I took UCONN -4, -115 Sunday against West Virginia (neutral site game). I think Uconn is undervalued due to the fact they lost Shabazz Napier and DeAndre Daniels to the NBA. The perception seems to be that they are in somewhat of a rebuilding year with little chance to repeat as champions. Dig deeper though and you see a very talented team with quality newcomers. They added highly regarded transfer Rodney Purvis as well as elite freshman Daniel Hamilton. Boatright is back running the show with Brimah and Facey down low.
I think West Virginia is a better team than people think they are but I also think this is a bad match-up for them. So much of what they do is predicated upon Devin Williams being a dominant force in the paint and I don't see that being the case with Brimah, a physical specimen, guarding him. I'm also not convinced that West Virginia's star point guard and national player of the year candidate Juwan Staten is fully himself yet. He struggled with an ankle injury earlier this fall that caused him to miss practice and set his training schedule back. I also haven't been overly impressed with West Virginia this season despite the fact they are 4-0. They are struggling to shoot the ball and although they beat Boston College last game they didn't cover and struggled in the first half. They were only able to pull away when BC got tired. Had Eron Harris and Terry Henderson not transferred West Virginia would be a legit title contender this year. However they did transfer and now West Virginia is struggling to make shots (although they did start hitting them in the 2nd half of the BC game). Huggins is attempting to replace them with a handful of newcomers (Dax Miles, Jevon Carter, Jaysean Paige, Tarik Phillip, etc) and it will take some time for them to find their groove. I think the newcomers may be overwhelmed by the quickness of Boatright and Purvis. The key to West Virginia's success this year will be imposing their will down low with Williams, Jonathan Holton, and Elijah Macon but I don't see that happening against Brimah and Kentan Facey.