March 10th, 2009 Picks

A much better day overall, 3-1-0. Things started out rough with Vejle going up on AGF Aarhus 1-0 at the half. Aarhus decided to be mean and rub it in by making things close with a late goal while proceeding to miss easy shots on the way. At one point the goalie for Vejle was out of position and Nando Rafael had a shot at an open net from inside the box, but he managed to loft it up and over the goal, d’oh! So I went with women’s college basketball from there. There were 41 turnovers combined after 25 minutes of play so I don’t think I’ll be watching much women’s basketball soon. Oh yea, Charlotte won.

Justin Morneau won easily, I took Carolina over the Rangers, the Hawks, being the more talented team, of course beat New Orleans. Then Charleston gave up 20 straight points to UTC after being tied at the half and lost, the Pistons toughed out a win after Rasheed went out with a calf injury in the 1st, and Niagara couldn’t quite find the energy to come back and beat Siena. St. Mary’s and Gonzaga scored 141, the Trailblazers humiliated the Lakers, I took South Alabama for another win, and the Kings triumphed over Luongo and the ‘Nucks. I guess Vancouver is never a good pick when they’re on a four game winning streak. =D So on to the picks!

1) DePaul vs. Cincinnati – 129 points or fewer
2) DaJuan Summers vs. Paris Horne – Horne pts.
3) Real Madrid @ Liverpool – Real Madrid win or draw
4) Sporting Lisbon @ Bayern Munich – 3 goals or more
5) Notre Dame vs. Rutgers – 142 points or more
6) Washington Capitals @ Nashville Predators – Washington
7) New York Knicks @ Milwaukee Bucks – New York
8) Oakland vs North Dakota State – North Dakota State scores more threes
9) Dallas Stars @ St. Louis Blues – St. Louis
10) Cleveland State vs. Butler – 124 points or fewer
11) Dominic Tilford vs. A.J. Slaughter – Tilford pts.
12) Fresno State vs. Hawaii – Hawaii

I think I may actually go with the first two college bball games and leave soccer alone for once. Definitely avoiding soccer today, for the new ones #5, #8, #11 I’ll have to confirm my choice since I just looked at a couple stats real quickly for those. OK, now it’s mostly just the NDSU game I feel is a tossup. Good luck y’all!

Analysis
1) OK, these teams scored 114 points last time they played. At first I thought maybe one or both of them just had a bad game. Looking at DePaul and Cincinnati’s schedules I noticed something. DePaul, Cincinnati, Georgetown, and Seton Hall all happen to have ‘bad’ games when they play each other. There have been seven Big East regular season games pitting two of these teams against each other. Six of them have been under: 114, 88, 121, 110, 118, and 125 points. In the one game that went over Cincinnati and Seton Hall scored 130 points and that was only because it went into overtime. I don’t claim to know what’s going on, or why these teams have trouble scoring on one another, but I’m going under.
Confidence: W5 streak or less

3) There will be a some non-starters playing for each side and very likely some true reserves, including the goalie for Lisbon. Reserves in this case means youngsters who play for a ‘minor league’ squad as a stepping stone to making the actual team. Sporting Lisbon figures they won’t advance to the next round but they do want to win the match. Both teams have pride on the line so both teams will have more starters than not on the field.
Confidence: W1 streak or less

5) Notre Dame 70, Rutgers 65. That’s 7 points short of the over for today’s current matchup. In the previous game the Fightin’ Irish came out struggling, scoring only 27 points in the first half. They fed the ball to Luke Harangody constantly, who ended up taking just over 40% of all of Notre Dame’s field goal attempts. Ryan Ayers went 0 for 6 from the field, Hillesland didn’t even take a shot. Rutgers played similarly with three players taking almost all their shots. I think Notre Dame spreads the scoring around more evenly and that should open things up for the other scorers. I can still see this going under, however, with the Irish focusing a bit more on defense lately.
Confidence: W2 streak or less

6) It looks like Pekka Rinne has a case of the flu and so Dan Ellis will be starting for the Predators. Even though Ellis is not a bad goalie he has only 11 wins in 33 starts, and a lower save percentage than Rinne. Ovechkin and the Capitals should be able to take advantage, especially on power plays. Ellis is 5-8 at home, so while he may be playing tougher opponents at home the Predators clearly have a better winning percentage win Rinne is the goalie.
Confidence: W2 streak or less

7) Well, I like New York here because Francisco Elson and Charlie Villanueva will have a hard time preventing David Lee from racking up boards and points. Milwaukee has not beaten the Knicks since Redd and Bogut went down. Milwaukee was in better playoff position before Redd and Bogut were injured and as it stands have four teams less than two games behind them, with most of them having more games to play and thus more chances to earn wins. I like Milwaukee because Duhon, Chandler, and Robinson have all been struggling lately. If the Knicks are firing on all cylinders they should crush Milwaukee, but they haven’t. If Charlie Bell, Villanueva, Sessions, and Jefferson all have average games against a struggling Knicks team they should win easily. I’ll go with New York in the end, they’re due for a good showing.
Confidence: W1 streak or less

9) I think the Streakmaster was looking at Butler vs. Wright State or something when he set the line on this. In his ‘Game Blog’ he states they have scored 120 and 125 points in their last two matchups, but really they’ve scored 114 and 98 points. I expect the point total to change before the matchup locks, but it will have to go way down. Butler plays some seriously aggressive defense.
Confidence: W3 streak or less

10) Hawaii won at home against Fresno State by 26 points and again in Fresno by 4 points. In the home game Hawaii out rebounded the Bulldogs 43 to 20. In Fresno the Warriors out rebounded them 36 to 23. Fresno State will be basically giving Hawaii at least 6 points on tip-in shots. Fresno isn’t an 8 point favorite (some books have Hawaii -1, some Fresno -1 and most have it even). Fresno averages 43.8% on field goals, 67.1% from the line, and 34.4% from three so I don’t see them out-shooting a Hawaii team has taken an average of 8 more field goals than Fresno in each game. Fresno State’s biggest hope is to force more turnovers than they give and shoot well from the field.
Confidence: W4 streak or less