College Basketball Gambling Primer: Feb. 15, Great Day For Zillion Beers, Zillion Games And Zillion Bets
YTD: 94-101-5 (Finally had a winning day on Tuesday going 6-3. Let's keep that momentum)
Picks
Oklahoma +11.5
Over 136 Ole Miss/Kentucky
Baylor -5.5
Under 130.5 Baylor/WVU
DePaul +9
Washington +3
Notre Dame +13
Under 118.5 UNC/Virginia
Maryland +7
Miami -2
Oklahoma at Kansas (-11.5/135)
Kansas returns home after that comeback win at West Virginia. Bit of a letdown spot here possibly with Baylor coming up next Saturday. Not to mention here's a thing. Oklahoma is actually good! They are going to be able to spread Kansas out and force Udoka Azubuike/David McCormack to defend the pick and pop with Brady Manek and Kristian Doolittle. Just need them to shoot better than 8-for-29 like they did earlier this season.
Pick: Oklahoma +11.5
Ole Miss at Kentucky (-9.5/136.5)
Breein Tyree has been one of the best guards in the SEC lately. The dude can just go get 30 if he wants and while Kentucky can throw a bunch of different guards on him, we've seen them get torched by someone like this before. That said, there should be a decent amount of FTs. Kentucky is 6th in the country at getting to the FT line while Ole Miss fouls more than 316 other schools. If they can get Khadim Sy in foul trouble, Nick Richards should eat.
Pick: Over 136.5
West Virginia at Baylor (-5.5/130.5)
To put it plain and simple West Virginia's guards are horrible. They are very, very bad. Baylor has good guards. That's it. WVU struggles to score, despite being really good defensively again. I just see Baylor completely eating up WVU, who may be in a blowout position here after blowing the game at home to Kansas. The concern for the under here is both teams are top-5 in offensive rebounding and kinda stink at defensive rebounding. I just can't trust this WVU team at all right now.
Pick: Baylor -5.5/Under 130.5
DePaul at Creighton (-9/146)
Playing this completely as a letdown spot. Creighton went to Seton Hall and looked real damn good. This DePaul team is 1-10 in conference play but actually has talent. I know it's weird saying that looking at their record, but they have talent. It's been a failure during Big East play. It's going to be an up and down game, but it's really just betting that DePaul can defend the 3pt line well enough and Creighton comes out a bit slow.
Pick: DePaul +9
Washington at UCLA (-3/136.5)
There might not be a more disappointing team in the country than Washington. Yeah, I know Quade Green has been suspended but there still should be too much talent for them to be this bad in the Pac-12. UCLA seems to have figured it out a bit under Mick Cronin, winning 6 of its last 8. That said, Washington is going to run its 2-3 zone and dare UCLA to beat them from outside. I question if that can happen. I'll also take the best player on the floor in Isaiah Stewart to cover.
Pick: Washington +3
Notre Dame at Duke (-13/150.5)
Duke is coming off three fairly emotional wins. They came back against BC. They had the ridiculous game against UNC. They then held on against FSU. Now comes Notre Dame and former Duke guy Mike Brey - wonder if Coach K will get pissed at the Cameron Crazies if they say anything about him? There is a fear that Duke can take ND off the 3pt line, however ND is great at spacing guys out and forcing them to guard a spread offense. Vernon Carey does struggle with that and we've seen teams just put Duke in ball screens. I expect that.
Pick: Notre Dame +13
Virginia at UNC (-1.5/118)
Gonna be short here. I don't trust that Virginia can score. I don't trust that UNC can consistently score. We've seen them play earlier this year and the score was 56-47 with Cole Anthony playing. What's going to change here? Hell, UNC just scored 57 points against Wake! Wake!
Pick: Under 118
Maryland at Michigan State (-7/136)
Wait, why is this line so high? I figured this would be a 3 maybe a 4 point game. Michigan State is coming off the win at Illinois, Maryland had to hang on against Nebraska in a true let down spot. Now, I don't love Maryland but this just feels way too high - even in a retro 2000 jersey game for MSU. This does feel like a massive Cassius Winston game, especially at home. But 7 is just too high for me not to take Maryland in this spot.
Pick: Maryland +7
Wake Forest at Miami (-2/151)
Wake coming off what's an important win for the program against UNC, now going to Miami? Miami finally got Chris Lykes back and blew out Boston College. The Miami record is a bit skewed due to injuries and getting Lykes/McGusty is just so important to what they want to do. Feels like Wake can be in a prime let down spot here.
Pick: Miami -2