It's all about motivation and confidence with this Buckeye squad. They are sitting at 4-1 (3-2 ATS) at home in conference with a tough loss last Sunday at home against the Terps. This was a close matchup in Evanston one month ago that Ohio St took over in the last 8 min, winning 65-56. These are two deliberate offensive teams that do not have much explosiveness on offense.
However, you have a guy in JaQuan Lyle whose balls just dropped figuratively and literally against Wisconsin with 27 pts in 32 min after he lost his starting spot the last 4 games in favor of A.J. Harris. I fully expect Lyle to be back in the starting lineup for this one after dominating Koenig on Thursday and foresee a similar performance upcoming against a similarly slow footed defender in McIntosh. Northwestern is going to pack the lane and force the Bucks to beat them from the outside but I am confident in Ohio St getting in the lane for some strong finishes with Lyle, Tate, and KBD and also spending a lot of time at the charity stripe. Ohio St was abysmal at the line in the first matchup going 10-22 so a few more conversions there wouldn't hurt our cause. If NW is going to let OSU bomb from long range all night, though, I would expect the Buckeyes to convert at least 7 to 10 3PFG with Lyle, Loving, Williams, KBD, and conceivably Tate and Harris.
It has been an absolute battle for Northwestern to score recently with the exception of the Minnesota game Thursday but Minnesota is playing like a high school team this year so I will factor that game out of my capping. Their leading scorer, McIntosh, has really been struggling in his L5 shooting 29% and I expect the same here with the quickness of Lyle and Harris keeping him off balance much like the first matchup when he went 5-15. Tre Demps has really come on lately going for 30 against Iowa and 23 against Minny but Iowa was leaving him unguarded from 3 on a lot of weakside rotations and the Gophers are playing like high school team right now. I would expect a combination of the high energy Tate, Williams, or KBD to be flanking Demps all night with the hope that the lazy bum Loving doesn't get caught in a pick and pop against Demps more than once. Alex Olah being back in the lineup is big but he has not been much of a factor thusfar outside of the Indiana game, as he still has not played more than 20 min since his return. The combination of Giddens and Thompson should be able to keep him in check.
I am calling this one 68-55 Ohio St.
Hopefully I will have time for the Xavier-Creighton write up tomorrow but these are the only 2 plays I have so far. GL boys
It's all about motivation and confidence with this Buckeye squad. They are sitting at 4-1 (3-2 ATS) at home in conference with a tough loss last Sunday at home against the Terps. This was a close matchup in Evanston one month ago that Ohio St took over in the last 8 min, winning 65-56. These are two deliberate offensive teams that do not have much explosiveness on offense.
However, you have a guy in JaQuan Lyle whose balls just dropped figuratively and literally against Wisconsin with 27 pts in 32 min after he lost his starting spot the last 4 games in favor of A.J. Harris. I fully expect Lyle to be back in the starting lineup for this one after dominating Koenig on Thursday and foresee a similar performance upcoming against a similarly slow footed defender in McIntosh. Northwestern is going to pack the lane and force the Bucks to beat them from the outside but I am confident in Ohio St getting in the lane for some strong finishes with Lyle, Tate, and KBD and also spending a lot of time at the charity stripe. Ohio St was abysmal at the line in the first matchup going 10-22 so a few more conversions there wouldn't hurt our cause. If NW is going to let OSU bomb from long range all night, though, I would expect the Buckeyes to convert at least 7 to 10 3PFG with Lyle, Loving, Williams, KBD, and conceivably Tate and Harris.
It has been an absolute battle for Northwestern to score recently with the exception of the Minnesota game Thursday but Minnesota is playing like a high school team this year so I will factor that game out of my capping. Their leading scorer, McIntosh, has really been struggling in his L5 shooting 29% and I expect the same here with the quickness of Lyle and Harris keeping him off balance much like the first matchup when he went 5-15. Tre Demps has really come on lately going for 30 against Iowa and 23 against Minny but Iowa was leaving him unguarded from 3 on a lot of weakside rotations and the Gophers are playing like high school team right now. I would expect a combination of the high energy Tate, Williams, or KBD to be flanking Demps all night with the hope that the lazy bum Loving doesn't get caught in a pick and pop against Demps more than once. Alex Olah being back in the lineup is big but he has not been much of a factor thusfar outside of the Indiana game, as he still has not played more than 20 min since his return. The combination of Giddens and Thompson should be able to keep him in check.
I am calling this one 68-55 Ohio St.
Hopefully I will have time for the Xavier-Creighton write up tomorrow but these are the only 2 plays I have so far. GL boys
I'm opposite both. How motivated can OSU be when they already won by 10 at Northwestern? Northwestern had Maryland beat at Maryland before losing at College Park.
I'm opposite both. How motivated can OSU be when they already won by 10 at Northwestern? Northwestern had Maryland beat at Maryland before losing at College Park.
Good call that beating a team on the road by 9 would lead you to believe that a team may take a team lightly in the ensuing home matchup. In this case, the previous matchup was a game until the last 7-8 minutes when Ohio St was able to pull away. I can assure you that a young Ohio St team that is continuing to grow will not take this game lightly, especially when they have 4 straight games that are extremely winnable with Rutgers, Michigan, and Nebraska up next.
Ohio St has a very good chance to win all 4 of those games heading into the brutal finish with MSU, Iowa, @MSU to finish the year.
NW taking MD to OT was very impressive but Northwestern also scored 35 points in the last 35 minutes of that game. That was also 5 games ago. I am more concerned with how these teams are playing now, as opposed to 3 weeks ago, especially with such a young team like Ohio St.
Just my thoughts but always appreciate the feedback tsw. Best of luck if you side with NW.
Good call that beating a team on the road by 9 would lead you to believe that a team may take a team lightly in the ensuing home matchup. In this case, the previous matchup was a game until the last 7-8 minutes when Ohio St was able to pull away. I can assure you that a young Ohio St team that is continuing to grow will not take this game lightly, especially when they have 4 straight games that are extremely winnable with Rutgers, Michigan, and Nebraska up next.
Ohio St has a very good chance to win all 4 of those games heading into the brutal finish with MSU, Iowa, @MSU to finish the year.
NW taking MD to OT was very impressive but Northwestern also scored 35 points in the last 35 minutes of that game. That was also 5 games ago. I am more concerned with how these teams are playing now, as opposed to 3 weeks ago, especially with such a young team like Ohio St.
Just my thoughts but always appreciate the feedback tsw. Best of luck if you side with NW.
you have a guy in JaQuan Lyle whose balls just dropped figuratively and literally
Say what?
This could be interpreted in several ways to one's imagination.
Nice write-up, btw!
I would suggest that doing bold text in the entire post is overkill -- it's hard to read that way. I had to paste the post into a plain text email field to scrub out the HTML, then read it in plain text.
I have perfect vision, btw, so it's not that -- it's just that an entire text of bold is not a pleasure to read.
Again, nice write-up and thank you for all that good information.
you have a guy in JaQuan Lyle whose balls just dropped figuratively and literally
Say what?
This could be interpreted in several ways to one's imagination.
Nice write-up, btw!
I would suggest that doing bold text in the entire post is overkill -- it's hard to read that way. I had to paste the post into a plain text email field to scrub out the HTML, then read it in plain text.
I have perfect vision, btw, so it's not that -- it's just that an entire text of bold is not a pleasure to read.
Again, nice write-up and thank you for all that good information.
@Mozart - You are absolutely correct on the font. I didn't realize how bad it was at first but I will definitely change that going forward so good looking out my friend.
3U : Northwestern @ Ohio St. (-5')
1U : Xavier (-1') @ Creighton
Xavier (-1') @ Creighton
Xavier is an athletic, up tempo team that has won their last 4 road games by an avg of 11 ppg (3-1 ATS) after being blown out @Nova in the conference opener. I think the best word to describe Xavier would be balanced. They have a pure scorer in Bluiett, an inside/outside threat in Sumner, the #1 Offensive Rebounder in the conference in James Farr, and a guy in Jalen Reynolds that reminds me of the Junkyard Dog, Jerome Williams, from Georgetown back in the day. And that only accounts for their wings and frontcourt. X also has a strong and versatile backcourt with Myles Davis, Macura, and the IU transfer Remy Abell. Abell is a solid floor general, while Myles Davis is an excellent distributor and spot up shooter, with J.P. Macura continuing to build confidence with experience as he has been getting to the line as much as he drains 3's in the last few. Not to mention the next big Xavier coaching export in Chris Mack who is sure to follow in the footsteps of Pete Gillen, Skip Prosser and more recently Thad Matta and Sean Miller who dominated here before moving onto larger conferences and built the foundation of a now consistent threat every year.
Creighton is a very mediocre team that has not had many impressive wins outside of Georgetown and Butler at home and Seton Hall on the road. Boston U. transfer Maurice Watson has had an excellent year and does a great job of getting everyone involved in the offense. They have a few decent bigs in Groselle, Hanson and Huff. The wings can do some things, as well, but they do not have any lights out shooters like in years past, outside of maybe Zierden, but you need multiple threats like that to beat a team like Xavier.
Creighton really struggled against the only other team they have played in the last month and a half even comparable to Xavier in terms of athleticism and balance of inside/outside play in Villanova. Nova blew them away by 14 here at CenturyLink and 25 at Nova last Wed. Nova shot 87% from inside the arc in the 1st meeting and followed that up with 16 3pt makes in the 2nd matchup. This is the kind of dual threat offensive attack that I expect XU to bring to the game tonight, as they have just as many guys who can knock down 3's as they do athletic wings who can penetrate the lane for easy buckets or get to the line. Xavier also shares the ball extremely well which accounts for tons of easy buckets.
@Mozart - You are absolutely correct on the font. I didn't realize how bad it was at first but I will definitely change that going forward so good looking out my friend.
3U : Northwestern @ Ohio St. (-5')
1U : Xavier (-1') @ Creighton
Xavier (-1') @ Creighton
Xavier is an athletic, up tempo team that has won their last 4 road games by an avg of 11 ppg (3-1 ATS) after being blown out @Nova in the conference opener. I think the best word to describe Xavier would be balanced. They have a pure scorer in Bluiett, an inside/outside threat in Sumner, the #1 Offensive Rebounder in the conference in James Farr, and a guy in Jalen Reynolds that reminds me of the Junkyard Dog, Jerome Williams, from Georgetown back in the day. And that only accounts for their wings and frontcourt. X also has a strong and versatile backcourt with Myles Davis, Macura, and the IU transfer Remy Abell. Abell is a solid floor general, while Myles Davis is an excellent distributor and spot up shooter, with J.P. Macura continuing to build confidence with experience as he has been getting to the line as much as he drains 3's in the last few. Not to mention the next big Xavier coaching export in Chris Mack who is sure to follow in the footsteps of Pete Gillen, Skip Prosser and more recently Thad Matta and Sean Miller who dominated here before moving onto larger conferences and built the foundation of a now consistent threat every year.
Creighton is a very mediocre team that has not had many impressive wins outside of Georgetown and Butler at home and Seton Hall on the road. Boston U. transfer Maurice Watson has had an excellent year and does a great job of getting everyone involved in the offense. They have a few decent bigs in Groselle, Hanson and Huff. The wings can do some things, as well, but they do not have any lights out shooters like in years past, outside of maybe Zierden, but you need multiple threats like that to beat a team like Xavier.
Creighton really struggled against the only other team they have played in the last month and a half even comparable to Xavier in terms of athleticism and balance of inside/outside play in Villanova. Nova blew them away by 14 here at CenturyLink and 25 at Nova last Wed. Nova shot 87% from inside the arc in the 1st meeting and followed that up with 16 3pt makes in the 2nd matchup. This is the kind of dual threat offensive attack that I expect XU to bring to the game tonight, as they have just as many guys who can knock down 3's as they do athletic wings who can penetrate the lane for easy buckets or get to the line. Xavier also shares the ball extremely well which accounts for tons of easy buckets.
Ohio St was pushed to the brink tonight and surprised by coming out with a press in the second half that was extremely effective coming up with 14 TO's. Overcame 12 3's by NW with a much more efficient offense in the 2nd half to get the cover.
This was Xavier's worst offensive performance since the Nova game on NYE. Bluiett was a complete non-factor and a normally decent 3pt shooting team went a dreadful 1-21 tonight,neither of which could have been expected considering Creighton's subpar defense. Capped off with a stellar performance by Watson (32 pts, 7 ast) and Xavier just couldn't pull this one out.
Ohio St was pushed to the brink tonight and surprised by coming out with a press in the second half that was extremely effective coming up with 14 TO's. Overcame 12 3's by NW with a much more efficient offense in the 2nd half to get the cover.
This was Xavier's worst offensive performance since the Nova game on NYE. Bluiett was a complete non-factor and a normally decent 3pt shooting team went a dreadful 1-21 tonight,neither of which could have been expected considering Creighton's subpar defense. Capped off with a stellar performance by Watson (32 pts, 7 ast) and Xavier just couldn't pull this one out.
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