INDIAN COWBOY
Cavs (POD) -3
The Cavs have every reason to lay down the wood today. If you remember this team had revenge against the Washington Wizards recently at home and they nearly blew them out of the building and such is the case today. Will the Celtics get blown out today or have they gotten blown out all season. No. However, the Celtics if you remember only beat the Cavs by 10 points without Lebron. Now, this team has Lebron, they are at home this time, they have revenge and the C's are without Garnett. Imagine if the Celtics beat the Cavs with revenge, at home, with Garnett and when the Cavs did not have Lebron by 10 - imagine what the Cavs can do today with Lebron, with revenge, with no Garnett. I also like the fact that most of the public is on the Celtics and in the end I think the defending Eastern Conference Champs pull ahead and get the cover here. Cleveland is 5-0 ATS against a team with a winning record of late meaning they are showing up against better teams and the Celtics are 1-4 ATS in their last 5 contests at Cleveland.
Northern Iowa +6.5
You might want to invest in some tums today because you might need it with this game along with the Penn State game. But, long story short here, both of these teams are top 100 teams but Northern Iowa lost to this Creighton team at home 59-68. It was a game that Northern Iowa got down early and had to claw back successfully. This team has every bit of revenge in mind today as this is a MVC game and is likely to be low-scoring. I think this game takes 1 of 2 facets. One, Creighton might win this game outright, I have them at a 35% chance of doing that. Or two, N.Iowa takes an early lead and Creighton comes back late to win it and fails to cover. Northern Iowa faced a top 10 power ranking team in Drake and lost by 4 points, which clearly shows this team's bite on the road and they have revenge in this game similar to that Drake game. N.Iowa has covered 5 straight ballgames and I see a bit of opposite trajectories here. I think the Panthers of Northern Iowa have an outside of winning outright or fall inside the cover. The Panthers are 6-1 ATS in their last 7 road games and the raod team is 5-2 ATS in the last 7 meetings.
Penn State +11.5
This is one of those homer selections that doesn't look good on paper, but if you crunch the numbers it makes a lot of sense. Follow me here: Penn State was a top 100 team before a key injury to their star player occurred a while back which made this team go on a downward spiral. If you remember, losing Geary Claxton back on January 23rd was brutal to this team especially during conference play in the Big 10. What else would you do if you had a guy on your team who was scoring 18 a game and giving you 8 rebounds go down - given that your team averages 68 points per game. But, after losing 6 games in a row - something has happened - this team has come together, learned how to play better - similar to the Wizards without Arenas and they have showed up in a big way and that led to the win over Michigan State recently where they dropped 85 points - their seasons highest total if I am not mistaken. Purdue has covered 7 of 8 ballgames but this game eerily reminds of the game against Northern Iowa they had where they won by 1 points as essentially -9.5 favorites as Northern Iowa is a top 150 team. Penn State has learned to play without their star, they face a Purdue team that beat them 64-42 at Penn State when they were newbies without Claxton. Well, now they have that experience and beat a very good Michigan State team, take that experience of playing together and getting 4 people in double-figures in scoring as compared to just 1 person in their last game against Purdue and I think Penn State surprises folks today as they are a different team than who Purdue played as this team has their feet wet with their new core of scorers. The Boilermakers are 1-8 ATS as home favorites of late and the road team has covered the last 4 contests in this matchup
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