November: 46-38, +5.20
November Leans: 39-38
December: 65-70, -9.45
December Leans: 67-79
January: 52-39, +15.80
January Leans: 40-37
February: 63-44, +65.90
February Leans: 56-49
March: 40-26, +55.75
March Leans: 21-19
I think if there is one team in the country that Montana didn’t want to see in an opening round game of the NCAA tournament, it’s probably Wisconsin. If you look at Montana and Tinkle (Wayne) as a whole the last couple years, they’ve been a good defensive club and been a snail up until this year. I see this all the time that conventional snails need to speed up the pace to put the ball in the hoop, and that’s the case here. Not only that, the focus of this team has been with Cherry running the PG spot, where in past years they have used a couple big bruisers down low. So, while I look at this match-up, I think Wisconsin will no doubt play slow, and at the same time, I’m not sure Montana can play slow. It’s really hard to judge Montana by it’s body of work, considering the Big Sky was extremely horrific this year outside of them and Weber State. In fact, this conference fell below the Horizon, Atlantic Sun, MAC, Summit, MAAC, Sun Belt, Big West, Patriot League, OVC, SoCon, Ohio Valley, Big South, and Northeast Conferences in terms of conference rank, so nothing special here. Furthermore, Montana’s only key wins this year have come at home, one of the best home courts in basketball. Yes, they beat Weber State and it’s 200+ ranked defense twice, and yes they beat Long Beach State (in a revenge game from last year’s bracket buster they lost by 18 in), all of those meetings came at home. The best road or neutral victory they have on the year is San Diego. They were a 6 point dog at Colorado State to open the season and pushed, and they were also an 11 point dog at Oregon State and were waxed by 25. More importantly, they were a 1.5 underdog at 7-24 Portland to close out the non-conference slate. Now, they’re playing good basketball, I can agree with that. But the good basketball came against a conference that they are the only top 100 defense in. Five of those teams which they play twice throughout the year have a defense ranked at or below #300. So, I see value in Wisconsin. Not only from the standpoint of value within the line, but value within the game. Montana picked up the pace for a reason this year. As I stated, they had a really good defense, but if they wanted to compete and ultimately win the conference, they had to pick up the pace and score points as there are some pretty damn good offensive teams in the conference. They won’t be able to do that today against Wisconsin. If they’re going to score, it’s going to come in the half court, and it’s going to come against the toughest defense they would have had to face thus far on the year on a neutral court, outside the friendly confines of Dahlberg Arena. In terms of scheme and style, both clubs have essentially five guys that can step out on the court and shoot from anywhere. The difference is, is that when Wisconsin has the ball on offense, those Montana legs will get tired defending, which leads to some bad decisions and some poor shots on the offensive side of things for an already not so great offense, especially in some low possession type games (also noting as big as Montana is, they settle for shots and don't crash the glass at all - one and done type game). Match-ups pretty much cross themselves out, Bo Ryan’s the type of coach who is going to take the other teams star out of the equation from the start, whether he uses a full court pressure on Cherry or not, I have no idea, but the way that Montana so willfully ran their offense throughout the year will not happen today. Can Cherry have a big game? Sure, he can, but I’m going against the role players in this one. And if Cherry doesn’t step up to the plate, then this one probably isn’t going to be close. Physicality of how this game will be played should determine the winner, and in that case, I’m going with Wisconsin.
5* Wisconsin -9
Lean: Colorado State/Murray State Over 136
Lean: Southern Miss/Kansas State Under 134
Lean: Louisville -7
Lean: Davidson/Louisville Over 139
Next wave of day games in a bit…
GL