College Basketball Best Bets: Boise State Should Halt Runnin' Rebels
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 2 p.m. ET) for these plays.
Boise State at UNLV
3MW Pick: Boise State +2.5
UNLV has had the best February of any team in the Mountain West, going 4-1 with notable wins against Colorado State and, most recently, undefeated San Diego State at the Viejas Center. The Aztecs are extremely difficult to beat on their home floor in any season let alone in a year when they’re projected as a 1-seed in the NCAA Tournament. UNLV’s win on Saturday was arguably the best win by any team in the country this season. The Rebels are runnin’ high, so now we fade them.
Boise State hasn’t been too shabby this month either, covering four of its last five contests. The Broncos are a half-game up on UNLV in the standings, still in striking distance of clinching the coveted 3-seed in the MWC Tourney.
Boise won the first matchup between these two squads by seven on its home floor, but the game's result was never in doubt as the Broncos led pretty much wire to wire. Star junior forward Derrick Alston asserted himself in that game, pouring in 26 points and grabbing 10 boards. Alston doesn’t receive a lot of press, but rest assured he’s one of the best talents in the country and a guy UNLV simply doesn’t have the ability to stop.
Offensively, everything runs through Alston, who leads the Broncos in shot attempt off pick-n-rolls, spot-ups, and transition opportunities, and who also can take his man down on the block when needed. Versatile wing Donnie Tillman is out for UNLV in this game once again, and though the Rebels have done just fine without him, his absence is sure to be felt in a game where his team needs all the athletic bodies it can muster to slow Alston down.
With Alston leading the way, Boise scores primarily in two ways: 1) from behind the three-point line and 2) at the foul line. The Broncos knocked down 8-of-19 3-point attempts against UNLV in the first matchup and waltzed to the free throw line a staggering 31 times. The Rebels rank just ninth in conference play in 3PA rate allowed and are dead last in FT rate allowed. To boot, UNLV is just 337th in PPP allowed against the pick-n-roll, a set Alston and teammate Justinian Jessup should be able to exploit all game long.
On the other end of the floor, UNLV is looking to pound the glass and attack the basket. The Rebels lead the MWC in offensive rebounding rate and grabbed 13 boards (34.2% OR%) against Boise in the first matchup. The Broncos are second in the league in defensive rebounding rate and capable of fending the Rebels off just enough to limit one of their preferred methods of producing points. Big man RJ Williams is the second-best defensive rebounder by rate in the entire country, so he’ll be counted on to combat guys like Cheikh Mbacke Diong on the glass.
UNLV, like Boise, wants to get to the free throw line. Unlike the Rebels, the Broncos do a good job at defending without fouling. Instead, Boise will force UNLV to be jump-shooters, something it did in the first matchup when the Rebels shot just 6-of-25 from downtown. Per Hoop-Math, Boise is 34th in the country in limiting shot attempts near the rim.
This bet is a mix of spot and number for me. Spot-wise, this is a classic letdown opportunity for UNLV coming off its biggest win of the year, and this marks Boise’s final regular season game of the season. Number-wise, I made this game PK. In my opinion, Boise is a much better team than UNLV despite the Rebels’ recent stretch.
Saint Joseph's at Saint Louis
3MW's Pick: Saint Joseph's +13
We have ourselves a ‘Joust of the Jesuits’ tonight in the Gateway to the West. The Hawks and Billikens will do battle for the second time this season, just three weeks removed from crossing paths in Philadelphia on February 1. Ryan Daly and Javonte Perkins stole the spotlight that evening, torching the nets for a combined 68 points (Daly: 35, Perkins: 33), as a typical 5-on-5 basketball game quickly morphed into a full-court, mano a mano duel. While Daly edged Perkins in points, Perkins’ team won the war by bulling the young and fragile Hawks on the boards all night long. SLU racked up 13 offensive rebounds in that game, an exemplar of the Billikens’ brand of basketball.
Led by Jordan Goodwin and Hashan French, the foundational pillars of SLU’s identity have been etched in stone for three years running: physicality and toughness. Goodwin and French are enforcers at their respective positions. Their chiseled physiques, along with their relentless tenacity, make you wonder why they didn’t take their talents to the gridiron–yet, it perfectly explains why they’re the best pound-for-pound rebounding tandem in all of college basketball.
However, the Bills’ excess surplus of size and force is a veil to a dearth of skill and finesse. After two years of routinely putting dents in the backcourt, head coach Travis Ford sought out to fix this shooting void over the summer.
SLU’s team 3-point team field percentage has risen to 33% this year, considered average by national standards, but much of that is propped up by Gibson Jimerson’s white hot start. The freshman sharpshooter was unconscious in November, but an unfortunate broken foot shelved him for the remainder of the season, leaving the Billikens’ with only two trustworthy marksmen (Demaruis Jacobs and Tay Weaver).
The Billikens’ patchy offense is precisely why they’re a prime target to fade as a large favorite. Per Oddsshark.com’s NCAA Basketball ATS database, SLU is 5-15 against the spread as a double-digit favorite over the last 20 games (1-6 this season alone). During that same 20-game window, the Bills are 6-14 on the UNDER, which speaks volumes about SLU’s inability to crank up the scoring output. When you attempt the 10 fewest threes in the country and convert free throws at a ghastly 57.6% clip, beating anyone by double digits is a chore.
The key for St. Joe’s tonight will be pace and possession management. This has been an issue for the Hawks this season, as first-year head coach Billy Lange wasted no time trying to instill his NBA pace and space principles in the non-conference. It only took 20 losses for Lange to wise up and come to grips with reality–he just doesn’t have the horses to beat teams at a Kentucky Derby pace yet.
The last two games are signs that Lange is accepting this limitation and adapting accordingly. The Hawks are coming off two of their three lowest possession games all season, at home against Davidson (67) and on the road at George Mason (61). Yes, the opponents had a hand in the deflated tempo, but that’s exactly the point here: SLU will facilitate a similar low possession, rock fight style of game, which is the path to Covertown for all St. Joseph’s +13 ticket holders.
The oddsmakers awarding a baker’s dozen of points to the underdog screams overreaction, which likely stemmed from SLU’s 80-62 trashing of VCU on Friday. At first read, that lopsided outcome is head-turning impressive, but beating the Rams is no longer a banner achievement, folks. Hampered by a slew of injuries, VCU has lost four in a row and five of six, including an inexcusable loss on its home floor to George Mason two weeks ago. If SLU is feeling high and mighty from that blowout win, tonight is the perfect placemat for a classic Billiken sleepwalk, a vulnerability the young and rejuvenated Hawks should exploit.
3MW Record: 34-22-2
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