Friday, March 26, 2010

Day 6 Discussion + Day 7 Lines

Here's the daily post for discussing tonight's games. It would be hard for tonight's games to live up to last night's games, but you never know. My thoughts on all of these games are here. Join me tonight in the comments to this post.

While I'm making this post, here are my thoughts on tomorrow's gambling lines:

Day 5 against the spread: 2-1-1
Total ATS through Day 5: 28-21-3

Butler (+4) over Kansas State: Kansas State has been on quite a run, but it's important that people realize this is a hot streak. They don't normally play this way. They would have lost either of their last two games if Jacob Pullen hadn't played out of his mind, and as I pointed out in the comments to the Day 5 Discussion post: "They'd have lost to both Xavier and BYU if those shots weren't falling. He's had two great performances in a row, but he also shot 30.4% behind the arc for the entire month of February, and has been so up and down all season. It's a lot to ask for three straight games like this." Butler was able to hold Syracuse off of the offensive boards, so they should be able to hold Kansas State. And the Wildcats have a bad habit of putting opponents to the foul line, while Butler is excellent at drawing fouls and they shoot 74% when they get there. Finally, teams tend to struggle in the NCAA Tournament after only one day off following an overtime game. I like Butler to win this game straight up.

West Virginia (+4) over Kentucky: Kentucky was very unimpressive against Cornell. The Big Red had their worst shooting day in a very long time (33% from the field, 24% behind the arc, 62% at the line), yet they were only six points down with five minutes to go. I had assumed that Cornell would have to repeat their shooting performance from Temple and Wisconsin to beat Kentucky, but it turned out that a season average shooting percentage would have been enough. The worry for West Virginia is ball handling without Truck Bryant, but they improved dramatically from the first half to the second half against Washington, and Kentucky actually isn't that great at forcing turnovers (8th best in the SEC). You can't discount the John Wall show, but I'm still leaning toward West Virginia. I just think they're the better team, and after watching enough Da'Sean Butler and John Wall this season, I can say that despite Wall being a much better NBA prospect, Butler is the one I'd rather have taking that last shot in any game this season.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Jeff, don't you think that Kentucky's length on defense had a little do to with keeping Cornell from getting the shots they wanted? When they were turning them over and getting out in transition, I think they looked rather impressive, no?

Jeff said...

Absolutely. Cornell would have shot better if they were playing Dartmouth yesterday. But that's only part of it - against Temple and Wisconsin they couldn't miss from 30 feet. I only had to watch the opening minutes to see Cornell players missing open shots, and I knew that it was going to be a long night for them.

So Kentucky gets part of the credit for good defense, but Cornell also just had a bad shooting day. And it was still a six point game with five minutes to go. West Virginia was much more impressive against Washington, and they should only be better with more time to adjust to playing without Bryant.

Anonymous said...

Jeff, first off, I really do enjoy your analysis and you would be doing well any other year, but I am actually glad you picked Butler to beat KSU. You picked KSU to dominate Xavier and they nearly got us, I feel much better about the Butler game knowing you see KSU as the underdog. In all seriousness, I am truly worried that they will be too exhausted and the hot shooting will end, but a fan can't quit on his team, especially when they look so hungry to win!

Jason

Jeff said...

So am I the only person who was confused by the ending of that Ohio State-Tennessee game? What a confusing final possession. And while J.P. Prince did get all ball with his left hand at the end there, didn't it seem like he got an awful lot of Evan Turner's body before that block? That sure looked like a foul to me.

And it all led to one of those sportscaster cliches that always drives me nuts, where the announcers and the studio hosts get so riled up insisting that the referee call was perfect and how dare anybody even question that it was the right call. When Seth Davis started yelling at me through the tv screen I was half expecting some CBS production assistant to jump in front of the camera, pointing and shouting "How dare you question that call!?" I know that announcers don't want to unnecessarily rile up fans who often think refs are more biased than they really are, and I know that CBS wants to be extra positive this year since they're fighting to keep their March Madness contract from the grips of ABC/ESPN, but that was outrageous.


That all said, how about Baylor? They've had the easiest route of any team to the Elite 8 (they haven't even had to play a single-digit seed yet!), but boy were they impressive today. I still think Duke is a bad match-up for them, and assuming Duke takes care of business today they'll be my pick to beat Baylor on Sunday, but that takes nothing away from how good Baylor was today.

Anonymous said...

Jeff, I wondered about Turner being fouled on that last shot, but he also seemed to reach out with his left hand and push away at Prince while shooting the ball. I totally agree with you about Seth Davis, I could have seen that called both ways, in fact we did see a late call on a three point attempt in the Xavier, KSU game. Tennessee looks tough, mostly because of their depth and having an awesome big guy in Chism. I am watching UNI and not really believing that they are really as good as they have been playing in the tourney, pretty awesome if they pull it out over MSU.

Jason

Jeff said...

Yeah, I can see the foul both ways. I'm not saying he was definitely fouled, it just always irks me when the commentators get so defensive and self-righteous about it. You never see any of them so confident as when they're defending the refs. Because despite what Seth Davis thinks, I can simultaneously point out how out of control Ohio State looked on that final possession and question whether that foul call was right.

And yes, Tennessee is a very dangerous team. They should have been a 4 seed, and I talked earlier about how badly they were robbed by the Selection Committee. But that all said, things have really worked out for them since Selection Sunday. Georgetown was knocked out for them, and Kansas was knocked out for them. And they could end up with Northern Iowa in the Elite 8. Don't get me wrong, Northern Iowa is a tough team, but you can be sure that Tennessee is rooting for them to pull this out over Michigan State.

Anonymous said...

I wondered when Purdue would finally be overwhelmed. I think with 18 minutes left, they have finally hit the wall. I don't think Duke is going to win it all, but they are good enough to knock out a lucky Purdue team.

Jason

Anonymous said...

Jeff, this year there were so many double-digit seeds that won games, and multiple games...is this indicative of their strength, or rather just a terrible job of seeding by the Selection Committee? Personally, I think the Committee did a pretty poor job seeding this year, but I'd like to hear your thoughts

Jeff said...

I don't think the Selection Committee did a horrible job. There were a few inexplicable seedings, but it comes down to the general misconception of what the Selection Committee does: they're not ranking the 65 teams on how good they are, but how good their resumes are.

So if you take a team like New Mexico, their resume deserved a 4 seed, so giving them a 3 seed was fine. But they weren't even one of the 25 best teams in the country, so they were a team that you'd expect to get upset early. The key to picking a good bracket is to identify the teams with large gaps between their won/loss record and how good they really are. That's why I talk so much about that in the days leading up to the Tournament.

Jeff said...

The one time Sullinger fouled out this year was early in the Big Ten season at Michigan. It was right after Brady Hoke had been named the new football coach at Michigan, and he showed up at the game and the crowd was in a fervor. Not only that but Michigan double and triple teamed him anytime he touched the ball and he seemed to get frustrated.

I was only half-watching that game because I was in a bar when it was on, but I just remember being very unimpressed with everybody on OSU that game. They seemed to not handle the moment well. The team has matured a lot since that.