Triple Crown
4* Temple
4* Xavier
3* Tennessee
5* Denver Nuggets
UNDERDOG
St Louis
RON RAYMOND
UTA / MIL Over 196.5
When ANY NBA Team played as a Road team - before a division game - Last 5 years - During the month of March - Coming off an 8-11 point win, the OVER is 14-5-0 for the Road TEAM (UTAH) in this spot the L5Y
Accupicks
5* Marquette
NHL Pro Picks
Atlanta +108
Minnesota +161
LA +101
TEDDY JUNE
10* Mississippi State
10* Georgetown
10* Florida State
Al DeMarco
15 Dime - Texas-El Paso
Keep in mind this game starts at 4:00 Eastern.
Why? Because Tulsa as the tournament host got to pick the time it wanted to play its quarterfinal game on Thursday. Naturally, the Golden Hurricane took the first slot and whipped Marshall 80-64. That left Texas-El Paso, the regular season conference champion, relegated to the nightcap.
Talk about getting screwed.
Here's where Tulsa's strategy - although wise - gets negated. First of all, the Hurricane, the tournament's fifth seed, will be playing their third game in three days. On the other hand, although Texas-El Paso will be back on the court about 16 hours after its Thursday night game ended, the Miners weren't exactly pushed to the limit by Central Florida last night.(-: They were up 28 at halftime and rolled 76-54 in a game that wasn't nearly as close as the final score indicated. And the huge margin at intermission meant Conference USA Player of the Year Randy Culpepper played just four minutes in the second half. Big man Derrick Caracter, who will have to battle Tulsa center Jerome Jordan again, didn't play at all in the second half. In fact, the most minutes played by any starter was 27 as the back-ups mopped up.
UTEP is the class of C-USA. It's won 16 in a row and is currently ranked 25th in the nation. The Miners averaged 75.5 points and shot 49.5% from the field in sweeping the season series.
Tulsa defeated Rice and Marshall the past two days, but this is a team that lost five of its final seven regular season outings. And in what I call "step-up" games, the Miners didn't deliver in the season's final month, losing twice to Memphis (by 22 on the road, 7 at home) and UTEP (by 14 on the road, 8 at home), at Duke (by 18) and UAB (by 10).
But looks are deceiving and because Tulsa is hosting the tournament - and because of their time-slot strategy - the oddsmakers are giving us a tremendous discount on Texas-El Paso, who I feel should be laying 6. I think the Miners take it by eight to sweep the season series both on the floor and in Vegas.
KELSO
25 units Duke -16.5
5 units St. Louis +3.5
20 Units Texas A&M +9.5
20 Units Notre Dame +5
10 Unit Parlay
5 Units Xavier -3
5 Units Maryland -4
5 Units Washinton -8.5
5 Units Suns +2
Joe Wiz
100* Georgetown -3.5
50* Purdue -8
Trey Scott
*200 Miami +4
*200 Tennessee -2
*200 Maryland -4
*200 Vanderbilt-7
*200 Mississippi State -1
*200 West Virginia -5
Street Rosenthal
*200 Utah Jazz +1
*200 Cleveland Cavs -7
*200 Indiana Pacers +9
*200 Denver Nuggets -5
*200 Washington Wizards +6
St Bernadine Sports
1* Hampton/Morgan St Over 133.5 - Morgan st has been a picture of offensive efficiency the past 2 weeks. They have been shooting near 50%. Even when they do miss they are hitting the offensive glass with reckless abandon lately. You don't average 65+ shots per game unless you can push the tempo. Hampton has come on lately also. They have won 6 straight by shooting 48% from the field and 38% from 3pt range. Overall both teams are near 70% from the charity stripe too. Look for this one to be an up and down affair with both teams hitting the 70's.
4* Xavier -3 over Dayton - This is the first 4 star play since last august!! Dayton embarrassed Xavier in February. That loss brought this Xavier team together. The players had a team meeting after that 90-65 loss and said that that type of effort couldn't happen again. Xavier has tightened up their rebounding since then and the winning streak flourished. Dayton really limped towards the end of the season. Offensively their FG% fell off dramatically in the last few games and the games got ugly. Look for Xavier to really lay a beat down on the Flyers today.
2* Ga Tech/Maryland Over 143.5 - I am shocked that the line has fallen 4 points on this one. Both these teams like to push the tempo. While their defensive FG % are nice, they are only that low because the hectic styles of play force a lot of out of control play. Both teams have been over machines for about 3 weeks now. The Terps are top 40 in offensive pace during this winning streak. Combine that with 47% shooting and you score lots of points. Ga Tech will be happy to run with Maryland if they let them. This game ends up in the 160's I believe.
1* Notre Dame/W. Virginia Under 126.5 - I explained last game about the Burn offense that the Irish have been running. Last night we saw what happens when 2 teams try to run it. You get 95 points. W. Va is middle of the pack in the country in offense. It seems almost every game they go through a stretch of offensive ineptness. The mountaineers are only putting up 40% FG in the last 7 games. This game should be every bit as ugly as last night's Cincy/W.Va game.
1* BYU/UNLV Over 146 - Both these teams will look to run and gun like this is Providence/Seton Hall. BYU is top 15 in offensive efficiency in the country. They seem to get points every time down the court. BYU has played 4 neutral site games this year and is hitting 56%FG in those games. WOW! Plus BYU sorely remembers the absolute beatdown laid on them by UNLV last time they faced them .We should too as we had UNLV that game. UNLV was up 45-17 at one point. Look for a sharp focused effort from BYU that will lead to 90 pts from them. I can see 90-70 easy in this one.
Scott Delaney
60 Dime - Xavier
MR EAST
FRIDAY MAC ATTACK
AKRON vs WESTERN MICHIGAN
3 UNITS: AKRON -4
I have been impatiently waiting for the conference championship rounds to begin. I have put tons of hours into research, and have fine tuned systems with every single game played in this round by conference, by pointspread, by total, and more. What I have discovered is utilizing this method, in what I call "cluster wagering", there is a great opportunity to cash a myriad of games over the two week period. All systems are based on 6 years of research, and there are many. Some will no perform, but many will, which is the beauty of cluster wagering. I have been highly successful at doing this in bracketbuster for the last 4 years, and the conference championship rounds the last 2, but have dramatically improved upon this. I will rate the plays from #1 to #last, for clients that just want the cream of the crop, but I suggest to play them all. AKRON gets the call.
Triple Threat Sports
2* West Virginia (-) over Notre Dame
This is the third straight game for the Irish while West Virginia playing in only its second straight. Mounties are 2-0 both SU and ATS in their second game of the Big East tournament for Bob Huggins, wnning 74-60 last year and 78-72 the season before that. Speaking of WVU and the Big East tourney, note that they beat Notre Dame in this event last year, besting them 74-62 in the first round. Finally, Irish did win only meeting this year, but won by just two points at home despite hitting 54% from both the field and the three point line and making 15 more free throws than West Virginia. Do not look for a repeat of those type of edges, and look for WVU to move on to the Finals with a convincing win.