839 MERCER at 840 GEORGE MASON
Take: MERCER +3
First, a little on the scheduling dynamics. There’s no way to be sure a team is ever going to come out a little flat, as it’s really just a judgement call. But there is some of that opinion involved here, which I’ll explain later.
I like looking for value dogs based on some key numbers that I weigh fairly heavily when doing matchup analysis. Those numbers favor Mercer here.
I also like it when I can grab points with a team I’m confident will be able to play the game at the pace they prefer. Mercer cannot play fast and when things speed up, the Bears get in trouble. That should not be an issue. Virtually everyone plays faster than Mercer, but George Mason generally likes to work the clock and show patience while looking for a good shot. They pretty much have to, as the Patriots are shooting at horrible from the outside.
There’s a revenge motive for George Mason as they lost the season opener last year at Mercer and blew a pretty big second half lead in the process. But the Patriots are also off what I would call a major upset earlier this week as they went on the road and stunned Northern Iowa. I won’t call it a system play, but fading favorites off double digit dog upsets isn’t the worst strategy of all time.
George Mason has won four straight, so maybe I’m underrating them to some extent. But the available data indicates they’re still nothing more than a run of the mill entry and I actually still have the Bears rated higher than George Mason. I think there’s enough here to justify taking the points with Mercer.