What's up everyone! Long time reader on here but deciding to give this posting thing a shot. Transparently, football (CFB) is my best sport but I've had a decent year with CBB so I've decided to start sharing my write ups which means I probably won't win another bet lol!
First off, what a run for Conference USA with Charlotte, FAU, UAB And North Texas all making post season runs. One of the most underrated conferences in the country. As far as this game goes I like UAB in this spot. These teams have played three times already with North Texas winning the first two conference games and UAB taking the conference tournament game. One of those North Texas wins was without UAB's best player, Jelly Walker. Stylistically, UAB wants to run, coming in as a top 20 possessions per game team at 74.8. For reference, Tulane was the fastest team in the country clocking in at 77 possessions per game. Inversely, North Texas moves at a snail's pace, clocking in at 61.6 possessions per game which sits dead last in the country. This has worked for North Texas but I do think their pace of play skews some of the metrics that would favor North Texas over UAB which is why I like UAB in this spot.
Ken Pom has North Texas at 75th in offensive efficiency but my eyes just don't tell me that when I watch this team. I'm sure we all saw or heard about Wisconsin's epic collapse against North Texas where they didn't score a single point in the last 10 minutes of that game but what most people haven't talked about was North Texas only scoring 10 points in the last 10 minutes of that same game with two of those points coming from the FT line. Wisconsin is a better overall defensive team than UAB but UAB has the size and athletes to give North Texas just as much trouble scoring the basketball.
Ultimately what this game comes down to for me is one team being able to avoid a lengthy scoring drought. UAB is the more balanced team here. Jelly Walker is a game changer. He also has nice pieces around him with guys like Eric Gaines, KJ Buffen and Trey Jemison who are all guys you can count on to get a bucket. I just don't see that with this North Texas team. One thing that worries me is North Texas' Kai Huntsberry's ability to take away your team's best scorer on defense like he did in the second half vs Hepburn from Wisconsin but UAB has multiple weapons that can beat you as proven by their third or fourth scoring option, Ty Brewer going for 30 points last game. I also like the over in this game because I think UAB will be able to speed the game up enough to go over 128. Not a big parlay person but this is a correlated play so if you like North Texas, you're probably on the under as well.
UAB 1H ML -130 (1 unit)
UAB ML -140 (1 unit)
Over 128 -115 (1 unit)
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