(photo: Gavin Baker)
I will do my best to provide college basketball winners for you on a nightly basis. The majority of the nights we will try to keep it to three plays, but some days may ask for more. I recommend you play them individually .. however, never be scared of a little sniper parlay!
Season Record: 134-106
Season Best Bet Record: 50-26
2/1 Card:
Saint Joe’s -4.5
Villanova/Marquette o145
Tulane -8.5
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Saint Joe’s -4.5 : The Best Bet of the night! Getting it out of the way early before our two later tips. I love the Hawks in this home spot. The Joe’s are coming into this matchup winning 4 out of their last 5 straight up. The only loss was in overtime by 1 point at GW. Rhode Island is 0-6 straight up on the road this season, and only 2-4 ATS. This is largely due to their carelessness with the basketball. The Rams are ranked 291st in the country in turnovers. Also, they have a negative assist/turnover ratio for the season. You will not find success on the road with those problems. Also, this team just flat out cannot shoot. They are 321st in the country in three point attempt rate, and only make them at 30.6% when they do shoot them. That is trouble tonight as Saint Joe’s loves shooting the three ball, and do it well in the confines of their home gym. The Hawks are 30th in the country at three point attempt rate, and are 9th in the country in points from three pointers at home. Erik Reynolds II is one of the best players in the A-10, and is coming off of a 30 point performance in a win over George Mason. His elite scoring will carry us tonight.
Score Prediction: Saint Joe’s 75 – Rhode Island 66
Villanova/Marquette o145 : Marquette is an absolute fireball at Fiserv. They are averaging 82.4 ppg at home in conference play. They should get near that number again tonight against a Villanova team ranking 225th in defensive efficiency this season. Nova has added Justin Moore back into the equation after a long recovery process on his knee. I think that is great for their offensive outlook, but he will struggle to stay in front of the athletic Golden Eagles tonight defensively. He just doesn’t have that closing speed yet. This should make the Wildcats’ defensive efficiency suffer even more. Also, I love picking spots where Vegas virtually doesn’t change the total (144.5 last matchup) even when the result of the previous match does not come close to that number. The first matchup between these two ended on 134 points. However, the game was 66-66 with 3:42 left and it ended 68-66 in Marquette’s favor. As you know, that is an anomaly type of ending for that score-line with 4 to go. Also, what I loved from that game was the volume of three pointers that we saw. There were 59 three pointers attempted between the two. I think we could see a similar number tonight. Marquette will up this pace. There will be nothing Nova can do to stop it if they want to hang around. I think we get to at least 150 here. This bet is Shot Quality approved. Check out their Value Finder below:
Score Prediction: Marquette 78 – Villanova 72
Tulane -8.5 : The Mustangs have been no shows on the road in the AAC against stiff competition. Here are their results (minus crappy Tulsa):
@ Houston – 87- 53 Loss
@ UCF – 85-53 Loss
@ Memphis – 99-84 Loss
The obvious trend here is SMU’s abysmal road defensive performances. They are 297th in road defensive efficiency. They are 208th encompassing all of their games, so that shows you that their effort drops significantly on the road. Meanwhile, the Green Wave have been absolutely phenomenal in conference play at home. Their only loss is to Houston. Their offense is really intricate due to the ability of Kevin Cross to dish the rock. At 6’8, he is 5th in the AAC in assist rate at 28% (stat credit: Taylor Eldridge). SMU will have no clue what to do with this scheme. Also, Jaylen Forbes is just that dude in Nola. He always has big time scoring performances at home. Trusting him to lead the way for the Green Wave to have a double digit victory tonight.
Score Prediction: Tulane 85 – SMU 72
Best of luck! Let’s snipe this one y’all!!
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