College Basketball Picks 1/5/09: Georgetown at Notre Dame & Georgia State at George Mason
Dave’s Pick
While the outright victory was somewhat surprising (although in yesterdays pick we mentioned NC was 2-2 straight up at home last year to start the ACC) the Boston College cover was exactly the type of game we at the cfbplace.com enjoy watching. The 23 points BC was getting was all but forgotten at halftime and the only thing in doubt was the outright win. Lets get to today’s selection.
Georgia State (4-9) at George Mason (9-3)
Line: George Mason -10
Georgia State squeaked past Old Dominion 55-54 in their last game, but lost the prior 4 contests. The Panthers have a negative scoring 3 point scoring differential and are led by Joe Dukes 13.5 ppg.
George Mason has won 4 out of their last 5 and shot 61.9% in the 101-60 UNC Wilmington win. The offense goes 7 deep led by John Vaughn. The Patriots score 70.7 points for and allow 61.2 points against.
ATS-
Georgia State- 3-4-1 and 2-3 on the road ATS
George Mason-4-3 and 3-1 at home ATS
Georgia Mason is 3-1 SU in last 4 meetings, but just 1-3 ATS
George Mason enjoys an advantage in nearly every stat category. Georgia St. claims only an offensive rebound and steals per game advantage. George Mason is just too tough for Georgia State to stick with and will wear down the Panthers with their depth.
Dave’s Pick- George Mason -10
Quick Hits
Kent State (7-6) at Temple (5-6)
Line: Temple -7
Temples Dionte Christmas (20.1 ppg) battles Kent States Al Fisher (15.2 ppg). Both teams have a key addition to their team recently coming eligible in the last few weeks. Tyre Evans has quickly become a scoring threat for the Golden Flashes and Freshman Juan Fernandez is the point guard that Temple desperately needs.
ATS-
Kent State is 2-8 and 1-4 on the road ATS
Temple is 5-5 and 2-1 at home ATS
Idaho (7-7) at Utah St. (12-1)
Line: Utah St. -12
Idaho is coming off a 78-73 upset win against Nevada on the road. They will have to be perfect to get a second victory in a row.
The Aggies are off to their second best start ever and have a 7 game win streak and are first in the country with a 52.3 field goal percentage led by Gary Wilkinson (62.6%, 17.1 ppg and 8.2 rpg). Utah State has out rebounded 11 of 13 opponents and was short one bound in the two other games.
ATS-
Idaho is 5-4 and 4-3 on the road ATS
Utah State is 5-3 and 2-3 at home ATS
Once we get to the new site all writers will have their own articles and places where they naturally fit but until then we are combining them as needed to make it easier on the readers.
Here is BKMHOXX’s pick for today.
#8 Georgetown at #10 Notre Dame -1
ESPN 7pm EST
This is yet another huge battle in the Big East. Both teams will be looking to get a hard-earned victory in a brutally tough conference. Both teams are coming off of a tough loss.
Notre Dame. is 10-3 after being stunned on the road against a mediocre St. Johns team by 6 points. Notre Dame lost its touch from deep going 4-17 from 3-range. Their other losses came against #1 UNC by 15 points and Ohio St. by 5 pts. Their best win was a 1 pt win against #7 Texas. Notre Dame is 82.5 pf and 66.7pa.
Gtown is 10-2 after getting knocked off by #3 PITT by 16 at home. Blair worked the freshman Monroe over pretty good on the boards and the Gtown team didn’t rebound well as a whole against a physical PITT team. The other loss was against then #12 Tennessee over a month ago. Gtown recently beat UCONN by 11 in their house, they beat Maryland by 27 and they beat Memphis by 9. Gtown is 74 pf and 57.4 pa.
• The Irish are led by one of the top players in the country, Luke Harangody, who averages 23.5 ppg and 12.5 rebounds/game. They also have McAlarney, Jackson and Ayers that all average double digits in scoring.
Gtown is led by DeJuan Summers at 15.3 ppg, Freeman and Wright and the 6′11 FR Monroe in the middle all avg. double digit scoring as well. They dont rebound quite as well as Notre Dame but they do play some of the best defense in the country and shoot free-throws much better than Notre Dame does.
This will be a battle for most of the game. I don’t think Notre Dame has seen a team play defense like they will see in this matchup. If Notre Dame struggles against St. Johns then Gtown is going to be a big shock to their system. Gtown will lock down on defense in this one as they wont want to fall back in the standings too much. I could see the Irish finding their 3-point shot at home and watching Harangody against Monroe should be fun to see. I still think Gtown is the better team and I predict a final score of 76-70 with the Hoyas coming out on top in this tough road win.
My pick is Gtown +1 with a rating of 5/10
-bkmhoxx
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Comments
Guys what do you think about Utah St? Seems like that line should be 16+
Will- I agree this should be fairly one sided. I just worry about giving up so many points to a team that has been riding hot shooting. Utah St. is oviously the better team, but 52.3% a game? That’s insane.
Utah St. should cover that spread! They are playing at home too!
uh oh, George Mason back in action!!
like nd a lot here think at home they dominate this young team!
been pressing too hard, taking the day-off and enjoying a Longhorn cover…
Bad history with you there Jordan?
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