2012-12 College Basketball

[QUOTE=bluehorseshoe;49563]550 Wake Forest -4 (2 unit play) Yale coming off a second consecutive 11 day layoff against a Wake Forest team that has been showing improvement IMO. I think good value in only having to lay 4 with the home team. Bzdelik has wake on an upward trend and should not allow his team to slip up at home against inferior non conference teams, as he knows wins in the ACC will be tough to come by this year.. Yale's 8-2 record can be a bit misleading when you look at the teams they have played thus far; last 6 opponents are a combined 19-56 including two 1-11 teams and an 0-11 team. Other than Seton Hall, none of their other opponents come close to being even a top 150 rated team.[/QUOTE] That was a brutal ending

[QUOTE=Redskins;49587]That was a brutal ending[/QUOTE] Yes it was. These things will happen. I did not watch but saw the score in the middle of the s second half and WF up by 15 then up by 13 with 4 minutes to play. Knowing it is not over till it's over I still felt pretty good. Oh well.

[QUOTE=bluehorseshoe;49592]Yes it was. These things will happen. I did not watch but saw the score in the middle of the s second half and WF up by 15 then up by 13 with 4 minutes to play. Knowing it is not over till it's over I still felt pretty good. Oh well.[/QUOTE] Good pick- they dominated most of the game and were up 4 with seconds to play until a Yalie dropped a three in with 1 second left.

561 Oklahoma + 13 Thinking Oklahoma has the talent to stay with Mizz and so far Oklahoma has responded well when tested.

568 Siena/Iona UNDER 150.5 I wanted to see if this total would be bet up as almost every Iona total has been thus far, but it seems it wont go much higher than this. No doubt Siena will be wanting to keep this lower scoring and Iona could be a little weary from playing on the road for quite some time now. Late start at MSG, I will take a shot that this one gets started a little slowly and stays under the total.

754 northwestern -2 763 James Madison -5.5 787 Indians St +6.5

Another brutal stretch, 0-5 in last 5 over the last 2 days. 573 Washington -2.5 Washington started Pac 12 play with 2 very good performances and actually started playing some defense. Colorado has been the recipients of some favorable scheduling over the last 4 games. Washington should come with a very determined performance to get their first road win and be 3-0 in conference. 598 UCLA -1.5 Thinking we see a good performance by UCLA team desperate to not start conference 0-3. Arizona probably the more talented team, but still young and could slip up here on the road. 589 CS Fullerton +9.5 I think the gap between these two teams is very small at the moment. Fullerton has won last 7 in a row and UCSB has not been quite the team we expected. UCSB does not seem to play with enough defensive energy to be a 9 pt favorite here. Also when you really look at what UCSB has done THIS year they are a 6-5 team who may be coming off their most impressive win; a 1 pt win at Cal Poly. They have played a very tough schedule, but right now to me this team is still extremely over valued. Also this Fullerton team could be the most improved team in the Big West, 3 transfers that missed last season are all major contributors and currently starters. More to come.

619 Morehead St PK (2 unit play) Both of these teams not great offensively but I give the offensive and defensive edge to Morehead St. I feel that the constant pressure from Morehead St will bother and wear down a Jacksonville St that really struggles to score. Morehead St still with a very good guard tandem of Hill and Proffit that were a big part of last years tourney team and I think this years team is getting more comfortable with newcomers Holden and Chavis who are playing key minutes. Jacksonville St ranks 344 out of 345 teams in 3 point% and 330/345 in FG%. This team rely's on getting to the line and forcing TO, something Morehead St was prone to but have improved on. Also a large % of the teams TO came either earlier in the year or against teams that were head and shoulders better than them. For Jacksonville St only 3 out of 6 wins have come against Div. 1 teams and those 3 teams combined have won only 10 games. Pretty much A-B-C handicapping but sometimes it is best to keep it simple. Jacksonville St with some additions and this team is probably better than their 5-25 record from a year ago but they may still find themselves at the bottom of the OVC.

565 Middle Tenn St -9 A bit weary of this one as my road favorite picks have been miserable, yet I am still going to put money on Middle Tenn getting an easy cover. Troy likes to shoot, and they like to shoot as quickly as they possibly can. However they do not shoot a great percentage 39% FG and 35 % 3pt. But they love to give their opponents as many chances as they need as they do average about 64 FG a game (same as Iona) but the numbers suggest they take many bad shots and do not play much defense (allowing 54.9% on 2pt attempts and also 39.6% from 3). Troy shot 24-73 their last game against North Texas and in addition they do not get to the FT line much and only got to the line 12 times in a game where they took 73 shots (16.3 FTA/game this year). Middle Tenn St FG% is 50.5 and this team will absolutely just outscore Troy fully agreeing to play Troy style basketball. MT currently dealing with a couple of injuries (J.Jones doubtful and Hammonds ?) but this team is very deep and I believe the class of the Sun Belt this year. I think this one could get ugly early if Troy continues to put up shots as they have been. Troy has been the victim of opponents getting their season high in points 4 different times so far this year and has also allowed teams like UAB and Texas Tech to put up monster numbers. MT has been dominant this year once they get the lead and in 12 of 13 victories have not given up the lead once they got it. I do not see Troy's style of play working at all against MT even with the home crowd behind them. BTW the last 2 home games for Troy during the winter break the "recorded" attendance was 507 and 518. It could be better tonight as it is the end of the winter break but students are still not on campus until residence halls open on Saturday.

559 Missouri -1 (2 unit play) Here we have K St coming off a loss and Mizz off a dominant win and laying only 1? Ok well I have to believe that this line is probably getting a lot of attention from the public and it worries me a bit but I am just going to go with it. Mizz has really been a video game on offense thus far, they have the best effective FG % a stat that I always think is important in college basketball. This will probably be the toughest road venue for Mizz thus far so I guess we are not sure how exactly they will respond. The bottom line for me is that I have K St rated much lower than most; I like the way they play defense but just am not sure how they get enough points here. Currently I have Mizz as the best team in the Big 12 so I am probably higher on them than most but if they keep shooting like they have been I like there chances to beat almost any team.