First Round Thread

[Toledo Prophet]

Happy March Madness!!!!

Big Dance is on. Dont forget to put a buck on IU to go all the way. Uh, you heard it here first. :shrug:

Anyway. onto serious matters. My real picks. I'll keep the First Round in this thread. I will have write ups on these games in ensuing posts. I will also be adding up my record and when I have that done, I will edit it into this first post.

Even in we are opposite sides on games, I truly hope everyone here has a profitbale and fun tournament run. Hopefully your bracket wont be busted, but you will bust your book!!

Thursday Day:

Temple +7.5 over MSU
Purdue ML -140 over Baylor
Kent -1 over UNLV
UK +6 over Marquette

Thursday Night:

USC ML, -160 over KSU. I made this one a double play. The rest for the day and night are just single plays.
Mason +7 over ND
BYU +1.5 over Tamu
Winthrop +10 over Wassau
UCSF +11.5 over Wisco
Arizona +2 over WVA
Maryland +5 over Syracuse

 

[Toledo Prophet]

My thoughts on the Thursday afternoon games:

Temple +7.5 over MSU. Temple has been on fire against the number all season, going 22-11 ATS. Since the calendar flipped to 2008, they have been even better, going 13-3 ATS, 10-0 when catching points. Something has been off all season with MSU. It was supposed to be a vintage Izzo year, but the team has been up and down, too often playing down to their opponent. I think they will have a hard time matching up with Christmas and Tyndale, a versatile duo the likes of which I am not sure MSU has seen in the Big 10 this year. Temple is a good shooting club and actually averages more ppg than MSU. I think they come out steady and shooting well. They will be in this one all the way until the end. MSU still relies too much on Neitzel for offense, and I have never been a big fan. MSU can still win games in this tourney, but none will come easy or in blowout fashion. More good numbers for Temple: The Owls are 13-3 ATS against teams with a winning record, 9-1 vs .600 or better foes.

Kent -1 over UNLV. Both teams play great defesne, but the Flashes shoot the ball much better than Vegas. That gets them over the hump in this one. Not sure Vegas can match the firepower Kent brings to the table. I love the scoring of Fisher, the inside-outside combo game of Scott and the all around, do everything sort of game of Quantaince. Vegas has done well to get here, but they are not as good as last year's team. Kent, meanwhile, is a top shelf mid major and probably the best team the MAC has had in a couple years. They have played a tougher slate, imo, from top to bottom than UNLV has and have achieved more against that slate. Other than Wink Adams, there are not many scoring options for the Rebels. Kent will have too much for them and win this one going away in the end.

UK +6 over Marquette and Purdue ML over Baylor. Both UK and PU cost me a heavy loss over the weekend. Still, in Purdue no team has won me more coin this season and with UK, I have been on them a lot during their rebound once league play began. I am more than willing to play on both of them in their tourney opener. I would be shocked if Purdue did not have at least one tourney win in them after how well they played this year. They will be too fundamentally sound and patient in tempo for Baylor. Plus, I think their versatile offense will force the second rate Bear defense to buckle. And with UK, all they do is play close games and I dont expect anything less tomorrow. My instinct is telling me to stay on these clubs for at least one more game, so that is what I will be doing. I've just had tremendous success--even when factoring in last week's losses--on both of these teams for more than two months now. I gotta give both of them another shot tomorrow.

Good Luck! :weed:

 

[Toledo Prophet]

Added these games for tonight.

All single plays:

Winthrop +10 over Wassau
UCSF +11.5 over Wisco
Arizona +2 over WVA
Maryland +5 over Syracuse.

A bonus NIT pick! Actually, its kind of a cool game, and am looking forward to watching it. It will be better than Belmont-Duke, for example. Unless of course, the Bruins spring the upset, which would be awesome.

I also adjusted the first post to include these picks as well as the lines I got for the night games.

Good Luck! :weed:

 

[Toledo Prophet]

I made USC a double play. They have been a great ATS team under Tim Floyd. Beasley and Walker are future NBA pros, but dont the Trojans have more NBA talent? I think they do. I would not be surprised if Devean Jefferson steals the show in my mind tonight. Trojans get much better guard play. I love Tim Floyd as a college coach. Loved his gameplans this year vs Memphis, UCLA and Stanford. His team have seen it all and they will have some sort of defensive gimmick cooked up to thwart the Beastley one. Since KSU topped KU back in January, what exactly have they done? I dont see anything impressive on their resume since then. USC is more battle tested and has had more success this year. They are the better club.

Playing the ML because tourney games are goofy and I do think KSU will make a good push here. Doubling up on the ML here as the Trojans get it done in the end. Bottomline, I feel Floyd is the much much better coach tonight and thats going to be the difference in this mde for TV, future pick showdown!

Dont have time for writeups on the rest of my games as I am leaving in a few minutes. Heading to Chicago. I will be there at a bar, drink in hand by the time the night games tip!! We are drafting fantasy basbeall tonight, and the best part is half of my league are either Irish or Badger backers! They will be distracted, hopefully they will make chitty draft picks all night and the rest will clean up.

But, if anyone cares, I will try and get to computer somehow tomorrow morning to post my Friday picks. Who knows, it might be great fase material!!

Good Luck and have fun with all the hoops!! :weed: