Thursday CBB Plays

#2.  Ga. Southern -3 over Florida International

In their very last Ga. Southern (5-5) played Florida Gulf Coast (7-4) and won by 13 points (72-59) and shot 41% from the field.

As a stark comparison, in their very last game Florida International (3-7) also played Florida Gulf Coast and lost by 19 points (63-82) and also shot about 41% from the field.

 While there are a lot of things that can also be considered like steals, turnovers, etc., I do not think you can overlook this 32 point swing of Ga. Southern winning by 13 and FIU losing by 19.

 Another concerning trend is that FIU has lost every game they have played this year that had a spread and these were not great teams – it was to teams like Elon, Jacksonville and USA. 

 While I am not too high on (7-2) North Carolina State this year, Ga. Southern played them on the road and gave them everything they could handle losing by 2 points (79-81).

 Trends I also like:

-GASO are 15-5 ATS in their last 20 games overall.

-FIU are 2-5-1 ATS in their last 8 home games

I have to give a solid edge to Ga. Southern in this game and do not feel bad at all laying -3 points on the road.

#3. Central Florida and Ga. Wash UNDER 128.5

 UCF has one of the toughest defenses in the country allowing teams only 31% from the field.

 Both teams come into this game without one of their leading scorers.

Ga. Wash will be without 6’9” Guard, Yuta Watanabe who averages 13.4 points per game and 2.6 assists which is about 18 points of offense.  They may also be without another Guard 6’8” Patrick Stevens who contributes about 6 points of offense per game.

UCF is also hurting at Guard with B. J. Taylor going down last week.  He averaged 16 points per game and 5 assists, which total about 26 points of total offensive production, which is over 30% of the teams total.

At times, both teams have struggled scoring and the loss of these key players will not help.

Here are a few of Ga. Washington’s games:

Temple 66-63 (129)

FSU 48-67 (115)

Ark. PB 61-41 (102)

USF 68-67 (135)

Howard 74-62 (136)

Keep in mind now Ga. Washington will be playing one of the toughest defenses in the country without one of their key players.

USF has also struggled scoring.  Here are a few of their games.

Penn 49-58 (107)

Mass (65-62) (127)

Stetson 81-54 (126)

SEA 67-51 (118)

Villanova 57-67 (124) 

If UCF can hold Villanova to 67 points, what will they do to Ga. Wash?

With both teams playing without Guards that were leading scorers, I think points will be at a premium tonight and this game sets up well to come in UNDER 128.5

I have gotten about 30 friend requests and do not want to be a jerk, but I have not accepted any of them.  My concern and understanding from a person I emailed at Covers is that if you accept friend requests people get all of your profile information - name and email address.

What concerns me is if you have someone that would go to the trouble of habitually trolling people's thread and you make the mistake of accepting them as a friend, how miserable could they make things if they had your name and email address.  That is just my thinking and why I am not accepting friend requests.  If I have a wrong read on my concern, then I am open to other opinions.   That's all on this.

BOL today!