ecu +10-: this play is a little frisky but i've been lucky lately so gonna give the pirates a try. ecu is one of those teams that plays a lot better at home. although they are o'fer forever in true road games, they are 9-5 s/u at home, 3-3 s/u, 4-2 ats in c-usa play. beaten st louis, louisville, houston; lost to cincy by 10, unc-c by 9; only bad loss a blowout to depaul. since the depaul loss they won four straight in greenville. also, tonight is senior night, and the three senior pirate starters are the heart and soul of this team. they are the team leaders on and off the court. none of the three has any realistic shot at the pros so this is a pretty big night fot them. should be a decent crowd to see them off also. minges coliseum holds around eight grand, and they brought in 7400 for the louisville game, 7100 for cincy.
fwiw, marquette coach crean has been laying down his best dour coachspeak this week. says he, "we're not ready to play right now. our focus isn't very good right now. not at all. until our team decides we're going to get back to practicing hard every day, we're going to be in some real dogfights." disect the psychology of those words if you can. in any event i'm making a regular play on the pirates tonight.
also tonight:
morehead st -7-
murray state -9-
i'm not fond of laying big chalk in conference tournaments, but i'm going to play these two in tandem looking for a split at worst and hoping for a pair of winners. these first round games in the ovc tourney are played on the higher seeds' homecourts, semis and finals this weekend in louisville.
for time's sake, short version is tenn state bad on the road, morehead very sharp at home. last four matchups in morehead, home team wins by 20, 17, 31 and 16.
basicly the same setup in murray. murray state 7-1 in february, and has advanced to the ovc semi round 14 straight years. e ill defense on the road - 84.5 ppg, 48.3% fg, 37.4& 3 pt.
and finally:
texas tech +4: i can't resist. yes texas has won the last 11 in this series, but not against any tech team that could post 20 wins in the big 12. anybody have any doubt as to whether bobby will have his team prepared for this game?
fwiw, marquette coach crean has been laying down his best dour coachspeak this week. says he, "we're not ready to play right now. our focus isn't very good right now. not at all. until our team decides we're going to get back to practicing hard every day, we're going to be in some real dogfights." disect the psychology of those words if you can. in any event i'm making a regular play on the pirates tonight.
also tonight:
morehead st -7-
murray state -9-
i'm not fond of laying big chalk in conference tournaments, but i'm going to play these two in tandem looking for a split at worst and hoping for a pair of winners. these first round games in the ovc tourney are played on the higher seeds' homecourts, semis and finals this weekend in louisville.
for time's sake, short version is tenn state bad on the road, morehead very sharp at home. last four matchups in morehead, home team wins by 20, 17, 31 and 16.
basicly the same setup in murray. murray state 7-1 in february, and has advanced to the ovc semi round 14 straight years. e ill defense on the road - 84.5 ppg, 48.3% fg, 37.4& 3 pt.
and finally:
texas tech +4: i can't resist. yes texas has won the last 11 in this series, but not against any tech team that could post 20 wins in the big 12. anybody have any doubt as to whether bobby will have his team prepared for this game?
