After coming from behind to beat Purdue in overtime and win the South Region, the Wahoos will play in their third ever national semifinal tomorrow night when UVa faces Auburn in the Final Four (6:09 p.m. ET, CBS).
The Cavaliers (33-3) are this event's lone No. 1 seed remaining and come into tomorrow night's matchup against the Tigers (30-9) following a thrilling 80-75 victory over the Boilermakers. AU, meanwhile, comes to Minneapolis as the winner of the Midwest Region, beating North Carolina in the Sweet 16 and then turning back Kentucky without its best players two days later to win the region.
Much will be made of the pace of play in this game and the outcome could very well come down to who wins that war. Still, even a bit shorthanded, the Tigers are one of the most dangerous shooting teams in the country and they're in an incredible groove right now.
Three Things We Know
1. UVa will face a red-hot Auburn team that slayed several giants on the way to Minneapolis.
For the second time in three games, UVa will square off with a hot team on a double-digit winning streak. Auburn came out of the Midwest Region as the 5-seed on the heels of an unexpected title run in the SEC Tournament. In their 12-game winning streak, the Tigers have scored 80 points on six occasions and have knocked off some of the best teams in the country. They blew out eventual 2-seed Tennessee in the SEC Tournament title game, and then faced arguably the toughest path of any of the Final Four participants on their way to Minneapolis. After barely surviving a first round scare from New Mexico State, AU rolled to comfortable wins over Kansas and then top-seed North Carolina before outlasting conference rival Kentucky in overtime to win the region. During their winning streak, the Tigers beat those three traditional blue bloods, becoming the first team since Arizona in 1997 to beat all three of those schools in the same NCAA Tournament. Since its last loss on February 23rd, Auburn has beaten six top-25 KenPom teams and has an average margin of victory of 11 points in those victories.
2. Bruce Pearl has assembled a talented roster with experience.
Pearl faced a daunting rebuild when he took over in 2014 but in his fifth season on the job he has Auburn in the school’s first Final Four. Pearl has brought an impressive amount of talent to The Plains, and has a versatile, guard-heavy roster that is deeper than most teams. For the Tigers, it starts in their backcourt, where veterans Bryce Brown and Jared Harper have been instrumental in the program’s turnaround. Brown is the team’s leading scorer, averaging 16 points per game and connecting on 41 percent of his 3-point attempts. He has made 13 of 24 attempts from deep in the last three games, including seven made 3s in the rout of Kansas. Harper is the team’s point guard and averages 15.4 points and 5.8 assists per game. He is lightning quick and a player who is excels at forcing turnovers and scoring off in transition. Harper and Brown have solid teammates who should see plenty of time against Virginia, namely Samir Doughty, Malik Dunbar, and J’Von McCormick, all of whom have had big moments during the tournament run. In the frontcourt, Auburn is missing a big piece but has some talented players to fill the void. Former five-star recruit Austin Wiley should see an uptick of minutes at center and is easily Auburn’s biggest player in their rotation at 6-foot-11. Forwards Anfernee McLemore, Horace Spencer, and Danjel Purifoy should see plenty of time at the “4 and will be tasked with slowing down De’Andre Hunter and Mamadi Diakite when the Cavaliers are on offense.
3. On offense, the Tigers are very reliant on 3-pointers.
When previewing the Elite Eight we classified the Boilermakers as a classic “live by the 3, die by the 3” type of team. That proved to be true but it’s even more true of Auburn. The Tigers rank sixth nationally in adjusted-offensive efficiency and get a large percentage of their points on 3-pointers. Auburn shoots 38.3 percent from deep, 15th best nationally and seven spots behind UVa (39.4 percent). More than 43 percent of Auburn’s points come from 3s, which is the seventh-highest percentage of any team in the country. Nearly half of Auburn’s field-goal attempts are from long range and during their 12-game winning streak the Tigers have shot 30 in 10 of those games. Auburn has several players that shoot better than the team’s average, including both of its starting guards and Doughty, who is a transfer from VCU. The shotmaking of Auburn will clash with Virginia's 3-point defense, which has allowed opponents to make just 28.7 percent of shots beyond the arc, the third-best average nationally. UVa allowed Purdue to make 14 of 32 attempts from deep, though many of them were tough, contested shots or well beyond the 3-point line. Ten of those threes belonged to Carsen Edwards and UVa held the rest of the Boilermakers to 4-for-13 from 3.
