The best time of the year is here yet again boys and girls. It's time to hoop!!
Georgia vs Oregon
Under 140.5
Starting off the year in an unfamiliar gym is tough. Doing so in Vegas is probably a little tougher. Georgia comes in after a pretty disappointing season last year. The good news is, most of the guys from that team are gone, and Coach White gets to "start over" if you will. With only one returning starter, and a healthy amount of freshman and transfers coming in, it would only be expected that it takes a couple games for the guys to gel and get a feel for each others game. That being said, they are a BIG bunch. Not just length, but girthy dudes. They will just need to defend without racking up fouls. Noah Thomasson comes over from Niagara, where he led MAAC in scoring, but the Power 5 is a different animal than Canisius, Quinnipiac, Rider, etc. They also get the DII POY in RJ Sunahara, but again, an adjustment period is expected.
Now Oregon. For whatever reason, Dana Altman can't get his guys going early in the season. Last year they lost to UC Irvine on their home floor by double digits in the second game of the season, and then hit a gauntlet of ranked teams that they fell to. Oregon didn't shoot the ball well from 3 last year. At all. And by the looks of things, they didn't do a whole hell of a lot to improve that. They did bring in some transfers, one from Georgia, in Kario Oquendo, so you should see a bit of a spirited effort from him going up against his old squad (albeit not a lot of familiar faces). Lots of length for Coach Altman with the return of Dante, and Nate Bittle, who are both 7 footers.
Buckets should be easy to come by in the paint, and neither team shoots the ball all that great. I see a 67-64 type of game.
Samford @ Purdue
Over 145.5
This one is pretty cut and dry for me. I had this game in the 150s. Purdue returns all 5 starters from last years Big Ten conference and tournament championships. They have zero issues scoring the basektball, with two monsters in the post in Edey and Furst, and guards that can shoot in Loyer and Smith. Really tough to stop a team that much balance. And Samford isn't going to be in any danger of winning this game, but with the style of play, it plays right into what both coaches want to do. Samford will press, push the tempo on offense to try and get easy buckets, and then shoot a lot of threes if they have to play in the halfcourt.
That's all I've got for now. Still waiting on some lines so will be back before Monday evening. Good luck everyone, and as always....F@ck Duke.
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