Night Notes: It’s really hard not to imagine another lopsided Northern Illinois loss tonight. The offense has been pitiful, and Montgomerey is extremely lost with what to do. I would assume he changes stuff up in a hurry in terms of a lineup. Both teams have a slight lookahead with Iowa getting Creighton and Northern Illinois getting Eastern Illinois. Iowa’s offense has been really good, and they’ve attempted a heckuva lot of three point shots. Pretty simple, those shots fall and this one’s a blow out. If they don’t, or NIU tries to defend against that, then this one will be close to the #. Holding off on Denver until conference play begins (I was 0-6 with or against them last year and I am extremely high on them this year). I expect a MAJOR decline in quality basketball with the Pacific program. I actually expected a slight decline last year and they were above my projections, but I think this is really the year they suck. They lost their entire starting five. The other players who got big minutes (four of them), left the program. They return a single player, one of who is of little importance. Forced to at least field a team, Thomason was forced to bring in JUCO talent, something that he has rarely, if ever done while in his tenure at Pacific. His teams require a good 2-3 years of experience because of the offensive system he employs, so major, major struggles should be expected. Thomason teams are usually known for playing slow, but I will be eager to see if he can play slow with a weirdly put together roster and so much inexperience at this level. As for Nevada, I’m not sure what to think. The opening game stinker was unexpected, then they competed at UNLV. Just looking at the state of the Pacific program, I’m not sure how they compete here. Nevada’s good for one early lopsided game and this has “beatin” written all over it. I have no interest in San Diego State or USC. USC is coming off an overtime loss and hits the road for the first time. San Diego State is in the midst of a 6 games in 8 days and hasn’t had a single minute of practice time in the past few days and they welcome the country’s darling in Long Beach State on Saturday. The game sort of wreaks of an under, even though SDSU has shown it wants to get more up and down this year. I need to watch a bit of Wichita State before playing them this year. I’m not all that high on them, which probably puts me in the minority. They have won consistently with size in past years, and they just don’t have much of that this year in terms of experience or depth. They have nice guard depth, but it’s going to be a different style of basketball than what they showed last year winning the NIT. Colorado is a bit inexperienced and lost a bunch, but they should have some talent. I just can’t make a play on them here. This Georgia Tech and St. Joseph’s game has the potential of putting one to sleep if they attempt to watch it. Martelli’s been playing slow since the beginning of last year, and while he has a decently strong backcourt in terms of offense, I’m not sure he wants to get out and run quite yet. Conversely, Georgia Tech is now led by former Dayton coach Brian Gregory who has been known to slow the game down slower than a snail’s pace. Another interesting point of note is that GT will be without Rice in game #1 of this tourney, so an already pathetic offense gets even worse. Curious to see how this one plays out (I won’t watch it for fear of being put to sleep), but just based on tendencies, this one is listed a weeee bit too high. In my very first post in the November Hoops thread, I pretty much stated that I would more than likely being playing Arizona anything under 6 in the game against St. John’s, and that was before the unexpected return of Parrom. This kid loses his grandmother, returns home to visit his dying Mom, while at home is shot in the leg by a stray bullet, goes back to school, his mom passes away, he recovers a month ahead of his expected recovery time, and now he leads a 3-0 Arizona team into Madison Square Garden, in his hometown of NYC, to face his hometown team? That’s a friggin movie in the making with a win tonight. I value Rider quite a bit higher than Penn, but my lack of Ivy knowledge is pitiful. I will take a chance on Fairfield and Minnesota going under. Neither offense scares me, and both defenses are the strongest attribute of each squad. Last year off a loss, Fairfield’s defense was better than average, and they’re coming off a loss where they gave up 80 to Providence. We should get their best effort tonight, also noting, they only allowed an average of 55 points a game off a loss last year. Minnesota’s defense has the potential to be dominant this year with Mbakwe and Sampson in the paint. Minnesota’s guards a year older after being freshman from last year, so this defense can only get better. Team’s don’t matchup all that well, but in the backcourt, Fairfield will be able to contain Minnesota’s guards, and Minnesota will take Fairfield’s inside game pretty much out of the game. Pretty nice under situation here, probably would have lined this at 120-121. Niagara has some offensive talent this year. Without Antoine Mason last year, they were pretty much lost, but they got some added experience and Mason is back. Assuming Haith allows Missouri to run and there is no look ahead to Notre Dame, I’d give Missouri about a 80% chance of putting up 100 points tonight. The fact that Illinois State is favored by 19 over anyone in the country makes me want to crawl in a hole and hide. I’ve watched a bit of Tennessee Martin this year, and while they aren’t the most talented bunch, I like some of what I see in terms of style. They have the ability to surprise a few teams come OVC play, and if I could point out one game that they have a chance to win in the non-conference (against a team I’ve actually heard of), this is probably the game. They don’t matchup all that well with Arkansas State but what exactly has Arkansas State showed this early in the season to deserve laying points to anyone. Lost to Lamar and blown out at home to Missouri State. Not really interested in any of the double digit spreads out West tonight.
2* Arizona ML -140
1* Fairfield/Minnesota Under 129
Leans: (Nevada -12.5, Georgia Tech/St. Joseph’s Under 133.5, Niagara/Missouri Over 150)
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