas is a player to watch. Another inside-out player at 6-foot-8, Vander Plas can step out and hit 3s, making 35.6 percent of his attempts. By now, most UVa fans will have heard the backstory about Vander Plas’ connection to Tony Bennett, and how his father played with Bennett at UW Green Bay for Dick Bennett, and named his son after the family.

Finally, wings Lunden McDay and Ben Roderick are both capable of big performances and both can shoot the 3, too. The two of them combine for just over 25 points per game and are mainstays in the Ohio lineup along with Preston, Vander Plas, and Wilson.