Going against my rules today. . .

[Nickelback]

Gonna play a couple big games today instead of laying off them as I always say you should:

Indiana +3.5 over Kentucky

Love this spot as Kentucky looked great against Duke and Indiana lost to Miami the week before. So why is this line so low?!?! Hmmmm. . . I believe the story of this game will be Indiana's defense which should slow down Prince and Kentucky a little.

Marquette laying 3 over Wisconsin

This should be a very big defensive battle where 3 points would appear to be huge. However, my premise is that Marquette will win this game (mostly due to the fact they have the better shooting team and I do not believe that Wisconsin will have a huge rebounding advantage) so laying three points should not harm us if Marquette gets the W.

Still looking at others including Texas over UNLV . . .

 

[Nickelback]

Going with another high profile game:

Missouri +3 over Illinois

Illinois is a very physical team without a great deal of team speed. When Illinois goes up against teams with a lot of speed such as Arizona, they have to foul a lot in order to compete. Missouri (a team with speed) is coming off a loss to Iowa (a team with speed as well) so it would be easy to assume that Illinois would have similar success as Iowa except for the fact they are two different teams. If this game was being played at Illinois with Big 10 refs, I would take Illinois, but since the game is at Missouri, I will gladly take the points and expect Missouri to get to the line early and often.

 

[prospector]

like your picks Nickelback

 

[Nickelback]

Here's the late game for Sneaks:

Georgia laying 1 over Hawaii

I feel the sole reason for this low line is the homecourt advantage for Hawaii. However, Georgia has played their last two games on this court! Sure, the crowd will be mostly for Hawaii, but we are talking about a couple thousand fans at the very most! Another factor is free throw percentage. Hawaii is just over sixty percent while Georgia is hitting seventy five percent. Even if the refs are biased towards the Bows, it may not be enough given their inability to hit consistently from the charity stripe.

 

[wigs]

nickelback, see hoops and raymond on texas and well that is the only team i know much about and i thought they looked like a play last night, although those road favorites sometimes worry me...

here is a little info on tex

Improvement on the Boards
After struggling on the boards and being outrebounded by three of its first four opponents, Texas has outrebounded four of its last five opponents. The Horns posted a 52-51 advantage on the boards against a Stanford team that entered the contest sporting a +14.0 rebound margin. Texas returned home to record a 47-27 advantage vs. Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, a 39-33 edge vs. Washington State and a 37-30 advantage vs. Jacksonville. UT is 5-0 this season when it outrebounds its opponent. (of course not counting stanford the rest are cupcakes)

Last year, Texas committed an average of 14.8 turnovers per contest and had a 414-to-502 assist-to-turnover ratio on the season. Through the first eight games this year, the Horns have averaged only 11.4 miscues per contest and have posted a 134-to-91 assist-to-turnover ratio. The Horns have posted more assists than turnovers in seven of their first eight games this season, something they managed to do just nine times during the entire season (34 games) last year.