Hello and welcome. I’m excited to get the ball rolling on some college basketball for the SaturdayEdge. For some background on my handicapping style, I am not your prototypical numbers and analytics handicapper. I have always loved basketball, and I watch as much of it as I possibly can, especially early in the year. Once I have foundations and have seen teams play, I correlate how they matchup and then handicap from there.

Also, intangibles are extremely important in successful college basketball handicapping. Every Saturday I will go through a series of games that I like, and also respond to some questions that I get from readers and Twitter followers. My weekly article is certainly not a finished product, so if there is any suggestions on content you all would like to see, please let me know. I post my plays on other games throughout the week on Twitter @Smithers513. Good luck!

*Note: I am typically going to post this article on Friday nights, so these lines can be very volatile. If a game moves a good deal and you want my opinion, don’t hesitate to ask.

 

Michigan @ Purdue -4.5

I had this game circled today, and I projected this to be at -7. I really like how Purdue matches up with Michigan in this spot. Any Matt Painter coached team is going to play tough defense, and I see the Boilermakers taking Michigan out of their comfort zone here by applying strong perimeter defense and having a definitive edge in the post. To put it simply, I don’t think Michigan is a good basketball team right now. As with any team coached by John Beilein they will be playing much better in the latter months of the season, but I still don’t think they have this figured out. Purdue has been volatile in how they perform, but I think they got a much needed win for their confidence moving forward over Minnesota a few days ago. From Michigan’s perspective, they are coming off a rally OT win over Illinois, and had into a bad matchup against Purdue. Purdue’s interior play from their two 7 footers AJ Hammons and freshman Isaac Haas will get us the cover here. Michigan has struggled against physical teams this year like Arizona and SMU, and although I am not comparing the Boilermakers to either of these teams from a talent perspective, they will use the same blueprint. In those two losses, the Wolverines were outrebounded by 16 in each game. If Purdue can avoid the hangover from the Minnesota win, they should limit the Wolverines to jump shots and pull away and get a cover.

 

Utah St +9 @ Boise State

Boise State is playing just their second game without their second leading scorer Anthony Drmic who is averaging 15 ppg. Utah St is a team that didn’t have high expectations coming into the year given the Aggies are replacing all 5 starters, but they’ve gelled nicely, winning 5 of their last 6, and the lone loss being an OT loss to South Dakota State. Utah State has fared pretty well when they’ve played good competition this year from a competitiveness standpoint, and Boise is coming off a tough loss at Colorado State with minimal prep time, and is in a bit of a sandwich spot with a game at Wyoming on deck as well. This is just going to be a tough, hard fought conference game for the Broncos and I am more than willing to take the 9 points with an Aggies team that is coming along strong against a Broncos team that is going to have to find a way to get production given the loss of one of their top guys in Anthony Drmic.

 

Butler +4.5 @ St John’s

The Johnnies are off to a strong start this year, but this is a matchup that favors what Butler wants to do. Butler is going to make teams beat them with good offensive sets, and St. John’s relies a lot on their athleticism to create offensive opportunities. Butler is a team you can always count on making the opponent do what they are uncomfortable doing. The Bulldogs should force St. John’s into jumpshots and I am willing to take a couple possessions in a game that I think will go down to the wire. Butler is a team that usually avoids turnovers, and if they don’t give the Johnnies easy scoring opportunities, I don’t know that St. John’s is a disciplined enough team to execute in the half-court well enough to put this game out of reach.

 

Murray St vs Morehead State +4.5

Fair warning, this game stinks to high heaven. You won’t want to watch this. You likely won’t find any statistical reason to take Morehead State here. This season hasn’t gone according to plan for Morehead State, with a rough out of conference schedule putting this team at a disadvantaged record. But the key with these smaller schools is that often times the team you get once conference play starts is not the team you saw for the first two months of the year. Morehead is a team that thrives off of energy, given they are stagnant offensively and need to create scoring opportunities off turnovers. Having spent my college years in Kentucky, I can tell you that this is the biggest game on Morehead’s schedule this year. Murray State is a program that they measure themselves against, and you should get a max effort performance from them in this spot. Hold your nose, take the points, and if you love pretty basketball, you’ll want to go elsewhere.

 

WVU @ TCU +1.5

Is TCU for real? We’re about to find out. The Horned Frogs get a chance to answer the bell when the Mountaineers come to town. TCU has been one of the bigger surprises this year, but given their improvement late last year, it was not entirely unpredictable to see this success coming. West Virginia is playing their first true road game in my eyes (a trip to Northern Kentucky doesn’t count) and at the discounted price, I’m willing to put my money on the Frogs. Neither team has played an overly impressive schedule, but West Virginia is going to face a stiff test against a tough and gritty TCU team that plays really solid defense. In their thirteen wins this season, only three teams have scored more than 60 points against the Frogs. I’m expecting an ugly game, and like the Horned Frogs to add a solid win to their resume Saturday afternoon.

 

Colorado State @ New Mexico PK

Being the perceived top dog in the conference is one of the toughest roles any team can take on in college hoops, given that your opponents will be now giving you their best shot game in and game out. Colorado State now is carrying that crown in the Mountain West given their strong start. The Pit is one of the more underrated homecourt advantages in college basketball, and given the strong line from the oddsmakers, I think is perfectly accounted for in this line. Colorado State has played on the road four times, and won those games by a combined 6 points. While I certainly respect the ability to grind out wins in those scenarios, I think that streak comes to an end tomorrow against a Lobos team hungry to hand a conference foe their first defeat.

 

Questions:

@bhazzy: any value on UK rest of the year?

This was a really interesting question. As many of you that follow me probably already know, I am an alum of Kentucky, and try to remain as unbiased as possible when I handicap their games. Kentucky is similar to Alabama in college football, where you are already paying a premium built into the line whenever you’re backing, so conventional wisdom would say that there are little opportunities to actually have any perceived value on the point spread when you’re backing a team like Kentucky. However, with the Wildcats’ unprecedented depth, I do think they are going to post a solid ATS record at the end of the season. In the 2011-2012 championship season, UK was the worst team in the country ATS. But this year, Kentucky is built entirely different from an ATS perspective. The 2011-2012 team only went 7 deep, but with this year’s team, the foot is going to remain on the gas pedal. Especially considering that “backup” PG Tyler Ulis is the team’s best offensive orchestrator, I think Kentucky is going to cover more than their fair share of spreads.

Please keep the questions coming.