NCAA YTD 41-31 (57%)
1-4 yesterday. 1-6 the last two days. This is by far the worst stretch I have had this year so its time to go back to the drawing board and review what went wrong and try to right the ship for today’s play which is SDSU -12.
Butler +1.5 (Loss) – This is a play that I would not make again on the account of overestimating Butlers defense at home. Reviewing their previous home games against Creighton and Georgetown, they gave up 55 and 53 points but reviewing closer, their recent with Georgetown was a 2 meeting and they gave up 71 points to Seton Hall, 87 points to Xavier, and 75 points to Connecticut all at home. These were closer indications to what happened yesterday as those teams are closer in offensive efficiency and pace to St. Johns than Creighton and Georgetown. Butler should have been blown out. The right play win or lose was St. Johns and the over.
Michigan State -2.5 (Loss) – Its hard to handicap the home team having its 2 most efficient game of the 21 century yesterday against a team ranked 47 in defensive efficiency. No signs pointed to Rutgers shooting 61% for the whole game. Rutgers does however play teams at tough at home and were coming off of a home loss. This was just a bad beat. In hindsight, I should have left the spread alone. I rarely play unders in college basketball but the under 134 statistically would have been the correct play as Rutgers averages 53 points per game versus teams in the top 50 nationally in defense.
Boise State -21.5 (Loss) – Yes the spread was large and on account of how inefficient Boise States offense is as well as their lack of free throw shooting capability, this play should have been left alone as Boise out of all the top teams in the Mountain West is the most susceptible to being backdoored, however the spread was this high for a reason as Boise State is easily 25 points better than San Jose State. Boise State led by 29 points with 9:43 left in the game. They ended up scoring only 7 more points and going 1-15 the rest of the way. How do you only score 7 points in 10 minutes against the 322th worst defense in the country? This was a bad beat and only someone trying to be overly sharp would state that San Jose State +21.5 was the right play as there would have really been no way to predict what happened the final 10 minutes. You would be choosing San Jose State and “hoping” for a backdoor cover if you made this play. I have been backdoored in the past by other teams when playing the spread and Boise actually failed to cover against Air Force and also to New Mexico as a large favorite. Air Force was predictable because of their Pace. New Mexico was a fluke as Boise missed about 20 layups and shot 55% from the FT line and failed to cover the spread by half a point. The stats do however point out that Boise State typically gives up between 57 and 60 points at home and if one were to assume that Boise was going to cover, then Boise should have scored somewhere between 78-85 points. The over in this game was the right play. I can’t say Boise was the right play but if I had to play this again, I choose Boise State to cover.
St. Thomas vs Oral Roberts – Over 160 (Loss) – St.Thomas failed to score in the final 5 minutes of this game as the score was 74-66 with 4:53 to go and ended up being 88-66. The game failed to go over the total by 6 points. Looking closer, St. Thomas has struggled offensively in its last 6 games, all loses averaging 65 points per game in that span. They have given up 83 points per game in that span as well. The right side would have been the under and Oral Roberts to cover the spread.
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