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TUESDAY GAME OF THE YEAR (6-1 L7 NCAA!)

I'm taking the points with MIAMI OHIO. This line is very high based in large part on last week's results. Buffalo won by double-digits while Miami lost by double-digits. It's important not to over-react to one week though and I believe that tonight's line is extremely generous. The Bulls are a much better team than they used to be. After going a combined 7-51 from 2002- 2006, they jumped all the way up to 5-7 last season. This year, they come in at 4-4. Clearly, this is a team which is finally moving in the right direction. That being said, I don't feel that the Bulls are ready to be laying more than a touchdown against a team which has dominated them and which still has arguably more talent than they do. Let's take a look at Buffalo's recent games. The Bulls did win by 13 at Ohio last week. However, that game could have easily been closer as the Bulls benefited from numerous turnovers and the Bobcats actually held an edge in total yards. Additionally, note that the Bobcats are just 1-7 vs. 1-A opponents. Prior to that game, the Bulls had gone just 2-4 their previous six games. The two victories came against Army and Temple and the Bulls won those games by just two and three points. While it's clearly been a disappointing season, don't be fooled by the Red Hawks' poor record. This is still a very talented team. The Redhawks returned 17 starters from last season's team and coming into this season were expected to contend for the Mac East title. While they did play poorly last week, note that they won on the road vs. a pretty good Bowling Green team the previous week. While the odds are admittedly stacked pretty high against them, the Redhawks still haven't written off the Mac East title. However, they know that they'll be eliminated with a loss here. That makes this truly a must win game. Miami head coach Shane Montgomery had this to say: "Until we're mathematically eliminated, we've got a lot to play for. Even though we're 1-3 in the conference, not many of the teams in the East are a lot better than us. We've got to take it one game at a time and take care of ourselves. If we don't win next Tuesday, then we won't have any chance. We want to show everyone that we're a much better football team than the one they saw against Kent State." The Redhawks have proven they know how to win on the road at this time of year, going 6-2 in November road games the past four seasons. They're also a perfect 10-0 against the Bulls, outscoring them by an average score of 37-12. Last year's game was decided by just a field goal and I expect this one to come down to the wire once again. *Tuesday Night GOY

TOTAL OF WEEK

I'm playing on the Suns and Nets to finish UNDER the total. Everyone still thinks of the Suns as an extremely high-scoring team. The same team that averaged 110 points per game last season. That perception has been strengthened in the mind's of the betting public with the Suns having seen each of their first three games finish above the total. However, while the Suns are still certainly capable of putting up big numbers, I don't expect them to come close to matching last year's stats. For starters, high-tempo coach D'antoni is gone to New York. Additionally, having Shaq in there slows the Suns down, while making them tougher defensively in the paint. A closer look shows that Phoenix games are still averaging only 202.4 points per game through the first three games. Meanwhile, New Jersey has failed to score triple-digits yet and has seen both its games stay below the total with those games averaging only 191 combined points. Of course, without long-time stars Kidd and Jefferson around anymore, the Nets aren't the same team we've come to know. The Nets have tried to get bigger and tougher in the middle and hope to be a better defensive team this season. You may recall a high-scoring and memorable game between these teams a couple of years ago that finished with a score of 160-157. However, that went to double overtime and that's been the only series meeting that finished above the total in recent memory. In fact, the UNDER is 5-1 the last six series meetings. Look for the Nets to have some success slowing down the Suns here and for the final combined score to again prove lower-scoring than most are expecting. *Total of the Week