I enjoyed a nice 1-0-1, +1u night to start out the week! Today, I’m back at it with 2 more plays for you. If you want to receive a text whenever I release my plays, consider joining my Telegram group: https://t.me/fordhamsportsgambling. My plays are also posted on Twitter, so follow me there @FordhamGambling. Let’s have ourselves a Tuesday!
*CBB(1u): St Bonaventure ML(-125) vs Xavier–6 PM CT
I haven’t had much action on the NIT, but now that we’re into the Semifinals, the teams that didn’t want to be there have now been weeded out. While you have to give Xavier credit for getting to this point, St Bonaventure has had the much tougher path. The Bonnies won 3 straight road games at Colorado, Oklahoma, and Virginia, while Xavier enjoyed 3 home games, 1 of which came against lowly Cleveland State and another that came against Florida, a team that had clearly raised up the white flag after missing the NCAA Tournament. The Bonnies have the 5th most experienced team in the country and clearly want to win this Tournament for their seniors, and I think they’ll have a good chance to do that tonight. Interim HC Jonas Hayes has done a good job getting Xavier to this point, but his Musketeers bunch is very inconsistent on the offensive end of the floor. While Xavier has the edge in the rebounding department, we’ve seen Bonnies C Osun Osunniyi become a difference-maker down low; he comes into tonight blocking almost 3 shots/game this season. I don’t like betting on motivation alone, but when you consider St Bonaventure’s makeup and all the hurdles they’ve had to climb to get here, I have a hard time seeing them drop this game. I’ll take them on the ML rather than lay the 1.5 considering their last 2 games were decided by 1 and 2 points.
*NBA(1u): Lakers +12(-110) @ Mavericks–6 PM CT
I have been the first one to talk down on this Lakers team, but this spread is simply too high. Dallas is a very solid team(particularly on the defensive end), but given they aren’t dominant on the offensive end, it’s not a team I would lay double-digits with. Obviously, LeBron James is doubtful for the Lakers tonight with an ankle ailment, but do you really think the Lakers are just going to throw in the towel without him? This is a team that has a mere 0.5 game lead over San Antonio for the 10 seed, so I have a hard time imagining the motivation won’t be there for LAL tonight. LeBron is great, but he can consistently be seen loafing and draws a lot of double teams. The role players who step up in his place tonight don’t have the luxury of not playing hard; if the Lakers bring some intensity on the defensive end of the floor, they can stop a Mavs offense that is really centered around 1 guy(Luka Doncic). The Lakers were obviously overvalued for far too long, but even with LeBron likely sitting, this line has moved too far in the other direction. I feel comfortable about taking the Lakers at this number.
*Jazz/Clippers Note
I have some interest in this Jazz/Clippers game, but I imagine the line is going to move once we get clarity around the status of Paul George, Bojan Bogdanovich, and Rudy Gobert. If I do add a play in this game, I will tweet it out(@FordhamGambling) and send it out to my Telegram group(https://t.me/fordhamsportsgambling).
