NCAA, NIT, CBI, and CIT Plays

Consolidated to one thread for the madness...

Texas Southern ML -130 vs Fairleigh Dickinson

4 Units

@Bookie_Crushers

 Looking forward to it

Texas A&M beats Texas and maybe gets to elite 8 with something to prove after being under seeded 

Arkansas ML -140 vs Illinois

4.2 Units to win 3

Vermont +12 vs Marquette  (-115)

5 Units

@Santaqquin166

I don't hate that take.

Yessir Arkansas gets it done.

@Bookie_Crushers

 Thanks for posting early, I'm not from your part of the world, I'm sure you will keep up to date on late changes, ins/outs though unlikely, of course could work in your favour taking early lines, then again not .... look forward to more picks. 

Wow talk about a lot of madness!!!! GL, hope to tail some.

@Bookie_Crushers

 Thanks BC for posting your thoughts and plays early. Looking forward to getting this thing going. Good luck!!

@Bookie_Crushers

 I’d sure like to hear your opinion on who the final 4 will be. Thanks bud

Underdogs (of 6.5+) … in tournament games vs. non-conference opponents … off 3 straight double-digit wins … 17-2 ATS since 2010!!

Vermont is one of them!

Lets go 5 units on Vermont

So you like Vermont +11 ?

Fairleigh Dickinson's SOS RPI rating is 362nd out of 363 teams. Ahead of only St Francis NY, who they were fortunate enough to rack up 3 of their wins against. Texas Southern's SOS RPI is nearly 100 spots higher after just beating a Grambling team who was in the top 150 of KenPom rankings, and courtesy of a fantastic non-conference schedule which included a win over Arizona St. Texas Southern is the more veteran team, as seniors account for 4 of their 5 top minutes per game along with soph scorer, Barnes, who is the most talented player on either side. This veteran advantage is bolstered further by the fact that this is the Tigers third straight play-in game after comfortably beating teams from more respectable conferences the past 2 years. This was in major part due to their defense traveling well on a familiar neutral court holding both opponents to 2 of their worst shooting games of the season in those prior play in games. Given that FD has arguably the worst defense in the country, I'm not worried about Tigers being able to do enough on offense here and given that they are the far superior rebounding team, there should be plenty of 2nd chance points available even with a mediocre shooting day. Let the public fall prey to the overall records here, while we capitalize on a third straight comfortable play-in win for Texas Southern.

Momentum advantage as well given that FD lost in their conference tourney final.

@Skinny-Duggins

 Absolutely. All the way down to single digits. Happy to snag 12 last night of course.

@peter0105

 Very interesting stat.

lets kill the tourneys!

Illinois has badly regressed. They rely on the 3 too much for a team that is poor at shooting them. In fact, they probably have the worst resume of any power 5 team over the past month which includes 1-9 ats. If you discount the Illini's home win vs D2-caliber Minnesota where they didn't come close to covering, their only other 2 wins are luckbox ones vs NW and Michigan, in which they trailed significantly to both for nearly the whole game and were fortunate to have some home-cooking and outlier 3 pt-shooting down the stretch to escape. Arkansas has a very good defense and is probably the most underachieving team in the country (outside of UNC of course), but is sneakily peaking (despite some competitive losses) from an offensive efficiency perspective. Hogs are also at their healthiest this season with lottery pick, Smith Jr., having finally worked himself into full minutes again. Arkansas has significantly higher offensive and defensive efficiency rating and while their free show shooting and three point shooting % remains a problem, Illinois is somehow significantly worse in both categories. Aces get cracked sometimes, but I'm happy to get 3 Units in on the much stronger Arkansas hand, with Illinois having no primary statistical advantages and a talent disparity.

@peter0105

 That's a nice little nugget of info thanks 

@peter0105

 Your nugget helps make Covers great

@Bookie_Crushers

@Fademeuwin

@umgmu

To clarify the DOG is the team coming in off of 3 consecutive double-digit wins

To help save you time in digging this up, here you go:

Marquette picked 9th in the Big East preseason, has the highest positive variance outcome % in the conference this year including 5 one or two point wins on their current 9-game win streak, as well as a meager 2-possession home win over lowly DePaul. They are the lowest rated 2 seed in KenPom ratings and Vermont is 1 spot behind Princeton as the highest rated 15 seed. More importantly, Vermont is a veteran, half-court team that slows the game down and is scoring-efficient with less than 5 on the shot clock, in part because they shoot so well from 3. This should frustrate Marquette who would prefer a run n gun opponent and has the worst half-court defensive efficiency rating in the tournament along with a bottom 5 defensive 3 point % rating. 12 points is a mountain here given all those favorable matchup factors for the Catamounts and I think Vermont will have a shot at an outright win.

Great write up,hope you win big for all the work you put in.