March 17th, 2009 Picks

A pretty good day at 2-1-0. Things started off well as Mainz defeated SV Wehen 2-0. Wehen had a penalty kick early on but Dimo Wache blocked it in an exciting moment. Wehen outshot Mainz 18 to 8 but most of theirs went over the goal. Mainz scored in the 1st half as well as in the final seconds of injury time in the 2nd half. Then the New Orleans Hornets put forth a sub-par effort, shooting under 40% as a team for the game. Dikembe Mutumbo filled in well for Yao Ming who was ill with the flu. Artest scored 18 points in the second half, while Tyson Chandler was sat with foul trouble for large portions of the game. James Posey was ineffective in his 30 or so minutes and Chris Pauls 29 point, 11 assist, 6 steal effort was not enough. Then I picked Cuba over Mexico as they were extremely heavy favorites to win the game. They ended up winning the game 7-4. So on to today’s exciting lineup of picks.

1) Institute @ Newry – Institute win
2) Hull City @ Arsenal – 4 goals or more
3) Davidson @ South Carolina – South Carolina
4) Buffalo Sabres @ Ottawa Senators – Ottawa
5) Morehead State vs. Alabama State – Morehead State
6) Washington Capitals @ Florida Panthers – Washington
7) Boston win margin vs. Dallas win margin – Boston win margin
8) UAB @ Notre Dame – 150 points or more
9) UNLV @ Kentucky – UNLV scores more three pointers
10) Philadelphia 76ers @ Los Angeles Lakers – 205 points or more
11) Washington State @ Saint Mary’s College – Washington State

Good luck finding those tacos tomorrow and enjoy your green beer and Irish car bombs =9!

Analysis
2) PaddyPower and other betting sites have a 1-0 Arsenal win as the most likely result at 5/1, followed by 3-0 Arsenal at 13/2, followed by 2-1 Arsenal at 15/2, then 2-0 Arsenal at 9/1, and 3-1 Arsenal at 10/1. I’ll be going with the many 3 or under results favored over 4 goals or more results.
UPDATE: It appears Fabianski, Arsenal’s backup goalie, is starting, as well as Arshavin, Walcott, and van Persie. Hull City is starting Boaz Myhill but he has conceded more goals per game than their backup Matt Duke. So I am going with the over here.
Confidence: W1 streak or less

4) Buffalo is 1-3-1 against Ottawa this season with the one victory coming in Buffalo. Both Lalime and Miller have losing records against Ottawa. The two teams last played on March 7th at Ottawa and the Senators won 6-3. Buffalo is 2-6-2 in their last 10 away games with two shootout losses, and Ottawa is 6-3-1 in their last 10 home games.
Confidence: W4 streak or less

5) Morehead State plays in the Ohio Valley Conference and Alabama State plays in the Southwest Athletic Conference. Morehead State is a team that likes to take the ball to the hoop over shooting jump shots. I have seen teams attempt to use a zone against them before and they were able to cut through it easily. Alabama State has a +1.2 rebounding margin and Morehead State has a +8.0 rebounding margin. I expect Morehead State will be scoring high percentage shots and getting offensive rebounds. Alabama State is a good shooting team at 47.1% on the season, but with fewer second chance points I would give the advantage to Morehead State.
Confidence: W2 streak or less

6) Florida is 2-2-0 against Washington this year, losing the sole home game and going 2-1-0 in Washington. Craig Anderson was in net for the two victories and Tomas Vokoun was in for the two losses. Washington is playing the second night of a back to back and Jose Theodore looks to be the goalie again after giving up four goals to the Thrashers last night. Since Vokoun appears to be in line to start for the Panthers I’ll go with Ovechkin and his crew even on a back-to-backer.
Confidence: W1 streak or less

8) UAB is a fast paced team who average over 56 shots per game. Notre Dame slowed down in Big East play a bit but they have averaged 64 shots per game over the season. Robert Vaden went 0 for 17 the last time UAB was featured on the Streak in a game against Memphis and I doubt that will happen again. On the other side Notre Dame has Luke Harangody and some large centers in Zeller and Hillesland. UAB has only one player weighing over 210 pounds and Harangody still has 15 pounds on him. They’ll have to pick their poison with whether to put a big body on Harangody or Zeller and either way Notre Dame should be able to score inside. Coupled with McAlarney and Ayers able to hit the three shot effectively and I can easily see either team trying to outscore the other. 170 points here wouldn’t surprise me, but if either team has a bad shooting night under 150 could easily occur.
Confidence: W1 streak or less

9) UNLV shoots just over 20 three point shots per game while Kentucky shoots just over 16. Both teams shoot threes at about 34.5%. Kentucky has Jodie Meeks taking over half of their three point shots and he is the only player averaging more than 1.0 three pointer made per game, with 3.3 makes. UNLV has four players averaging over 1.0 make per game in Darger, Adams, Willis, and Wallace. UNLV averages about 7.5 three pointers made per game and Kentucky averages 5.6. Of course, you never know if Meeks will make 10 and score 50 again.
Confidence: W5 streak or less

11) I’ve seen Saint Mary’s and Washington State play and I have to give the advantage to Washington State. Saint Mary’s likes to play at a faster pace while Washington State likes to play defense and slow the game down. Washington State nearly always imposes their game on their opponents with only California, Gonzaga, and UCLA able to score 70 points or more. Most of their opponents score under 60 points. I think Washington State will force Saint Mary’s to play their game and that will favor the Cougars’ chances of winning.
Confidence: W3 streak or less