Illinois -16 -110
Similar to yesterday's win with Iowa, in which F.D. was on the 5th of a 6 game road trip, today we have Dartmouth @ Illinois.
Dartmouth comes in on its last game of a 4 game trip. They have played the prior 3 games over 9 days, so I don't think they'll be fatigued from playing, however, they have been on the road with a lot of traveling and downtime and going from Maine to Illinois to Indiana and now back to Illinois, there's gonna be a lot of time on a bus cramped and / or in hotels. They just want to get home, and facing an Illinois team that is physical inside and has very solid, quick guards as well, is not a good recipe for success for Dartmouth in any way.
Dartmouth has gone deeper in minutes to the bench each road game and has received terrible production from the reserves, even in losses. Note: each game has been worse for them as far as outcome. Even when holding even on the glass vs IPFW and with a lot of second-chance points, they still were handily defeated.
Illinois, on the other hand, has had a rebounding edge in all games (except the common opponent IPFW) and should destroy Dartmouth on the glass this game. Thus, even if Illinois has a lackluster shooting night, i expect them to get 20-30% more shot attempts than DArtmouth, due to the edge on the boards, as well as a defense that should force turnovers.
Aside from that, i feel that illinois has a big edge in guardplay as well, and should simply be too athletic for Dartmouths' backcourt. This should create plenty of open 3 point opportunities from the penetration and kick-out passes. Illinois has been shooting the 3-ball at a healthy clip. I could see them covering this spread in the 1st half, if that continues.
Also, illinois has been home for 6 days and just came off a good performance that had a great start vs Auburn. Now, another key is that they got outscored in teh 2nd half in that game so i know the coaching staff is working on corrections.
The only downside, similar to Iowa possible look-ahead to ISU, is that Illinois plays ORegon, @ Oregon, in 4 days. However, i don't think that will be a big affect as this game is at home and they'll have the home crowd to put on a show for.
I feel they will win this game by 20-28 points. I think they will cover the first half too, as they usually come out relatively quickly, however I prefer full game lines, as opposed to first half, as anything can happen when 1 team starts hot and the other does not.
maybe Illinois 77-55