Gonzaga vs BYU +11.5 O/U 157.5
Gonzaga less than a 15 point favorite? I’ll be your huckleberry. The Zags once again ranks number one in all of the efficiency sits and this team really wants to stay there. The Zags have some serious talent on this team and their offense is explosive ranking number two in efficiency on Kenpom and their defense at number 16 is quite telling. BYU on the other hand is a a bit of a fraud and you can not convince me that they are the 36th best team on Kenpom. BYU had some nice wins before losing their tallest guy in Gavin Baxter to a knee injury. Height, inside shooting and rebounding is where BYU is going to get killed this game. BYU ranks 215th in height and Gonzaga ranks 8th. Gonzaga is number 2 in near proximity FG percentage at 70.9% and BYU is only 176th in defending it at 58.34%. I know BYU will put forth a big effort at first because they fell to some pretty bad teams over their last 3 games including number 70 Santa Clara and number 254 Pacific and they want to make the tournament, but Gonzaga at the end of the day, has way too much size and speed. The Zags are number two in tempo which means that they don’t just win games, they also win games by margin. I think the Zags name their final score here and it should be by around 20.
Gonzaga -11.5 – 3 stars
Kentucky vs Alabama -1 O/U 157
This is going to be one of the best games of the day with two of the three top SEC team facing off (with no apologies to Tennessee). Alabama is the fastest team in their conference and the 12th fastest playing team in all of basketball at 71.6 possessions per game. This number shows low but it is actually higher when they play good teams and you can see some of the numbers reflecting that vs Auburn at over 80 possessions vs Auburn both times, over 74 vs LSU and 80.2 vs Gonzaga. Kentucky on the other hand is a good defensive team, but they like to play pretty fast as well at 80th in the nation at 16.7 seconds per possession. Both of these teams are in the top 8 in offensive efficiency and Alabama doesn’t like to play a ton of defense. My total on this game is 161 with upside so I have to grab this over at the lower price.
Over 157 – 2.5 stars
