Tonight's Free Pick will be in the NCAA Tournament game between the West Virginia Mountaineers and the undefeated Kentucky Wildcats, which will take place at Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, Ohio. The game has a start time of 9:45 pm (Eastern) and will be televised on CBS. Current Vegas betting odds have the Wildcats listed as 13.5 point favorites, while the total is set at 136.5.
Analysis: The West Virginia Mountaineers have had an up and down year, but they seem to be putting it together at the right time and they have beaten Buffalo and Maryland to move on to the Sweet 16. Overall West Virginia is now 25-9 on the year, which includes a mark of 8-1 on neutral courts. West Virginia has gone 15-5-1 ATS in their last 21 NCAA Tournament games, but they are 0-5 ATS in their last 5 games vs the SEC. The Mountaineers have been a good offensive squad this year, ranking 40th in scoring (73.6 ppg), 278th in shooting (41.2%), 280th in 3 point shooting (32.0%) and 269th in FT shooting (66.4%). The defense for this team has been rather average, ranking 164th in points allowed (66.5 ppg), 329th in defensive FG% (46.8%) and 295th in 3 point defense (36.8%).
The Kentucky Wildcats come in as the top seeded team in the Big Dance and the last team left without a blemish on their record. Kentucky, which is now 36-0 on the year, continued their pursuit of a perfect season with a solid and hard fought 64-51 win over the Cincinnati Bearcats on Saturday. The Cats have gone 11-3-2 ATS in their last 16 neutral site games, but just 1-9-1 ATS in their last 11 Thursday games. Kentucky have been a very good offensive team this year, ranking 30th in scoring (74.7 ppg), 44th in shooting (46.6%), 162nd in 3 point shooting (34.7%) and 71st in FT shooting (72.2%). The defense for this team has been excellent as they come in ranked, 3rd in points allowed (53.9 ppg), 1st in defensive FG% (35.1%) and 3rd in 3 point defense (27.0%).
Pick: This is the toughest game for me this week, but I feel I will go with the Under here. Kentucky is not a team that will get rattled too much by the West Virginia press as they have excellent ball handlers. West Virginia generates many of their points off of turnovers, but Kentucky has turned the ball over just 10 times per game this year. That means allot of half court offense from the Mountaineers and this is a terrible shooting team and they can't hit their FTs either. The Cats offense has been very good of late, but this is not a bad West Virginia defense and they should hold the Cats down somewhat here. Their press should slow the Cats down and make them more of a halfcourt team as well. Still Kentucky will get their points, but I just don't see this terrible shooting west Virginia squad scoring a bunch vs the #1 team in the nation in defensive FG%. 70-57 sounds like a good score for this.
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