(photo: x (@ToneLo711)
24/25 Season Record: 87-74
12/5 Card :
- Maine +5.5 (7:00pm – ESPN+) (given on X)
- Dartmouth/Notre Dame 1H under 66.5 (7:00pm – ACC Extra/ESPN+) (given on X)
- Reyne Smith over 12.5 points (7:00pm – ACC Extra/ESPN+) (give on X)
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Maine +5.5 : Let’s get another Best Bet dawgggg to win outright. I think the Black Bears have a great chance to do so tonight.
I am very impressed with the Maine backcourt. It is not often that you see two guards on the same roster that have the assist/turnover ratios of Kellen Tynes and Jaden Clayton. AJ Lopez has also taken a monster step in the scoring department. He scored 24 points last time out and has insane shooting percentage splits this year (44.3/43.2/94.1). Lopez and the Black Bears have soared all the way to 3rd in the country in free throw percentage. Duquesne is 346th. Quite the disparity. Lopez, Burns and Tynes are all shooting over 85% with at least 27 attempts. That is going to be a huge matchup edge for our underdog tonight. Duquesne ranks 301st in the country in opponent free throw rate per KenPom. Maine is going to get a ton of freebies in this one & Duquesne is likely to miss a lot of theirs.
We got up close and personal with this Duquesne squad on Friday night. They covered our Best Bet with a dominant 2H performance to blow past Delaware. I was pleased to win the bet, but I came away pretty unimpressed with the roster/coaching of this Dukes team. The defense is pretty horrible. A down Delaware team had 22 points before you could blink an eye. They scored 1.22 SQ PPP in that half. Dru Joyce seemed lost at times. I am not so sure he is the right man for the job. Time will tell.
This Maine team is disciplined with taking care of the ball, creating for teammates, and making their free throws. I like that steady hand against a sporadic Duquesne squad. The Black Bears can win this outright. Give us the points.
Score Prediction: Duquesne 67 – Maine 66
Dartmouth/Notre Dame 1H under 66.5 : The Irish will have a stranglehold on the Dartmouth offense to start this one. The Big Green have fallen all of the way to 345th in the KenPom offensive efficiency rating. They also rank 339th in the SQ adjusted offensive rating. Dartmouth is not going to find many easy baskets at the rim tonight. They rank 303rd in efficiency attacking the rim per Shot Quality. Notre Dame ranks 17th in amount of shots around the rim allowed. This is probably going to entice Dartmouth to take even more 3’s than they normally do (which is a lot). Notre Dame is one of the better teams in the country at contesting three pointers. Shot Quality has them at 26th in the country in Open 3PT Rate allowed. Notre Dame has held Houston, Georgia and Syracuse to under 70 points in 3 out of their last 4 games. This unit is gelling well and I want to back them in this spot.
The offense is not humming as well as the defense at the moment for the Irish. The loss of Markus Burton is weighing on that unit heavily. I think Dartmouth could be a team that allows ND to finally get it going in that department, but I am banking on another slow start out of the gate. The edge here is in the 1H instead of the full game in my opinion. Let’s get a slow start.
Score Prediction: 1H Notre Dame 35 – Dartmouth 28
Reyne Smith over 12.5 points : Sniper SZN.
Reyne Smith is one of the biggest volume three point shooters that we have in America. He is averaging NINE three point attempts per game. This volume has even gone up a tick over the last two games following Louisville’s injury problems (10.5 attempts per). These injuries also have Reyne playing the most amount of minutes in his career. UTEP is 349th in the country in 3PT % allowed to start the season. I think a big night awaits for our Australian sharpshooter. Bombs away.
Score Prediction: Reyne Smith 15 points
Best of luck! Let’s snipe!!
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