Posted:
#1
November: 46-38, +5.20
November Leans: 39-38
December: 65-70, -9.45
December Leans: 67-79
January: 32-24, +23.20
January Leans: 30-29
There are a few things that I really dislike about this play. First, I am not a fan of laying the double digit chalk on the road, let alone laying chalk at all, let alone laying chalk on the road in conference, let alone with that conference being the Pac 12. I am also not a fan of making a play based solely on an injury, as anytime someone is injured, more than likely the team has someone that can fit that role to a “T”. Now that that part is out of the way, tonight I will be playing a Pac-12 team, on the road, laying double digit chalk, against a team with a key injury. It’s been announced that Josh Watkins has been kicked off of the Utah basketball team. How important is he to this team? He is on the only senior on the roster. He is second in minutes played. The only reason he isn’t first is b/c he missed 1 game. Speaking of the one game he did miss, Utah was beaten on their home court by Cal State Fullerton by 31. To put this into perspective, Fullerton’s best win on the season is against Eastern Washington. However, Fullerton and Zona are pretty similar with what they want to do from an offensive standpoint (shoot a ton of three’s). He is currently the top player in the country in terms of how many possessions he is used. What’s this mean? On almost 40% of Utah’s possessions, he is either making a shot, missing a shot, assisting on a shot, or turning the ball over. The top player = #1 out of 3,850. He is currently ranked 11th in the country in shot attempt % (220 shots in 16 games!). He takes just over 36% of Utah’s shots. He is the best combo defender Utah has at the guard position when you combine rebounding/block/steal percentages. He assists on 47% of Utah’s baskets. That’s good for 2nd in the Nation. If you’ve ever seen the kid play, he does just about everything for this team. He’s more of a slashing guard, and not that great of a shooter. He looks to penetrate often, which leads me to probably the most important stat: He draws almost 7 fouls a game. He likes getting to the basket. He likes getting to the foul line (97 times to be exact). There isn’t a player on their team that’s even close at the guard position. So, that sums up Utah. They’re missing a leader, their only offensive weapon, their only offensive weapon that leads to others offense, and their missing all that slashing ability which is going to make it harder for everyone to score. This offense is absolutely horrific with him, and there is no reason it gets better without him. And, they’re going to have to totally switch up everything they’ve done. Krystkowiak tookover an extremely fast team for the past few years and turned them into a snail this year. Run a play here or there, then when it got down to the shot clock, find Watkins and let him go to work. They can’t do that anymore. If they do stay with it, they don’t have the right players to fit that system. So, I think they will speed things up. I’m not sure if it happens tonight and wouldn’t bet on that happening b/c Zona doesn’t look to run to terribly often, but it’s going to happen eventually, and there will be an insane amount of value when it does. Take a horrible offense and get them more possessions, especially in transition, and they’re going to score more. From a defensive standpoint, Utah has shown the zone defense as of late. He will mix in some man-to-man, but without Watkins, I think they’ll go to a zone. The guards can’t defend, and if you’ve watched Arizona, that’s the focus for them going zone here. The problem is, that Arizona can sort of shoot the three-ball pretty well and teams are shooting 42% from out there on Utah. I can go on and on about this and that, but I think it really just comes down to one thing: Utah is not good. Sure, they might get some confidence by throwing a few new players in there, or heck, maybe Watkins was the reason that this team was doing so bad? Who knows. All I know is that if Arizona can knock down some outside shots, then this one comes in pretty easy. And if they don’t hit shots (sort of like Murray State didn’t do last night against Morehead’s zone), then I feel it was a risk worth taking.
If my gut’s right with Utah running, then you also have some value in the over, although I’m not sure the results will be there in game #1 of a new system. Krystkowiak was a running and gunning machine while he was at Montana, so it’s not like going to it would be that out of the ordinary for him. If they don’t run and gun or pick up the pace a bit or change anything, then they just aren’t going to score without having a go-to guy at the end of possessions.
1* Arizona -14
Lean: Arizona/Utah Over 117
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