Holmey's $$$$ Thread SATURDAY - Post Your BEST Play (With Writeup) - 03.05.16

Getting this one down early.

$$$$ = Cal (-3.5) over Arizona State

Cal is a Sweet 16 team.  Maybe even Elite 18.  ASU is an NIT team if they are lucky.  Since Cal became "whole" (meaning since their leader and point guard Tyrone Wallace came back), they have been easily the best team in the Pac-12.  They had a rough loss on Thursday at Arizona, but, they had that game won if Gabe York hadn't buried 3-stright 3-pointers in the last few minutes to turn a 6-point lead into a loss.  Had York missed any of those, we would be talking about a Cal team that has steamrolled the entire Pac-12 and won 8 in a row.  I think the fact they lost and ASU won on Thursday turned this line from an 8-pt spread into a 3.5-pt spread.  I will gladly take that line and go with it.

There will be a lot of "TRAP LINE" talk around these boards all day Saturday, but a trap line is in the eye of the beholder and they hit at a 50-50 rate.  The last Pac-12 "trap line" was Oregon State and they got beat down by USC.  I don't look at line movements and what other people say are traps.  I bet based on what I watch and what I know.  I know Cal and ASU and I think Cal is a far better team in this spot.

ASU is down to just two decent bench players, and calling them "decent" is being nice.  Cal has 3 or 4 NBA players on their roster while ASU has nobody close.  Cal has so much length and athleticism that ASU is going to have a horrible time trying to score inside of 15 feet and even Cal's guards have a large length advantage over ASU's, so the Devil guards will have a hard time getting open shots too.  I think Wallace and Bird take advantage of their counterparts and just light up ASU while Rabb dominates the middle, like he did against Arizona, even though Arizona's paint players are faaaaar better than ASU's.  ASU's depleted squad may keep it close for a little while, but Cal pulls away for a double-digit win.

Good luck today everyone.

We, I have mentioned this before, but this is just one message board on the internet.  If you think that because you see "everyone" (which is really about 10 people) on a play, that it is somehow going to affect how the game is played, then that's some questionable thinking.  You might go over to ESPN right now and see that "everyone" on that board is on ASU, so then that would mean that Cal is the play if you hang out on ESPN?

We have had this exact same conversation twice this week and both times the play that "everyone was on" was an easy winner.  I know people like to play against "everyone", but remember that your perception of "everyone" is based on what you have read on one message board in a tiny corner of the internet.  A person's definition of "everyone" is in their own perception.

Best of luck on whatever you play....