Previewing No. 2 Tennessee vs. No. 3 Purdue: Date, Time, Location, Spread

Overview

Matchup: No. 2 seed Tennessee vs. No. 3 seed Purdue

Date: Thursday, March 28

Time: 7:29 p.m. ET

Channel: TBS

Location: Louisville

Spread: Tennessee -1

How they got here:

Tennessee def. No. 15 seed Colgate, No. 10 seed Iowa

Purdue def. No. 14 seed Old Dominion, No. 6 seed Villanova

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Tennessee versus Purdue is the only one of the eight Sweet 16 matchups that features two teams from the group of nine that we said would win the national championship. The spread is just one point in favor of the Volunteers, according to the Vegas Insider consensus, which is the smallest spread of any of the Sweet 16 games, so you could make the case that this could be the best of the matchups on Thursday and Friday.

Obviously there’s a lot at stake when the NCAA Tournament progresses to the second weekend but there especially is for these two programs.

Tennessee is currently tied for the program’s best single-season record in the modern era of college basketball. The Vols are 31-5, just like they were in the ’08 season that ended with Tennessee losing in the Sweet 16 as a No. 2 seed.

They’ll hope for a different outcome this time with arguably the best team in program history.

Starters Admiral Schofield and Kyle Alexander are seniors and two-time SEC Player of the Year Grant Williams could get drafted late in the first round of the 2019 NBA Draft if he declares early.

This is the Vols’ eighth Sweet 16 appearance — with Tennessee even reaching the Elite Eight in 2010 — but the school is still chasing its first Final Four berth.

The commitment of 2019 five-star combo guard Josiah James, who’s the third-best prospect in school history, according to 247Sports, suggests that Tennessee Coach Rick Barnes can recruit at a high enough level to keep the Volunteers among the country’s best after Schofield, Williams and the team’s core of upperclassmen eventually move on.

But the reality is that this is the final postseason together for a group that spent four weeks ranked as the No. 1 team in the country.

Purdue lost in the Sweet 16 in each of the last two seasons as a top-four seed. It’s the furthest Purdue Coach Matt Painter’s teams have advanced in the tournament as the Boilermakers have lost in the Sweet 16 four times. Purdue made the Elite Eight under Gene Keady in 1994 and again in 2000 but it hasn’t made the final weekend of the tournament since 1980.

With junior guard Carsen Edwards appearing in the 40s in 2019 NBA Draft boards and projections, it’s not unreasonable to believe this could be his final season in college. If he or NBA scouts are on the fence about his status in June’s draft and he has another performance or two even remotely close to his uber-efficient 42 points on 21 shots against Villanova, that could tip the scales in favor of the junior declaring early.

Regardless of Edwards’ future, Purdue will lose seniors Ryan Cline and Grady Eifert. The former is a 40 percent 3-point shooter on 7.5 attempts per game and the latter is statistically the most efficient player in the country with a 145.4 offensive rating. The Boilermakers will look different next year – especially if Edwards leaves early – so there’s certainly a sense of urgency to maximize the talents of the unanimous First Team All-Big Ten guard.

If you want to oversimplify these two teams, an important question you can ask is “Can Purdue trade threes with Tennessee’s twos?”

The Boilermakers are a slightly better 3-point shooting team – 36.8 percent to the Vols’ 36.2 percent – but roughly 45 percent of their field goal attempts are from behind the arc, compared to Tennessee’s 32.1 percent.

So while there’s little difference between Tennessee and Purdue’s offenses in terms of efficiency (Tennessee’s 122.3 adjusted efficiency is slightly ahead of Purdue’s 121.4) and pace (Tennessee’s average offensive possession is 17.1 seconds to Purdue’s 17.8), how and where they score differs.

Fifty-five percent of Tennessee’s points come from twos, largely thanks to Grant Williams, who’s shooting 59 percent on twos with a 26.9 percent usage rate. Purdue’s center platoon of Matt Haarms and Trevion Williams draws an average of 4.6 and 7.3 fouls per 40 minutes, respectively, and Grant Williams excels at drawing fouls.

On the other side, 39 percent of Purdue’s points come from three, compared to 25 percent of Tennessee’s points. Eifert shoots 43 percent from three, followed by Cline and Sasha Stefanovic around 41 percent and Aaron Wheeler at 35 percent.

The efficiency of Edwards — who’s coming off of arguably the best game of his career — might be the single most important metric to watch in this game, but the trade-off of Purdue’s threes for Tennessee’s twos is a close second.

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