Depth is everything!
Tonight Canisius welcomes Manhattan into the confines of Koessler Athletic Center, and everyone is licking their chops because the Golden Griffins stink, and Manhattan just got finished whipping them by 18 points a few weeks ago.
As usual, Vegas slapped a "Pick-em" on this game, even though it seems as though The Griffs have very little chance to win.
When I think of Canisius I remember the phrase, "The best thing about Freshman is that they eventually become Sophomores." This may be the case with The Golden Griffins, because they were the 6th youngest team in the nation last year, and now they are the 40th youngest.
My how we've grown!
Unfortuantely they still stink.
And here's one of the reasons why:
They have an 11/18 Assist-to-Turnover ratio, and they steal only 5 balls per game.
There's a number of reasons why they stink, but this is the number sequence that delivers the biggest punch when we talk about screen failures in the KM system.
But we have to get past this fact.
They are young.
They make bad decisions.
They foul 22 times per game.
They turn the ball over like it's a diseased kidney.
We have to get past those facts, because........
THE MEN THAT DRIVE THE MARKET PLACED THE LINE AS AN EVEN WAGER!
This is just a fair warning on getting gluttonous on a wager that looks too good to be true. We love Manhattan tonight, but it's not because they beat the Griffs badly in their last meeting. IT'S JUST OPERATIONAL. We think Manhattan is simply better. Everything points to them being better.
So what's the deal?
Believe it or not, with all that lousy offensive behavior, Canisius is VERY good in FG% defense! And they Have a really strong perimeter defense on the ARC. They tend to run a lot of guys out there, so they DO play aggressively on the edges.
We have 3 bench players that jump out on the edge for little, spurts, that amount to 15 minutes of time each. This tends to work on a visiting team, and it's an unseen fact to almost every bettor.
I guess it's a "hustle stat", that is best realized at HOME.
Be careful of it.
Manhattan runs out THREE strong guards, and when they aren't running they tend to go BIG, but the main point is that Manhattan CAN become tired on the perimeter if Canisius plays their rotation correctly. They don't have the depth at the guard spot.
Canisius, as bad as they are, can be better when they trot out a slew of dummies on 3 good guards.
And this is why I hate laying more than a Unit tonight on Manhattan. We have 3 guards that will be running against 6 guards, and if you'll remember, it was an energized Jasper backcourt that ripped Canisius for 11 three-pointers in the last game.
When Vegas knows something, they don't fool around. We got this GREAT line, because they wanted to lure us in, and they did, because we should win this wager.
But I just wanted you to understand the mechanics of a trap, and I wanted you to see why we can't jump to 2-Units in this wager.
We have Manhattan -1 (-110), and I truly believe we will win, but NEVER get too giddy about these tiny mid, mid majors. They don't have the depth to replicate 18 point wins.
But all we need is two!
Let's get this!