man hoops, are you ever right, st joe certainly packed it in bigtime in a situation where you would expect a quality team to rebound and take care of business. i'll be staying away from the hawks on the road.
here's the plays for sunday, but beware, as all appear to be popular plays.
nc state -3-: heads up on this homer play for me but pack's youngsters appear to be progressing nicely. passed first big road test at syracuse and gained a lot of confidence. houston is an improved team this year but not yet ready for prime time. cougars 3-0 su at home but 0-3 ats. they especially seem to struggle against good defensive teams. knight's texas tech team came in and held them to 35% from the floor. wolfpack steady on defense holding opponents to 38.6% shooting for the year. think the pack can take this one by around 10.
rutgers +16: i'm going to jump out there on the scarlet knights as hoos don't have much to play for here thus i give the motivatinal edge to the surprising 8-2 knights who are looking for credibility. game is a sellout as is most games in charlottesville but wild-ass students mostly home for the holidays and crowd should be more of the merlot-and-brie crowd than usual. rutgers plays a decent man-to-man d that has held mostly inferior opponents to 37% shooting for the year, 34.5% over the last five. holding the cavs to a reasonable number here is crucial to this play - va runs away and we're doomed. hoos are 0-2 ats as dd favorites this year; as a matter of fact they're 0-5 as favorites.
tulane +7-: this is a scary one as no telling which yellow jacket team will show up but i'm really making this play on the improving green wave. tulane (7-1, 3-1 ats, 2-0 ats on the road) gets sr forward linton johnson back for this game after the big guy sits eight games for improper use of a university phone card. johnson started most of last year, averaging 13 points and 8 rebounds and should give tulane a real boost. tulane struggled in their last game, a 13 point win over lowly lipscomb, but that was coming off a 10-day exam layoff. note we have had recent success betting against teams in this situation. tech 6-5 su but only 3-7 ats and 1-5 ats at home. wofford recently gave them all they wanted. sparse crowd likely tonight with the holidays - only 2800 for the wofford game. upset possibility in this one.
tcu -15: before i hear it, i know i swore off dd favorites last night, but you didn't think i really meant it, did you? tcu always scores a million against the porous green wave d, 130 something last year i think. this is n tex third game in five days after easy wins over patsies where defense was not needed. tcu is 100-20 su at home under tubbs, 5-0 ats this year. they just handled a credible smu team by 12 at home and steamrolled app st (a comparable team to n tex) by 34. see a comparable score today.
