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Tonight's marquee matchup between Connecticut and Gonzaga is a rematch of last year's West regional final. This time, Connecticut heads to Seattle, Washington, instead of Las Vegas, Nevada, in what is effectively a road game for the Huskies, despite the neutral venue.
I've created my projections for tonight's game, and while I'm on a few player props for this game, there's one in particular that's my absolute favorite.
Nolan Hickman Under 2.5 Rebounds (-115)
Gonzaga will look for a big game from shooting guard Nolan Hickman, but that mostly pertains to the scoring end, where I do show slight value for him to clear his 11.5-point prop.
However, on the glass, we shouldn't expect Hickman to do much.
After all, he has just one offensive rebound all year, so if he's going to stay under this prop, we're mainly concerned with what he can do on the defensive glass.
Unfortunately for Hickman, this matchup against UConn is about as bad as it gets.
The Huskies are the 10th-best shooting team by effective field goal percentage, which means fewer missed shots, thus fewer defensive board opportunities available for Hickman to grab.
Connecticut is also currently seventh in the nation in offensive rebound percentage at 39.8%, and still ranks 13th nationally at 37.7% when I schedule adjust that for the relatively soft defensive rebounding opponents they've faced.
This is also a tempo-down game for Gonzaga, as the Huskies play at a pace well below average. This game projects to around 69 possessions, which would be the second-fewest in a game for Gonzaga this year against KenPom top-125 teams (six games to date).
While Gonzaga doesn't foul at a high rate, the Huskies do draw them at a rate inside the top 100 nationally. In particular, 7-foot-2 big man Donovan Clingan has a 7.2 fouls drawn per 40-minute rate, while point guard Tristan Newton sits at 5.2, both ranking inside the top 160 among all players.
That will end a few more possessions at the foul line, which are higher percentage opportunities. And even on misses, it's a spot where Hickman is unlikely to grab any rebounds from.
Finally, there's his Jekyll-and-Hyde-like splits versus good and bad teams.
In six games against KenPom top-125 teams this year, Hickman has rebound totals of zero, three, zero, two, one and two in an average of 37.3 minutes played.
In four games against all other teams (three against teams ranked 300th or worse by KenPom and one game against a non Division I opponent), Hickman has rebound totals of five, three, three and four in an average of 27.3 minutes played.
So, it's likely that his personal defensive rebound percentage is inflated by the four games against bad teams.
Even then, when regressing his rebound percentages upward and projecting him for 37.5 minutes, I come up with just 2.1 rebounds with a 65% chance of staying under. This is very generous projection, and I personally think Hickman is probably closer to just 25-30% to clear 2.5 rebounds.
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