UAB or Georgia State: Who’s Better?

Photo Credit: Gerry Broome - AP

Photo Credit: Gerry Broome – AP

Well, March Madness is finally here, and there certainly has been lots of Madness. Already, we’ve seen two 14 seeds upset the three seeds, with Northeastern coming ever so close to being the third. First, we got to see the University of Alabama at Birmingham crush the hearts of people everywhere by upsetting Iowa State, who most people had going pretty far into their brackets. Then later, we were able to watch Georgia State player R.J. Hunter drill a deep three to give them a one point lead over Baylor.

So, I don’t know how many people are asking this question, but for those of you who are, I’m here to answer it. That question is, which one of these 14 seeds is better? I’m going to get very technical with this question before giving my own honest opinion. First, let’s take a look at UAB. Remember that all stats in this article are courtesy of kenpom.com.

UAB has an offensive efficiency rating of 102.8, meaning that per 100 possessions, UAB would score 102.8 points. UAB’s defensive efficiency rating comes in at an even 99. The bad news is, they placed 154th in the country in offensive efficiency, and 100th in defensive efficiency. Neither of those numbers are very impressive. The good news is, their schedule was given a rating of .5096, which means although it wasn’t a grueling schedule, it was harder than some others in the tournament.

Now let’s take a quick look at Georgia State and how their numbers compare to UAB’s. With an offensive rating of 108.4 and a defensive rating of 98.4, their numbers are better in both ways than UAB’s, but still not incredibly impressive. Georgia State also had an easier schedule. Their schedule had a rating of .4700, so you need to question whether or not Georgia State’s numbers would’ve been closer to UAB’s had they had similar schedules.

Everyone knows that things are different come March. Some teams can totally transform and turn into a whole new team. In terms of looking at what these teams did in the first game of the big dance, it can be said that neither team’s victory really set them apart. In terms of their opponents, they were fairly equal. Iowa State is better offensively, while Baylor is better defensively and both had very similar numbers in terms of their strength of schedule. All of this being considered, I think it’s fair to say that Georgia State is the better team. I personally believe that if the two team’s were to play, then Georgia State would win the game, but I do believe that it would be close. UAB has certainly been underrated and I think they showed that yesterday.

However, I think another interesting question that must be asked is, who will make it farther in the tournament? There’s a good chance that both team’s lose in the next round, but there was also a good chance that they were going to lose in the round of 64. So, which one has a better chance?

I think this might be a bit of an unfair question. Georgia State is playing Xavier, who is a sixth seed, while UAB is playing UCLA who is an 11th seed. So, it would seem that if either of this 14 seeds is going to advance, it would more than likely be UAB. However, I maintain the belief that Xavier is overrated. They beat Ole Miss, but if you watched, you could tell that Ole Miss really beat themselves. If Xavier comes in to the game tomorrow with too much confidence, then they could find themselves in a bad position against a talented Georgia State team. However, even if both teams were to advance, UAB would still have an easier time doing so even further. Their portion of the bracket is filled with less talented teams than Georgia State’s. So all in all, I say Georgia State’s the better team, but if you want to try to pick a cinderella team to advance far in to the tournament, I would say UAB is a safer bet.