Michael Cannon
St. John's (+5') at NOTRE DAME
I am 77-69-3 with my last 149 free plays.
Take the points with St. John’s tonight on the road over Notre Dame.
I know it’s a risk anytime you back the Johnnie’s on the road, but Notre Dame doesn’t play any defense and their best player, Luke Harangody, is out tonight with a knee injury.
The absence of Harangody means the Irish won’t have anyone to control the paint on offense and put back the garbage. St. John’s will be able to step out and challenge the Irish more on the perimeter and I really think that’s going to give Notre Dame problems.
St. John’s is coming off a 74-55 dismantling of Louisville on Thursday, so they should be feeling pretty good about themselves right now.
The Irish are just 2-3 SU in their last five and 2-5 ATS in their last seven overall.
Take the points with St. John’s as they make a game of it on the road.
2♦ ST. JOHN'S
Bobby Maxwell
UCLA (+6) at USC
I've gone 49-20-1 with my last 70 FREE selections and today I've got a complimentary college hoops play winner for you as I grab the points with UCLA on the road at rival USC.
This rivalry game is going to be a little more interesting this time around as UCLA was embarrassed back on Jan. 16 by USC, losing 67-46 as one-point favorites. This time around, the Bruins look like they’ve figured a few things out and Southern Cal seems to have stopped scoring points.
I’m going to grab the points with UCLA as they have won four of their last six games, with one of the losses coming in OT at Oregon. Ben Howland’s team is playing some better defense and finding more points, something they were lacking early in the season.
The Bruins are shooting 50 percent from the floor over their last five games and giving up just 66 points per contest.
On the other side, USC has managed just 61.8 points a game over the last five and they are just 4-6-2 ATS at home this season.
The road team is 7-1 ATS in the last eight clashes between these two with the underdog getting the cash in 13 of the last 18 meetings. USC is 0-8 ATS in its last 8 Sunday games while the Bruins are 5-1 ATS after a straight-up loss.
Revenge is on the minds of the Bruins. Grab the points and play UCLA.
3♦ UCLA
Richard Witt
Louisville +8 over SYRACUSE
A well-advertised bubble team, Cards could take huge step forward by pulling this off. Cuse is on a tear, but they can be challenged by a focused, motivated, athletic bunch (see UConn, this past Wednesday), and this could be more of the same.
O.C. Dooley
Edmonton +125
Hockey will be taking a two-week Olympic break but before reaching that point we have a regular season matchup being played in the country of Canada. I will admit that this has been a disastrous season for Edmonton who is on a current 4-22-2 slide, but the Oilers a few nights ago actually WON a shootout on the road. For whatever the reason Edmonton in the past couple of years has been a solid wager (15-8) when playing on a SUNDAY. This is also a "quick revenge" setup as earlier this week Edmonton lost a very competitive 3-2 verdict at Anaheim. What concerns me about Anaheim this evening as a road favorite is that in the past 3 games they have allowed at least 37 shots on goal. The Ducks have won a franchise record 11 consecutive games at home, but for the entire season to date they only have 10 ROAD triumphs and they lost at Calgary last night. For the season Anaheim is a very poor 4-11 when facing terrible defensive opponents who allow on average 3+ goals per game. That favors home underdog Edmonton tonight