Seton Hall vs Villanova – 4 O/U 135
Well here we are in the Big East finals and my dark horse Xavier choked away their lead. Now we have a pretty good match-up here with a Seton Hall team that has been on fire lately and a Nova team with some young kids that finally have some more experience on their backs. Looking at the coaches you have to favor Jay Write here because his record and basketball style really speaks for itself. I must say that I am pretty impressed lately with Kevin Willard and how he fired this team up. The Pirates have been a very up and down team this year and if you profited off of them you must have caught them while they were hot. One thing that is for sure is that Seton Hall is very hot right now winning their last 4 games in a row and Myles Powell went off last night scoring 18 second half points. Seton hall is vulnerable to turning the ball over and hitting free throws but they play pretty fast at 70.3 possessions per game. Villanova is vulnerable to rebounding the ball but they certainly know how to shoot the 3 and when they are hot they can go on big runs. Nova plays slow but latly I am not sure if I want to get in front of either of these teams but I am certainly looking at the total here. 2 Hungry teams are playing each other for the Big East Championship and I can definitely see some points being scored here. Due to the poor over ATS records with these teams, the under has been SLAMMED here. I think it has been over-bought. Kenpom has this game to 140 with Nova by 4. Bart Torvik has it Nova by 3 going to 139. My numbers say higher and I have Nova winning 77-70 in a faster paced championship game. I tend to look at how teams shoot away when looking at these totals and Nova shoots at a higher percentage on the road at 45% than they do at home at 43%. Seton Hall shoots 44% at home and on the road. These teams by now are pretty acquainted with Madison Square Garden’s poor backdrops by now. The last time these teams played the total went to 144. Nova plays like the champions that they are and wins this game and covers the spread at the end.
Over 135 big and Nova -4 small
