Geno’s Right: Bueckers Is the Best

The Story: After Paige Bueckers matched a season high with 32 points and had her second consecutive double-double with 10 rebounds in No. 3 seed UConn’s 72-64 win over No. 6 seed Syracuse on Sunday, Geno Auriemma vociferously backed her as the best player in the country — and yes, we’re fully able to read between the lines.

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW: We’re hoping the Bueckers versus Caitlin Clark debate will be settled once and for all in Cleveland in two weeks, but Geno had a point to make following Sunday’s game.

• Bueckers has posted career highs of 21.7 points, 5.2 rebounds and 1.5 blocks per game this season while shooting 54.8 percent. She’s also shooting 40.4 percent from 3-point range and averaging 4.7 assists per game.

• She has been even better this season than she was as a freshman, when she won all of the major national player of the year honors and guided the Huskies to the Final Four. And yesterday afternoon, she was named a finalist for the Naismith Trophy yesterday afternoon, alongside Clark, Stanford’s Cameron Brink, and USC’s JuJu Watkins. We’re likely to see a lot more of those short lists pop up in the coming days.)

WHAT DID GENO SAY? “We have the best player on the market and, you know, just saying that because the numbers — in this world of analytics — the numbers say that she is and the whole stat sheet says that she is and everybody that watched knows it.”

DO THE NUMBERS SAY THAT? Well, it’s hard to say. Clark, now the all-time leading scorer in Division I history, is averaging 31.8 points, 7.3 rebounds and 8.7 assists per game while shooting 45.6 percent, including 37.9 percent from beyond the arc. Those numbers are better than Bueckers’, but let’s look at the analytics.

• According to Basketball Reference, Clark leads Division I with 12.1 win shares — a metric designed to estimate a player’s contribution in terms of wins — while Bueckers is second with 11.5. That means, all things considered, Clark would lead her team to an extra half a win over the course of the season than Bueckers, and that checks out considering Iowa is 31-4 and UConn is 31-5.

• Broken down further, Clark is No. 1 with 10.3 offensive win shares while Bueckers is No. 2 with 8.3. Again, that’s explainable, because Clark is averaging 10 points per game more than Bueckers is. But defensively, Bueckers and Aaliyah Edwards are tied at No. 4 with 3.2 win shares — this metric is lower because there’s less variation in defensive ability than offensive ability — while Clark accounts for just 1.8, which doesn’t even rank.

• If you want to average it out, consider that Brink is No. 1 in win shares per 40 minutes at 0.424, Bueckers is second at 0.41, and Clark is third with 0.402. That number accounts for the fact that Clark is averaging 34.4 minutes per game for Iowa and Bueckers is playing 31.3 minutes per game for UConn.

• Another way to look at it is a metric called box plus/minus, which estimates a player’s contribution to her team when she’s on the court. Someone with a rating of 0.0 is an average rotation player; Bueckers is No. 1 at 23.7, while Brink is No. 2 at 23.4 and Clark is No. 3 at 20.5. Offensively, Clark is No. 1 at 16 while Bueckers is No. 2 at 5.6, while defensively, Bueckers is No. 5 at 8.1 while Clark is, well, somewhere at 4.5.

• And finally, here’s food for thought for the people who think Bueckers is just a better player because she plays better defense. As Basketball Reference explains, offensive rating is “the number of points produced by a player per hundred total individual possessions,” or, as it says, how many points will she generate when she tries? Bueckers is No. 3 in Division I at 132.8. Clark is No. 8 in the Big Ten at 121.1. We can explain that variance in part due to Clark’s reliance on the 3-pointer and Bueckers’ willingness to attack the rim, but it’s objectively clear.

THE VERDICT: Well, hey, we’re not called The Iowa Daily. We know Bueckers is better. And if she can lead the Huskies into a Final Four matchup against the Hawkeyes, everyone else will get to find out, too.

— Zac Boyer

Hurley: ‘We Are Bulletproof’

The Story: Now that there are only 16 teams left in the NCAA Tournament, who is UConn’s main competition? If we’re reading Dan Hurley right, it may not matter.

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW: Hurley doesn’t lower expectations or express false humility. He sincerely believes UConn is the best and thinks if the Huskies play their game, there isn’t anything anyone can do about it. Is that cockiness, confidence or reality? That remains to be seen, but we have yet to see anyone dispute Hurley’s sentiment.

WHAT DID HURLEY SAY? “We are bulletproof. Again, elite offense, elite defense. Didn’t love the offensive rebounding and didn’t love the second half defensive rebounding, but 20 assists, seven turnovers … it’s tough to lose when you have that level of quality.”

PASSING THE METRICS TEST: We love metrics. Why? Because they remove bias from the evaluation, and as long as they aren’t abused (by ignoring human evaluation), they can reaffirm what your eyes see or perhaps reveal blind spots. UConn’s metrics are off the charts.

• Kirk Goldsberry, who helped usher in the analytical era of basketball by charting every shot in the NBA in a season, charted where all Sweet 16 teams rate in terms of offensive and defensive efficiency. We don’t want to get too math oriented, but the X axis is for offensive efficiency and the Y axis is defensive efficiency.

• Guess where the Huskies rank in each? They have the best offense by far and the fifth-best defense. That puts the Huskies at No. 1. Their opponent tomorrow, San Diego State, has the lowest-ranked offense of all 16 remaining teams while its defense is slightly above average.

• UConn’s offense is the third best, per measure of efficiency (points per 100 possessions), since 2001 at 126.6. Only 2018 champion Villanova and 2015 national runner-up Wisconsin had greater offensive efficiency.

• Defensively, the Huskies are ranked No. 9 in defensive efficiency as they give up only 94.4 points per 100 possessions. They are the only team to be in the top 10 in both metrics. Only Arizona, the No. 2 seed in the West Region, can match those numbers with the eighth-ranked offense and 12th-ranked defense.

• Where does the rest of the field stand? Six other teams are ranked in the top 25 in offense and defense: Houston, North Carolina, Purdue, Arizona, Marquette and Creighton. Houston has the top defensive rating at a suffocating 87.2 points per 100 possessions.

SWEET 16 RE-RANK: UConn remains the No. 1 team after the first two rounds. Sunday’s mediocre second half against Northwestern didn’t worry us and did nothing to hurt the perception of UConn as the favorite to win the national title at +210. Houston is next at +500.

• Purdue and Houston are No. 2 or No. 3, according to ESPN, CBS Sports, Yahoo!, USA Today and The Athletic. North Carolina remains the favorite in the West Region and Houston is still the favorite in the South Region.

— John Silver

Morning Reads

• A fourth-inning grand slam helped Boston College beat the struggling baseball team 7-4 at Elliot Ballpark yesterday afternoon.

• The football team will host its spring fan fest, which will include games, attractions, the chance to meet the players and coaches and an hour-long spring practice at Morrone Stadium on April 21.