This is one of the lightest weeks on the college basketball schedule as teams reset after the madness of Feast Week.
It’s a bit of a lull before conference play really heats up, with the Big Ten providing some early action, but that’s about it. That, of course, is little hindrance to us as we canvass the upcoming schedule every weekend to identify hotspots where we are quite likely to pounce unless the lines are way out of whack.
We have highlighted again a game a day to circle and attack with a particular strategy based on where we see significant mismatches.
Monday: South Carolina State at Charlotte Southern -9.5 (Fan Duel)
Charleston Southern has plenty of flaws. This is not a juggernaut here. But they do an excellent job sharing the ball and finding quality shot opportunities and are averaging a staggering 20 assists per game while scoring 84 points per game. That alone would be more than enough to cover a wider spread against a South Carolina State team that might be one of the 10 worst in the country. Southern is also grabbing 46 rebounds a game, and while its level of competition hasn’t been impressive, South Carolina State can’t defend a lick. Winthrop hung 101 on them and Missouri nearly did the same. They are getting killed on the boards and got killed in the portal. They are going to have difficulty staying out of the cellar of the lowly MEAC. This team is 350th in KenPom offense and No. 333 on defense. Southern can cover 10-12 points here and has covered three of the last four.
Tuesday: Penn State at Indiana – Nittany Lions with the points
Penn State might be a little better than we thought coming into the season. After a super-shaky outing vs. a Division-II opponent, they strung together the kind of results you would expect from a Big 10 team playing a series of minnows. But man, this was a cupcake schedule. No tournament action. No back-to-back games. Gives us a little pause. But the Hoosiers, on the other hand, got way too much hype too soon and got humbled by Minnesota, and then got discarded by Louisville. This has been a tricky spot for the Hoosiers for years. Penn State has covered seven of the last 10 meetings and has split those games straight up despite the Hoosiers being favorites in most. Penn State has covered five straight conference games and we think the Hoosiers are a little wobbly here. We’ll be grabbing the points.
Wednesday: Arkansas-Pine Bluff at Tulsa – Tulsa team total over
It’s our duty to try to pick on some of the most flawed defensive teams in the country before we get into conference play. Yeah, we lost on a half-point with High Point last week after they went 1 for 7 from the field and line combined in the final 4:24 of that game, despite scoring 88 points in the first 35 minutes. It sucks, but it happens. Pine Bluff more than fits the model of a team to attack. APB is allowing 94 points per game and barely shooting 38 percent from the field – that is a lot of run-and-gun opportunities for their opponents off those missed baskets. SMU and Vandy topped 100 points on APB. Okay, those are legit offenses; but Marshall scoring 98? Tulsa has a top 70 KenPom offense and could easily flirt with 100 points here as well. A Loyola Marymount team, for instance, that is 223rd in offense and 240th in pace, put up 94 points on Pine Bluff.
Men's Top 25: Purdue's Plummet and the Race for No. 1
Dec 7: After a thrashing courtesy of Iowa State, Purdue falls from the podium. Michigan and Arizona battle for the top spot and five new teams join the fray.
Thursday: Green Bay at IU Indy – Green Bay ML
We will admit that we had some fun with the whole situation of Doug Gottlieb trying to host a radio show and coach a D-I basketball team at the same time last year. And we profited from it, as UWGB was an auto-fade that could not cover almost all season. They finally turned it around a bit very late in conference play, and this season they have burned us a few times. It’s clear they are a far better product – gratuitous chair throwing aside – and IU Indy is a significantly worse team. They are horribly off, playing at the fastest speed in all of college hoops despite having a poor offense and the 361st-ranked defense in the land. That’s a tragic combo. And the lines haven’t been indicative of how off they are (we grabbed Youngstown State vs them over the weekend and cashed). GB played in some tough conference settings and showed us some real determination and ability to handle some close and late situations. This will be a fairly tight spread and we think the road team can win by multiple possessions.
Friday: Cal Baptist at Eastern Washington – Cal Baptist to cover
Cal Baptist is a machine. We have been remiss in not turning you guys on to them sooner. All they do is beat every lesser opponent they face. If you’re outside of the top 100 teams in the country, and they face you, they beat you by double digits. They aren’t fun to play against, as they destroy the offensive boards and live off taking a volume of shots while playing old-school defense. Eastern Washington caught our eye very early on, giving UCLA a scare, but it’s been all downhill since then. Cal Baptist is a top 30 team defending the arc and Eastern Washington lives and dies with the deep ball. Eastern Washington is allowing 85 points per game. We see Cal Baptist flirting with another double-digit win here.
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