BTI's Rants and Ramblings: Pitino's Sweet 16 Record, Does it Worry You?

You are going to hear the stat about Rick Pitino's undefeated Sweet 16 record a lot over the next few days.  And look, it's quite impressive.  11 wins and no losses.  Pitino has proven to be quite the mastermind when given several days to prepare.  Unless of course you count the 2012 Final Four, or the 2005 Final Four, or the 1993 Final Four.  But whatever, those games are not important. What is important for the sake of this post in how exactly Pitino seems to have so much success in the Round of 16.  It helps to have the higher seeded team in 7 of the 11 games, but I think he also does something nearly every time out.  Pitino makes it a point that the other team's star is not going to have a big game.  Take a look at the 11 wins in the Sweet 16 for Pitino and what the other team's leading scorer did in those games: 1987: #6 Providence 103, #2 Alabama 82 Alabama Leading Scorer: Derrick McKey (18.6 ppg) Against Providence: 11 points, 3-6 FG 1992: #2 Kentucky 87, #3 UMASS 77 UMASS Leading Scorer: Jim McCoy (16.2 ppg) Against Kentucky: 21 points, 7-15 FG 1993: #1 Kentucky 103, #5 Wake Forest 69 Wake Forest Leading Scorer: Rodney Rogers (21.2 ppg) Against Kentucky: 14 points, 4-9 FG 1995: #1 Kentucky 97, #5 Arizona State 73 Arizona State Leading Scorer: Mario Bennett (18.7 ppg) Against Kentucky: 16 points, 5-12 FG 1996: #1 Kentucky 101, #4 Utah 70 Utah Leading Scorer: Keith Van Horn (21.4 ppg) Against Kentucky: 23 points, 8-15 FG 1997: #1 Kentucky 83, #4 St.Joseph's 68 St. Joseph's Leading Scorer: Arthur Davis (14.7 ppg) Against Kentucky: 13 points, 4-10 FG 2005: #4 Louisville 93, #1 Washington 79 Washington Leading Scorer: Nate Robinson (16.4 ppg) Against Louisville: 8 points, 1-7 FG 2008: #3 Louisville 79, #2 Tennessee 60 Tennessee Leading Scorer: Chris Lofton (15.5 ppg) Against Louisville: 15 points, 3-15 FG 2009: #1 Louisville 103, #12 Arizona 64 Arizona Leading Scorer: Jordan Hill (18.3 ppg) Against Louisville: 14 points, 6-18 FG 2012: #4 Louisville 57, #1 Michigan State 44 Michigan State Leading Scorer: Draymond Green (16.2 ppg) Against Louisville: 13 points, 5-16 FG 2013: #1 Louisville 77, #12 Oregon 69 Oregon Leading Scorer: EJ Singler (11.2 ppg) Against Louisville: 15 points, 6-11 FG Of the 11 leading scorers that Rick Pitino has faced, only 3 of the 11 reached their season average against Pitino in the Sweet 16.  Overall, those 11 players averaged 17.1 ppg during the season, but only 14.8 ppg during the Sweet 16.  That might not seem like a significant drop, but when you include the shooting percentage for those 11 players, you get a better sense of why playing a Rick Pitino team can be so difficult: 38.8% Rick Pitino is going to make it very tough on Young and Randle to score, and even if they do, it might take more shots than normal to get there.  Kentucky's ace(s) in the hole though might be the Harrisons, who haven't been consistently big scorers throughout the season, but have certainly become threats every game during the last 2 weeks.  Pitino is likely going to have to choose which guys to eliminate and hope for the best with the others.