March 9th, 2009 Picks

Terrible day, yet I’m in a good mood. I guess the Jazz winning their 11th in a row, and a road game even, could explain it. And Denver losing to Sacramento, leaving Utah in sole possession of the Northwest Division lead and home court in the first round! As you can see from my quote I could tell it was going to be a bad day when AC Milan scored offsides I’ve seen referees whistle offsides when a player had, maybe, part of his foot laying past the last opposing defender. For these goals Inzaghi was completely past the Atalanta defenders when the pass was made to him.

Then I got greedy and went with bowling in an effort to get 5 picks in today, and lost that one instead of winning with the Rangers. The Islanders delivered nicely, but then I convinced myself to take Dallas, rather than Montreal. If you saw the blog when it was first posted I had Montreal as the pick. D’oh! Last but not least, Troy could not pull it off against South Alabama for a third time this season. Ach, mist! (Mist is German for crap.) If you got Orlando or Yang/Overton/Krauf then congratulations! Oh yea, and Hansbrough/Green did well, they just took 10 fewer free throws and 8 fewer shots than the Dukie Duo. So on to the picks!

1) Vejle @ AGF Aarhus – AGF Aarhus win
2) NCAAW: Richmond @ Charlotte – Charlotte
3) Frank Catalanotto vs. Justin Morneau – Morneau records more total bases
4) New Orleans @ Atlanta – Atlanta
5) New York Rangers @ Carolina Hurricanes – Carolina
6) College of Charleston @ Tennessee-Chattanooga – Charleston
7) Orlando Matic @ Detroit Pistons – Detroit
8) Niagara @ Siena – Niagara
9) St. Mary’s @ Gonzaga – 138 points or fewer
10) Los Angeles Lakers @ Portland – Los Angeles Lakers
11) South Alabama @ Arkansas-Little Rock – South Alabama
12) Vancouver Canucks @ Los Angeles Kings – Vancouver

As long as Luongo is in net for Vancouver they look good to go. Good luck!!

Analysis
1) The Danish SAS League has been on hiatus for a couple of months and this will be the second game since restarting play again. Vejle was at home and played FC Nordsjælland to a 1-1 draw and AGF Aarhus lost at home to Randers FC 2-1. Randers FC has scored 16 away goals in 9 matches (1.778 goals per game). Vejle has scored 5 away goals in 9 matches (0.556 goals per game). AGF Aarhus was missing Anders Kure and Frederik Krabbe on defense and they will be back for this match. Dioh Williams and Peter Graulund will not be playing so Nando Rafael will have to score for Aarhus. It would be surprising for Vejle to score at all, but I wouldn’t expect Aarhus to score more than one, so a draw is far too possible for me to be more confident on this pick.
Confidence: W2 streak or less

5) Lundqvist should be in net for the Rangers and Cam Ward should be in net for the Hurricanes. Both teams are playing great hockey recently but Carolina has looked better offensively. New York is playing for the second time in two days. Carolina has defeated their last two opponents, Calgary 6-1 and Tampa Bay 9-3, who both also happened to be playing the second game of a back to back. Ward also has a better record against the Rangers than Lundqvist has against Carolina. The Rangers are 1-7-2 in their past 10 road games with the lone victory coming against the New York Islanders. Carolina is 6-4-0 in their past 10 home games.
UPDATE: Stephen Valiquette will be in net for the Rangers for this one. The Rangers are 5-4-1 with Valiquette playing. He played when they defeated Carolina 3-2 at Madison Square Garden. He was also playing when they lost in Dallas 10-2.
Confidence: W5 streak or less

7) Detroit has been successful this season against Orlando, winning one game with Iverson and without Hamilton and winning the second without Iverson and with Hamilton. Rasheed Wallace has done as well as anybody defending Dwight Howard and Tayshaun Prince will do well slowing down Turkoglu or Lewis, whoever he’s guarding at the moment. Rodney Stuckey will have a tough time with Rafer Alston, but it goes both ways, with Stuckey scoring 22 on Alston in their last meeting. The Pistons had McDyess for only one of the games, but out rebounded the Magic both times. With Orlando on the second game in two nights the advantage goes to the Pistons.
Confidence: W3 streak or less

8) Niagara averages more rebounds than Siena and should out rebound them here, which means more second chance points for Niagara. Both teams will be tired a bit as this will be their third game in three days. Niagara’s stars played nearly 50 minutes in their double overtime win over Rider. Siena’s played under 30 minutes, except for Moore who went for 37 minutes. Still, I think Niagara’s experience in the tournament will have honed their skills, while Siena has had an easy route. Niagara will know what it feels like when the game is close and all the right plays need to be made. Siena may find themselves a bit out of sorts with their backs against a wall. It’s technically a home game for Siena, but there will be more Niagara fans there than usual, a lot more.
Confidence: W2 streak or less

10) With Boston, Orlando, and Cleveland all losing this weekend this is a chance for the Lakers to put some space between themselves and the top Eastern teams for #1 seed and home court throughout the playoffs. The Lakers lost in Portland both times they met last season. Portland has added Rudy Fernandez, Joel Pryzbilla, and Nicolas Batum to their team, but they have also lost Jarrett Jack to the Pacers, depending on Sergio Rodriguez and Jerryd Bayless to back up Steven Blake. Both teams seem improved from last year but the Lakers have more to play for this time.
Confidence: W9 streak or less

11) Arkansas-Little Rock, whose nick name also happens to be the Trojans, is the top team in the Sun Belt Conference. They have played South Alabama once before, in Alabama, and won the game by 2. They were out rebounded 40 to 28, however. South Alabama will have an advantage on second chance points. They did well last night in actually having fewer turnovers than Troy. If they can keep hold of the ball again tonight and can avoid foul trouble I think they have a decided advantage over these Trojans. Both teams are not good free throw shooting teams.
UPDATE: The leading scorer for Arkansas-Little Rock, Steven Moore, was kicked off the basketball team on the 23rd of February. Shane Edwards has picked up the slack, but I like South Alabama’s chances even more now.
Confidence: W4 streak or less