It’s going to be an awesome day of college hoops, and a perfect day to take our 22-10-1 ATS record here on The Saturday Edge (and 66-33-1 ATS, if you are following along @TheMarchManiacs on Twitter) for a little spin and see if we can do some more damage.

Some of the schedule highlights are redundant; it’s a loaded slate in the ACC – well, “yeah. Duh.”  That tends to happen when 11 of your 15 teams have a legitimate shot at making the NCAA Tournament.  The best action is Notre Dame at Virginia Tech, Virginia at Clemson, Duke at Louisville and the must-see Florida State at North Carolina.  If the last sentence didn’t ALREADY say it by inference – this league is bleeping RI-DICULOUS this season…

But there is some great action beyond the Atlantic Coast as well.  Xavier at Butler in a big Big East matchup, Georgia at Florida is a sneaky-good SEC game, Baylor at Kansas State is interesting in that Baylor, who entered the week ranked #1 and technically still IS #1 thanks to the weekly nature of polling, could very well lose their second game of the week.  Vegas has the Wildcats as two point home favorites.

And of course, there is NEVER a bad reason to spend two hours of your life watching UCLA play basketball.  It’s like watching Bob Ross paint, only with ten dudes and a basketball.  They visit Utah in a nice Pac12 clash at 6pm EST.

A couple fun stats before we get into some picks:

• Only two teams rank in the Top Ten in BOTH offensive and defensive efficiency nationally. Kentucky (3^rd and 9^th) and West Virginia (5^th in both).  Perhaps WVU is getting way too little love?
• Three teams in the Top Twelve in Defensive Efficiency rank outside the Top 125 in offensive efficiency: South Carolina (2^nd, 135^th), Cal (7^th, 150^th) and UCF (12^th, 240^th).  For those of you who like betting over/unders, this is really useful knowledge
• UCLA ranks 87^th in defensive efficiency. And I DON’T CARE.  They are that beautiful offensively and that talented….

Which leads into Today’s Favorite Plays:

I wrote extensively about the UCLA game for another outlet, so I will spare the redundancy, and I generally do not pick the same games on different sites to spread out the love and offer some unique vantage points.  BUT, I’d be remiss if I didn’t reiterate that laying only three points on the best team in the country when visiting an opponent with four losses and whose best non-con wins are Utah Valley and Stephen F. Austin (5-7 this season) feels REALLY GENEROUS.  I’m banging the Bruins until the lines catch up….

 

Baylor Bears at Kansas State Wildcats -2.5

Who’d you play?  Where’d you play ‘em?  How did you play?

That’s my basic NCAA betting checklist, and it has served us well this year en route to a 67% ATS mark through 100 picks.  Metrics and stats are nice, but they can be red herrings because of the disparate nature of college scheduling.  For example, when South Carolina plays Lander (D2), and wins by a septillion, that number factors into their overall metrics.  So does a neutral court loss to Seton Hall when USC was missing their best player.  Their metrics, essentially, do not tell a very complete story.

So, to me, the simplest way to look at a team is by asking those three very simple questions: Who? Where?  How?

And the answers aren’t awesome for Kansas State.  Yes, as I have written before, they are just four points away from unbeaten, which is impressive.  But they still lost to Texas Tech and Maryland.  And they got jobbed a bit in Lawrence, but they still lost the game to Kansas.  Leaving them with their “best” wins being Texas and Oklahoma at home and the best non-con being Boston College or Washington State – both bottom feeders in their respective leagues (though BC is much improved).

Meanwhile, I have been very critical of Baylor, refusing to rank them in my Top Seven, even when they ascended to #1 in the polls.  As I have stated on Twitter many times, I do not DISLIKE Baylor, I just objectively don’t think they are as good as UCLA, Villanova, Kentucky, etc.  And they are not.

But they don’t “suck.”  And getting blasted at West Virginia isn’t a crime.  Especially when you can offset it with wins over Xavier, Oregon, Michigan State, Louisville and Iowa State.

Here is where you retort with my own question, “Where?”  Fair point.  Three were at home, two were on neutrals, and the Oregon home tilt was in November without Dillon Brooks.  But just because they HAVEN’T won on the road other than Oklahoma (by 26) doesn’t mean they CAN’T.  In fact, it is hard to fault Scott Drew’s schedule this season, and even rank it as ambitious considering no one thought Baylor would be quite THIS good this season.

I’m not sold on Kansas State, as impressive as the Kansas road loss was.  I think Baylor is the better team, and I think coming off a blowout loss will quite the attention-focuser.  Look for Baylor to use their length and athleticism to frustrate Kansas State and to get a bounce-back road win.

My Pick:  Baylor Bears +2.5

 

Florida State Seminoles +7.5 at North Carolina Tar Heels

I get it.  FSU is the new flavor-of-the-month and Carolina is a Top Five-level team playing at home.  But that is a BIG pile of points for a team that boasts three future pros and who has reeled off 12 straights wins that include the likes of Florida, Minnesota, Virginia Tech, Duke and a road win at Virginia.  Their only loss is a fluky three-point neutral to Temple over Thanksgiving and since then, they’ve been flawless.

North Carolina has the potential to beat anyone by 20 when things are clicking.  But how often is that??  Yeah, the SMOKED NC State in epic proportion, but they scuffled by Wake, Clemson (should have lost that game) and got rocked by Georgia Tech.  Tennessee pushed them to the brink at home as well.

Is the upside there for Carolina and the potential to blow out the Noles?  Perhaps.  But the resume and recent eye test say this is no worse than a very competitive game.

My Pick:  Florida State Seminoles +7.5

And of course, My Pick:  UCLA -3

Good luck today everyone – enjoy some great hoops – and hit me up anytime @TheMarchManiacs on Twitter (troll gently please….)