College Basketball Best Bets: Starting March with Underdog Play
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 12 p.m. ET) for these plays.
Bryant at St. Francis U
3MW's Pick: Bryant +7.5
To Andy Williams, Santa Claus and the entire Christmas coalition, I mean no disrespect: March is the most wonderful time of the year.
We’re all suckers for that warm and fuzzy holiday season feeling. The spirit induced by the sight of a perfectly decorated Christmas tree, surrounded by mounds of presents scattered around the base. For a select few of us, the college basketball betting screen is our Christmas tree. The CBB betting rotation, filled with an endless supply of games to choose from, is our present.
The magnificence of March gifts us a fresh new batch of games to bet on, as conference tournaments for the mid and low-major leagues begin to ramp up. This is the pond we’re fishing in today, where the NEC tournament’s first round tilt between Bryant and St. Francis has caught our eye.
The Bulldogs will travel from Providence to Loretto, PA to take on the Red Flash, who’ve earned the NEC’s No. 1 seed by default. The regular season conference champion Merrimack, the rightful owners of the top seed, are currently in NCAA timeout, ineligible for postseason play while they complete their Division 1 transitionary period.
Given St. Francis’ recent NEC tournament nightmares, the Red Flash won’t be apologizing for locking up home court advantage by disqualification.
St. Francis head coach Rob Krimmel has dealt with his fair share of adversity over the years and is now is on the cusp of taking the Red Flash to the promise land. However, the haunting memories of last season’s NEC Tournament title game meltdown—St. Francis went 4-for-17 from the free throw line in a gut-wrenching loss to Fairleigh Dickinson—only compound the pain from a similar second half debacle in the 2018 NEC Championship against Mount St. Mary’s. Krimmel, along with his distinguished duo of Keith Braxton and Isaiah Blackmon, are tingling with anticipation as they embark on their fourth and last rodeo to claim the coveted NEC auto-bid, in hopes of wiping away the dark and dreary visions of years past.
However, this sense of urgency and desperation may not be the best mindset against Bryant, a young, fearless and talented team playing with house money. First year head coach Jared Grasso has fused together a stellar crop of freshmen with proven veteran producers to brew a dangerous concoction that no NEC team wants to play right now. Bryant's 7-11 conference record is complete mirage, skewed by a number of close calls and nail-biting losses, which is to be expected by a team heavily reliant on freshmen. Just ask Rutgers and Maryland, two Big Ten powers this year, about how pesky these Bulldogs are.
Back in November, Bryant took Rutgers right down to the wire and were a rimmed out corner 3 away from stunning the Scarlet Knights—to put that in perspective, no Big Ten team has come that close to beating Rutgers at the RAC this year. A month and a half later, the Bulldogs had the Terrapins retreating into their shell when they visited College Park. Bryant trailed the current Big Ten leader by just four points with 15 minutes remaining in the second half, refusing to let the ultra-talented Terps run away.
That same Bryant team is now catching a touchdown against an NEC-caliber opponent, one that will have a difficult time scoring against the Bulldogs’ rim protecting police force of Juan Cardenas and Hall Elisias inside. The bouncy Cardenas is one of the NEC’s most versatile defenders, while Elisias is an eraser at the rim—his 14.3% block rate is 3rd highest in the country and tops in the NEC by a substantial margin.
This interior fortress inside will be critical to combat the Red Flash slashers, who thrive in Rob Krimmel’s perimeter-oriented offense. St. Francis’ 4-out, 1-in lineup enables continuous drive and kick action, which often leads to lay-ups and/or high-percentage looks in the paint. Krimmel will also utilize his secret weapon Braxton as a mini-Lebron James, specifically by isolating him in the mid and high post areas on the floor. Few defenders in the NEC can check him 1-on-1 in space, but Bryant’s got multiple options to throw at Braxton capable of holding their own.
The key tonight for the Bulldogs to stay competitive is transition defense discipline. The Red Flash feast on back pedaling defenses out in the open floor, where Braxton and an army of plus-sized wings can attack the rim with a full head of steam. This is where Bryant’s struggled this year, often over-emphasizing the offensive glass at the expense of retreating back on defense. Head coach Jared Grasso did this effectively in the first meeting between these two back on January 2, when Bryant took down the Red Flash in the conference opener. Replicating that deliberate and methodically paced style of game is the recipe for success tonight against the high octane Red Flash scoring attack.
3MW Record: 35-24-3
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