Locks
NCAA Basketball – St Joseph’s/Tennessee Over 146 (-110):
Tennessee has seemingly figured out their offense, shooting 54% in their past two games after languishing at 34% over the first two. In comes a St Joseph’s team giving up the 4th most points nationally at 89.8 PPG and hasn’t allowed anything less than 81 on the year. All of their games have gone over this total, and are averaging 167 on the season making them 4-0 to the over.
The Hawks have also played other top teams this year, giving up 94 to Kansas and 88 to Villanova. But they can score too (77 PPG) which has allowed them to be right near the spread in those games and drive the total over. The confluence here of a Tennessee offense heating up and a St Joseph’s defense allowing teams to do whatever they want should make for a rocking chair over.
Degenerates
NCAA Basketball – CSU Bakersfield @ Stanford -15 (-110):
This line doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. Bakersfield simply isn’t any good and their offensive stats are heavily inflated by two non-D1 games. They only score 61 PPG against D1 opponents, which is 12 points less than their season average. And they made a foray into the Pac-12 in one of those games, an 85-60 loss at Arizona.
While Stanford is nothing close to elite, they did just beat that Arizona team — their first win over the Wildcats since 2009. The transitive property of one team who beat another who beat another can be a dangerous handicapping strategy, but it is instructive in matchups of power versus non-power conference teams. I see the strong Cardinal defense holding Bakersfield around their D1 offensive production rate as Arizona did, and that should translate to a 20-plus point win for Stanford.
NCAA Basketball – Southern Illinois +8.5 @ Butler (-110):
This is a matchup of one team that’s undefeated ATS and another team that’s winless ATS, but not the way you might assume. Southern Illinois has impressed so far this season, shooting almost 50% from the floor, and doing a great job of getting assists and steals. It’s been basically the opposite on the stat lines for Butler, leading to their 0-3 ATS record after collapsing in the 2nd half against Indiana on Saturday. They just look like a deflated team to me, and it would not surprise me if they took this hot SIU team for granted. I think the Salukis can keep this in single digits so I’ll take the points.
NCAA Basketball – Belmont -9.5 @ Evansville (-110):
Belmont is once again a very good basketball team with veterans from last year’s squad that closed with 12 straight wins. Nick Muszynski is a force on the inside, and JuCo transfer Luke Smith is absolutely lighting it up from deep. The Bruins lost a strange game to Samford where they just couldn’t shoot, but that loss seemed to focus them and they’ve rolled to four straight double-digit wins.
That makes this line opening in single digits important for me, especially against an Evansville team that is really struggling. With only two wins on the year – both by three points against bad teams – they’re really unable to score, averaging only 59.6 PPG in regulation. I just don’t see them keeping up with Belmont’s offense that averages 80 PPG, so this should be another double-digit win for the Bruins.
Tiny Nick is 72-31 (+39.9 Units) on his Locks since joining Zone Coverage.
Every day he will offer his Locks and Degenerate picks. Locks are the games he’s confident in. Degenerates are entertaining, but riskier picks.
