College Basketball Best Bets: Will Louisville Get Revenge on Syracuse?
College basketball experts Three Man Weave are back with their two best bets for Wednesday's slate. We're using the current odds from Westgate SuperBook (as of 3 p.m. ET) for these plays.
Syracuse at Louisville
3MW Pick: Louisville -9
Tonight is the lone matchup between Louisville and Syracuse of the 2019-20 season, and the Cards will be looking for revenge after a 20-point drubbing at the hands of the Orange last year. In that game at the Carrier Dome, Louisville shot just 6/28 from outside the arc, a near guaranteed way to lose to Jim Boeheim’s infamous 2-3 zone. The Cards will also look to get back on track tonight after dropping their last two contests, road losses against middling ACC squads Georgia Tech and Clemson.
With the ACC being down this year, quality wins have been hard to come by, and that has made Louisville’s case for a top-16 seed in the bracket a bit shaky. Syracuse, losers of four of its last five games despite a strong effort at Florida State on Saturday, has all but played itself out of tournament consideration. To say the Orange need to win this game to keep their Big Dance hopes alive would be a massive understatement.
Whenever we look at a team facing the Syracuse zone we ask two questions: 1) Can they shoot the three? 2) Can they dominate the offensive glass? The answer to both of those inquiries for Louisville, is yes.
The Cardinals have killed zones this year, scoring 1.072 PPP (92nd percentile nationally, per Synergy) thanks to pinpoint three-point shooting and offensive rebounding. Louisville shoots the sixth-highest rate of threes in the ACC and makes them at the highest clip in the conference, knocking down a scorching 40.7% in 15 games. Jordan Nwora, Ryan McMahon, and Darius Perry are all shooting over 40% from distance, which will give Louisville plenty of weapons with which to bomb the 'Cuse zone.
As for rebounding, the Cards are the third-best offensive rebounding team in the ACC by rate this season, while Syracuse is dead last in defensive rebounding rate and 326th overall in the country. Zones are notorious for allowing multiple offensive rebounds and second chance opportunities, and Louisville’s twin towers Malik Williams and Steven Enoch should have no trouble giving their offense extra looks. On a more macro scale, the Cards boast the second-best offense in the ACC this season, while the Orange currently rank ninth in defense.
On the other end of the floor, Syracuse has actually been quite good this season, ranking third in the ACC in offense and 20th overall nationally. Boeheim has legitimate scorers and shooters on his roster, including his son Buddy Boeheim, freshman Joe Girard and All-Conference wing Elijah Hughes. The Orange may find success from outside the arc, as they’ve shot it well this season and Louisville has been anything but successful at taking away the three-ball. However, the Cards should have no issue denying Syracuse drives and fending the Orange off the glass.
The major personnel question in this game surrounds Louisville superstar Jordan Nwora, an All-American candidate who has all but disappeared the last two games. After playing like a lion during an 11-game stretch from early January to early February, Nwora has been a lamb his last two. In those 11 prior games, Nwora averaged 18.6 PPG and looked like a legitimate NPOY candidate. Against Georgia Tech and Clemson, however, the junior has averaged just 3.5 PPG and even came off the bench against the Tigers. Louisville needs Nwora’s full engagement to cover the nine-point spread tonight, and my money is on him bouncing back and playing like his former self.
Louisville is my pick tonight to cover, but it’s worth mentioning a couple ATS trends. Despite being 14-1 at home this season, the Cards are just 8-7 ATS, while Syracuse is a mighty 6-1 ATS on the road.
Long Beach State at UC Irvine
3MW's Pick: Long Beach State +15
To college basketball degenerates, ‘The Beach’ isn’t just a vague vacation destination. Thanks to head coach Dan Monson’s decade-long dominance of the Big West–and notorious non-conference world tours–Long Beach State has become a national mid-major brand. Three league titles, one runner-up and four more top-5 finishes, that’s Monson’s resume dating back to 2010, never once slipping below the upper echelon of the Big West totem pole.
Welcome to the upside-down world of 2019-20 college basketball. Not even Monson, ‘Mr. Consistent’, is immune to the swirling forces of this year’s vortex. Just a week ago, the Beach were the favorite to finish in dead last, an outcome that would disqualify Monson’s men from the Big West Conference tournament. This summer’s roster underwent some serious housecleaning, leading most prognosticators to label the 2019-20 campaign as a ‘transition year’ for the Beach. Yet, even Monson, who’s made a living off plucking talent from the transfer talent pool, has struggled to gel his collection of new pieces together.
Now seven days removed from that doomsday, the Beach are right back in the hunt. Two straight wins over Hawaii and UC Riverside have vaulted them within two games of second place, but the margin for error is razor thin in this season’s Big West parity party–another loss will drop the Beach back into a three-way tie for last.
Tonight, they’ll travel 30 miles down the perpetually congested 405 in Los Angeles to take on the new ruler of the Big West kingdom, UC Irvine. With a 9-2 record and a commanding three-game lead in the Big West title race, the Anteaters have earned a VIP ticket in the mezzanine section to watch the other eight adversaries fight to the death for survival.
Facing a content and potentially unmotivated Irvine squad, who is certain to lock up the No. 1 seed within the next week, the Beach is primed to give the 'Eaters a scare.
Long Beach has been Irvine’s kryptonite over the past two seasons, and already handed the 'Eaters one of their two conference losses in January. Just yesterday, Monson talked about the Beach’s secret to success against Irvine, which revolves around size, physicality and toughness.
“Well, to make it a defensive game,” Monson said, of the best path to victory. “We have to make it ugly and we need to win an ugly game, kind of like we did here, you know?”
It’s no coincidence that the Beach has covered four in a row against the 'Eaters. Up front stands a terrifying rim protecting tandem of Joshua Morgan and Trever Irish, both of whom are effective deterrents against Irvine’s interior focused offense. Morgan’s the real X-factor. He's a burgeoning freshman with limitless potential who's currently boasting the Big West’s highest block rate at 14.2%.
The challenge will be putting enough points on the board to stay within the number, which has been a chore for the Beach this season. However, the root cause is fixable, one that you’d expect a young and inexperienced team to correct over the course of the season: turnovers.
The Beach were giving away possessions like Halloween candy for the first two months of the season, but the last two games are an indication that Monson’s constant lectures on ball security are finally starting to sink in. In the two wins over Hawaii and Riverside last week, the Beach turned it over just 23 times total. Eliminating these unforced errors has completely flipped the script on the Beach’s postseason outlook, a trend I expect to carry forward tonight against Irvine’s paint-protecting defense.
3MW Record: 31-22-1
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