Thursday 1/5 CBB Plays

2010-2011: 164-127
2011-2012: 145-101 (59.0%, +37.4 units)
Wednesday: 5-3 (+1.6 units)

Some good, some bad on Wednesday. Forced a play on Providence second half and an ill-advised ML parlay on VCU and UCF. Solid wins on FSU 1H, Drexel-Towson under, Iowa State, and Illinois State (outright).

I have a good amount of time tonight so I'll try and point out something meaningful pertaining to most of the games on the card. No Summit League or Big West as I gave up long ago on trying to figure out those conferences...

-Great spot for a rested UMASS team catching Fordham off of consecutive home upsets over Georgia Tech and Harvard. I'm not buying the Minutemen as being nearly as good as the record indicates (#320 SOS) but this is a traditionally strong home team facing a program with two road wins in the last three years. Fairly certain the over is a bargain at 139 with Fordham coming off of consecutive games against slow-paced/defensive-minded teams. The Rams want to run. The Minutemen want to run even more. Could be a blowout, but I'm very close to locking in the over 139. Worth noting that this is also a revenge spot for UMASS, which suffered a humiliating defeat in the Bronx in last year's regular season finale, snapping Fordham's 41-game A-10 losing streak.

-George Mason and Old Dominion has turned into one of the best rivalries in the CAA. The Patriots are a completely different squad with Andre Cornelius reintegrated into the lineup and I feel confident in saying that they are the better overall team. But ODU is really tough in Norfolk and the home team has won the last 8 meetings. Both teams at 2-0 in the CAA and have probably been anticipating this one for awhile. Always a fun, scrappy game, but not one in which I want to invest a wager.

-I expected a slightly better line on Michigan given the victories Indiana has accumulated at home lately. My lone reservation with the Wolverines is freshman PG Trey Burke playing his first B1G road game and in a helluva environment at that. Michigan's big advantage in this game is on the sidelines. Crean gets a lot of attention for being a great motivator, but he can't match John Beilien's in-game adjustment prowess. Beilein always seems to find a way to keep his team in tough games on the road and Michigan's ability to get hot from the perimeter means they're never really out of a game. This smells like a letdown for Indiana coming off of the massive win over Ohio State.

-No interest in Pitt games right now. Way too unpredictable and DePaul is good enough to win the game outright and bad enough to lose by 20. Make sense? Yeah, I'm confused too.

-Line looks very accurate in the UL-Monroe-Florida Atlantic tilt. Mike Jarvis' team has played a daunting schedule but has probably underachieved to this point based on pre-season expectations. The Warhawks are better than their 1-14 record indicates with Steve McClellan now playing on a full-time basis. Still, the talent disparity in this game is significant and FAU desperately needs this game to avoid falling into an 0-2 Sun Belt hole.

-If you're into buying low on underachieving teams, look no further than Villanova. Before the season started, I would have put this line at 13 or 14. USF has a strange knack for hanging tight in games on the road but 'Nova will be in desperation mode to avoid an 0-3 Big East start. The Bulls have absolutely no answer for Maalik Wayns, but Nova's young guys have yet to show any signs of consistency. Probably best to avoid this one unless you have a great read on one or both teams.

-Some people will call this line a "trap," but the seemingly-low line on (11-3) Denver and (7-8) Arkansas State does in fact make sense. Denver has had longstanding issues winning games on the road under Joe Scott and usually does not even remotely resemble the team we see at Magness Arena. ASU has only lost two home games in Sun Belt play over the last two seasons. These teams obliterated one another last year with Denver winning at home by 38 and ASU returning the favor in a 60-35 rout in Jonesboro. Much of the same personnel returns on both sides. If Denver wasn't coming off of a loss on Saturday to UALR, I'd be more inclined to back ASU, but Denver should be fully focused for this game. Lots of prep time for both sides, but probably more important for ASU facing the Princeton offense. One of the hardest games of the night to cap, IMO.

-Penn State...Yup, I'm backing them. Complete fade of a rather young Purdue team coming off of a road win at Iowa and a pasting of archrival Illinois. Oh, and they're taking a trip to play Minnesota on Sunday. It's the B1G opener for Penn State, which has had some major issues defending the 3-ball this season. It won't be a pretty game to watch and Penn State does, in fact, suck, but any situational capper pretty much has to take the Nittany Lions in this spot.

-No idea why Stanford opened up as a 1-point favorite at Oregon. Exactly what has the Cardinal done on the road to warrant such preferential treatment? Hmm, let's see: road wins at UC-Davis and Seattle! And...nothing else. Those are the only two "road" games Stanford has played all year and both were in front of non-existent crowds. Tough game at MSG against 'Cuse counts for something, but is not a true road game. Playing in Eugene amidst the trees is a completely different story. These teams won on each other's home floors last year, but I really like fading teams with inflated records playing their first real road games of the season. That scenario applies perfectly to this game.

-Another "trap" line that actually makes plenty of sense is Nevada traveling to Idaho as a 2-point underdog. The Wolfpack have been off for 8 days and haven't been on the road since December 10th, winning at Montana. Basically the opposite is true for Idaho, which last played a home game on December 17th and just endured a 3-game losing streak in two brutal road losses to Wright State and Green Bay before a narrow defeat to in-state rival Boise. The Vandals are usually a tough out on their home floor and swept Nevada last season. But, the most important thing to note here is the look-ahead: Nevada plays at hated rival Utah State on Saturday night. Anyone who has followed the WAC in the past knows this is the premier rivalry in the conference and one both teams greatly anticipate each year. Idaho is a dangerous team to overlook and the current spread confirms my sentiments. Idaho is favored for a reason.

*Should say B1G home opener for Penn State.

good luck bro nice win by your st joes hawks

Invaluable input. Lots of hard work Covers thanks you

Much appreciated input and insight, JFen

Continued...

-Who wants to back UCLA as a favorite? Probably not me, but there's no question this is a strange spread. If you do take UCLA, you're banking on the Bruins being desperate to avoid an 0-3 start in conference and a mediocre or subpar effort from Arizona. Keep in mind UCLA has a non-existent home-court advantage this season and has yet to notch a quality win in any venue. The line indicates a Bruin victory, but I'm staying far away from either side.

-Huge payback game for Charleston traveling to Wofford. Cremins' team fell short in the SOCON title game last season to a Terriers group that was the most experienced in the entire country. Almost everyone of consequence from that team is gone, but Wofford is still a tough out at home and Charleston lost its two most important players from last year's team. I went against Charleston a few days ago against George Mason partially because I felt they could be looking ahead a little bit to this game, which will be one of the more pivotal games on the SOCON schedule. Wofford's abhorrent free throw shooting (58.1%) gives me another reason to lean towards the Cougs...

-Manhattan and Loyola (MD) both come in off of really disappointing home losses to inferior competition. Lots of similarities here as both teams love to press, trap, and pound the offensive glass. Should be a frenetic pace and a high-energy game, leading me to strongly consider the over. Both teams also generate a high percentage of points from the free throw line...and...to further belabor the point, commit a high percentage of fouls. Whistle after whistle and an abundance of free throws points to the game going over the total.

-Eastern Washington has a problem. A big problem. They just can't...stop...fouling. The Eagles commit the highest percentage of fouls in the country, committing personals on an utterly astounding 66.8% of opponents' possessions. The national average is almost half of that (36.6%). This becomes a rather significant issue against Weber State, which hits its free throws at a superb 81.3% rate, good for 3rd in the country. As I pointed out in the Montana writeup last week, EWU lives and dies by the three-ball, which can obviously work both ways. I like Weber's free throw shooting to eventually overwhelming Eastern Washington in what should be a highly-entertaining game. Not a play yet, but there's a lot to like about this matchup from Weber's perspective.

Jfen keep killing it bruh

It's rare I don't have any lean whatsoever, but this game is one of them. I really can see it going 10 different ways. If you like DePaul, it's probably better to wait and see if you can get a +5 tomorrow. Any type of line drop should give you an indication that sharp money likes DePaul as public bettors will certainly be backing Pitt.

Completely made my night. I almost didn't care about the bets after watching the comeback.

Keep up the good work, Jab.

Thanks as always...I'll sleep on it and see what the line is tmrw morning and I look forward to your picks.  BOL

JFen have noticed your pretty good with the traps lines what are your take on these?

I don't get the angle on Penn State, unless you're looking at the Minnesota matchup with Wisconsin on deck. Then again, I might be a bit bias to how bad Minnesota actually is. Just think a Big-10 roady of Penn State/Minnesota is one of the easier trips anyone in the conference has all year.

Big Fan.  Love the write ups.

Weber team total?

I like these writeups.  Penn State does suck, I can't put money on them.  Maybe Penn, but not Penn State.

Denver caught my eye too. Should be focused coming off a loss, and based on last year's results. Their past road struggles are well documented, but they do have a nice win at Utah St and won at No Colorado this year.

Leaned Charleston as well

As for the Fordham/UMass total....hmmmm...

 

nice! tell me you're on another total riccio!

Ru still on Troy from ur post last night?  its up to 9.5

Jfen:

Here's some insight on the UCLA side... howland is one of the best coaches in basketball preparing his teams when given the time.. since the pac12 plays thurs/sat games in conference you'll see that typically UCLA is better prepared for the thurs game vs sat game... Back in the FF runs Howland had the teams that were just so good it didn't really matter as much... The current roster is not void of talent, just not anywhere close to what UCLA has had in the past... UCLA/Zona is a big game for many reasons (recruiting especially) and you can bet Howland is really breaking down the film for this match up... It's going to be guards against bigs... Arizona really doesn't have an answer for Josh Smith but Smith has not played well all year so that's a wild card... UCLA will probably play zone seeing that their man to man def is bad (if ucla tries to play man Zona will kill them)... AZ is perimeter oriented team with not much size up front, well size that has experience... should be a close game and i'm thinking ucla has to be pretty desperate at this juncture needing a win bad... my guess would be to take ucla seeing that it's a thurs game at home and basically a pick em...

I think Manhattan's loss to Rider may have been a "lookahead" to their next three games with Loyola /Fairfield/ Iona, the conference powerhouses. If so, I would expect them to come out in their pressing, full-court style, which could produce a high-scoring game. One cautionary note would be that Loyola' offensive numbers appear to be down this year

Great work! I tailed you on the Towsen under last night. Had looked at it but made a decent sized play after reading your insight.

Also was looking at the over in the UMass game and have made that a play off your write-up.

So thank you for the time and effort you put in.

Quick Question on my final play. I see that Oakland/ wes ILL over/under as very low. There has to be something I am missing as I have this capped out at 149. Wondering if you know something I may be missing.

Once again you do great work and offer some valuable insight.

GT 

@gametime...I was wondering the same thing...I had the cap at 151 and I got it at 135...i put a nice size bet on it so I hope I didnt miss some information!

No feel on Washington-Colorado. I don't trust the Huskies at all on the road and playing at altitude will be a new experience for the whole roster. Not a fan of Colorado this year, though.

Cal-Oregon State is interesting because only one team is interested in playing defense. The Beavs will score, but I'd be surprised if they held Cal under 50% shooting to be honest. Gutierrez vs. Cunningham is a fantastic matchup.

Nothing on Santa Clara-Portland.

Everyone in the conference knows Penn State is the worst team this season. With 2 "bigger" wins already under its belt, I'm banking on Purdue being flat and/or unmotivated to play the league's most inferior team. PSU likely won't win a conference road game this year, but there's no reason they can't at least be competitive at home. The pressing/trapping style could give Purdue fits it the Boilers aren't into the game.