Ok, I'm calling my shot. CU is going to buck the odds and finally beat UCLA in Pauley. Against my better judgment, I've talked myself into a CU conference rad win against a decent opponent.
The bad news: Kenpom has UCLA favored by five with a 31% chance of a CU victory.
More bad news: Kenpom does not factor "true" home court advantage or injuries into his prediction. As we all know CU's homecourt advantage and therefore it's road disadvantage is more pronounced than an average team. Kenpom assigns roughly four points to the home team. CU's true HCA is actually more like 7. Factoring this into the spread, CU should be more like an eight point dog with about a 22% chance of winning the game. This, before even considering Josh's status. I'm going to assume (hope) Josh is close to 90% by Sauturday.
So, why will they win?
1) Turnovers (yes turnovers) - Our Buffs commit them at a pretty ugly rate. 19.5% of Buff's possessions end up in a turnover (255th in D-1). Going into hostile territory with turnover issues is not a recipe for success, as those issues are usually magnified on the road. Fortunately for the Buffs, UCLA plays a pretty passive (kind word) defense. Only 16.1% of UCLA's opponents possessions end up in a turnover (323rd in D-1). If CU can limit their self-inflicted TO's they should get at least a couple extra possessions.
On the other hand, UCLA takes pretty good care of the ball, with a 17.4% TO rate. On the other hand, CU is 45th in defensive efficiency, but they do not rely on turnovers (15.4% TOR, 323rd in D-1) to stop their opponents. CU will likely lose the turnover battle on the scoresheet, but will lose it by 4-5 fewer than is built into UCLA's advantage. I'm going to knock 3 points off the 8. UCLA is now favored by 5.
2) Offensive rebounding - the other factor that UCLA is very good at offensively is rebounding, getting 34.2% of offensive rebound opportunities (53rd in D-1). Unfortunately for the Bruins, CU is 25th in D-1 in allowing offensive rebounds (25.5%), so the advantage they enjoy against most teams is negated by the Buffs. On the other end, the Buffs are just as good, grabbing 35.6% of their own offensive rebound opps (29th in D-1) while the Bruins are pretty bad (30.3%, 198th). Three more points for our Buffs to get the spread down to two.
3) Fouls - CU is very good at avoiding fouls and putting their opponent at the line (33% FT rate, 86th in D-1), but UCLA does not get to the line much (34.3%, 234th and only 19.3% of their points at the line - also 234th), so no real advantage for the Buffs there. On the other end, however, Colorado is 45th in D-1 getting to the line 42.7% FT/FGA, while UCLA is decent at avoiding fouls (33.6%, 102nd). Here's the problem for UCLA: Parker and Welsh commit 5.0 and 4.3 fouls per 40 minutes, respectively while Gordon and Scott commit 3.2 and 2.2. I see early foul trouble for one or both of the UCLA bigs, meaning that we'll see more of Bolden and Olesinski than UCLA would like. Advantage Buffs. Two more points, Buffs are now even.
4) Rest/depth - The Buffs get two days rest, the Bruins one. Why this is significant is that UCLA's guards/wings all play 32+ minutes per game (Alford plays 90% of the available minutes, Hamilton 85.6%, and Holiday 79.2%). They will be coming off a tough Thursday game against the Utes, probably all having logged 34 minutes or more. There is little depth in the Bruins backcourt after these three. Ali is all they have. Two points Buffs.
Buffs win 74-72.
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