Point Blank – November 13
Dribbling for Dollar$, NCAA style…It’s OK to like Kirk Cousins this week (the Saints are still Sinners on defense)…It's more than OK to start liking Cal already…On the issues of facing a Mike Leach offense for the first time…
If it seems like it was only two weeks ago that we were looking for edges in the World Series, and now there are an avalanche on college basketball games on tonight’s board, it is because only two weeks ago were looking for edges in the World Series, and now there is indeed an avalanche of hoops. Even for those of us that love it, this is one season that starts too early, the NFL still around the midway point, and so much great NCAA football action ahead.
There is an upside to this, however – for as difficult as it can be on top of all of the lined teams this early, the oddsmakers and sports books are forced to be out there dealing a line on each game. To their credit, and to my surprise, they were even overnight Totals for the Friday board posted yesterday afternoon. That is an early good sign; let’s hope that is lasts.
It is also a different sport that we will be betting and tracking this season, with the 30-second shot clock altering the flow, and I was all set to break the various changes down here until a good piece from David Teel at the Virginia Daily Press crossed my desk that will help save some space - Rules changes will alter college basketball dramatically, if they're enforced. Give that a good read, and keep it on file.
Who do these changes help most? It will be a mixed bag, until we see how the officials actually call the games. The first notion was that the shorter clock makes the good defenses even better, but if they do call the physical play more tightly that does impact those defenses. And it leads to what could potentially be the biggest mistake made by the Rules Committee – if there are going to be more possessions, but with tighter whistles on physical contact, they needed to raise the limit on fouls for disqualification from five to six per player. There could be some real messes out there when the both the game pace, and the whistles, are both accelerated.
Now for the early season. The keys are simple ones, but they hold up year after year – experience absolutely matters, in terms of early chemistry and cohesion. And I mean the experience of the particular team playing together – with the transfer rules the way they are now the number of upperclassmen and graduate newcomers is higher than ever before, but while they will assimilate better than freshmen, there is still the process of their fitting in with new teammates, coaches and systems. So make sure you are not just looking at the academic standing of each player, but how many years that player has been with his current program.
Let’s add one of those keys in terms of experience – by taking a foreign trip during the off-season, a team gets the benefit of extra practices, extra games, and a chance to do some bonding. It is invaluable in terms of development. Here is the list of primary board teams that made such trips this year – Ball State, Baylor, BYU, Brown, California, Cal-Poly, Creighton, DePaul, Drake, Duquesne, Fresno State, Georgetown, Georgia Tech, Houston, Illinois, Illinois State, Iowa State, Kansas, LaSalle, Louisville, LSU, Marquette, Massachusetts, Michigan State, Middle Tennessee State, Minnesota, Nebraska, Northwestern, Saint Louis, South Florida, Stanford, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, USC, Valparaiso, West Virginia and Yale.
Next, urgency matters; or just as much the lack thereof. One of the great aspects of college basketball is the unique madness that each March brings. It comes with a downside, however, with about two dozen teams pretty much guaranteed that they will make the tourney from the opening tipoff of the season, and for those teams these November/December games can be more about experimenting with lineups, getting playing time for reserves, and so many different factors that make their scoreboard on a particular night a lesser priority. Teams like Michigan State, North Carolina, Arizona, Duke and Kansas on the Friday board need not bring anywhere near the passion for these early games as their brethren in football would have to, which makes their results both more difficult to predict beforehand, and to chart properly afterwards.
That is a start. There are some good matchups on this board to both earn from and learn from, and one in particular that I believe we can cash in is just a few paragraphs away. If you missed yesterday’s edition, which focused on teams that may have some extra home court advantage tonight, that is available here, also a chance to listen again to the late Allen Toussaint.
Another Good Read
There has been a lot of discussion in this column over the past year, and in the follow-up threads, about just how much the particular sports being focused on here have expanded into a truly global marketplace over the last decade, and you will enjoy taking the time to peruse this, which will help to give you some feel for just how big that market is. The amount of money being bet globally on sporting events these days is simply staggering.
Friday Fantasy QB
OK, so there are not as many of you that are still allowed to play as it had been at the start of the season. But the diligence is still in play here, looking for the best value at the key QB position, settings in which you can pile up some points cheaply, saving money that can be spent across the rest of your roster. This week we can go all the way down to #16 on the DraftKings board and play Kirk Cousins (WAS).
Cousins brings value from two directions, the first being the second straight week of having DeSean Jackson available helping to open the entire up, something the Redskins were unable to take advantage of last week because they were down 14-0 at New England after having only one offensive snap. Second is something you have likely guessed already – Cousins gets to go up against the Saints. The New Orleans defense brings precious little against the pass, allowing 8.1 yards per attempt, with 24 TDs allowed vs. only four interceptions, and as noted when Tennessee was placed “In the Sights…” last Friday, their numbers have been even worse against non-division competition, when Rob Ryan has to dial something up for an opponent he is not familiar with.
In the Sights, Hoops…
I do not believe it is too early to already be enamored with #776 California. Cuonzo Martin has quality returnees in Tyrone Wallace and Jordan Matthews, who will be one of the nation’s best back-courts with their size and experience, plus a now-healthy Jabari Bird on the wings, with the final pieces of the starting puzzle being that dynamic freshman duo of Jaylen Brown and Ivan Rabb. And what could be wrong with having a pair of capable 7-footers, Kameron Rooks and Kingsley Okoroh, coming off the bench? I believe the time to buy in is right now.
There are a couple of key early-season concepts that have been written about here this week, the way that foreign trips can accelerate development, and also how a Friday night home crowd can bring better energy when there is also a home football game that weekend. This setting brings both, the Golden Bears having had an August tour of Australia in which they went up against some seasoned professional competition (Martin’s take afterwards - “We competed, we played hard, we played together, we defended, we worked hard, we dove on the floor, and we rebounded. Overall, I thought we played as one, and we played with energy and passion.”), and with the football team hosting Oregon State on Saturday. But the Haas Pavilion may be rocking even more tonight, and for as long as the 6-11 Rabb remains at the collegiate level, because he is a local prospect, having led Oakland’s Bishop O’Dowd to the state championship last year.
Rice provides the ideal opponent. Mike Rhoades, a Shaka Smart disciple, wants to build his team around aggressively running and pressing, and the scoreboard will not be much of an issue for him tonight – instead of slowing things down to keep this particular game closer, he can accelerate the development of his young team by having them run against this level of competition. It can turn ugly for a roster that sports only one senior, and 10 freshmen and sophomores, but they stay in the Bay area to play San Francisco on Monday, so this is a night for Rhoades to throw his players into the fire, and then hopefully grow enough through that to be able to win the second leg of this trip. His starting lineup gives up 17 inches across the board, and the size gap gets even wider when the bench players take the court, so it should just be a matter of time until California pulls away.
In the Sights, Football…
I believe the 11-3-1 ATS tally as a road underdog for Mike Leach in Pac 12 play is meaningful, the fact that six of those triumphs were outright wins a big part of it. I also believe that this is one of the toughest offenses to face on a first-look, especially if you are already a young defense lacking in depth anyway. So naturally I believe that #165 Washington State (time change to 10:45 Eastern/7:45 Pacific) brings value at UCLA this week, with the markets elevating the setting to the point at which +10.5 is easy to find.
In his fourth season in Pullman, Leach now has a roster of players familiar with both his scheming, and his schemes, and a young QB in Luke Falk that he has been able to develop to the point that there may be many records shattered in his future. Through the first nine games of his sophomore campaign Falk has thrown for 3,736 yards, with 33 TDs vs. only seven interceptions. This season it is not just the confidence of the Cougars being able to play pitch-and-catch, but the fact that they do enough things across the other phases to win games – they are not all that far away from being 6-0 in Pac 12 play, leading by more than a TD in the second half vs. Cal and Stanford in the two defeats.
The talent and confidence are there to win this one outright, but the spread allows them to come up short and still cash, on a night in which I envision the Bruin defense struggling to make many stops, and being extremely vulnerable through the back door. Injuries have taken a toll on a group that does not have a senior starter, with last week’s shutout of depleted Oregon State not meaning all that much in the grand scheme, and here is where that lack of experience can really matter – no one in the UCLA defensive rotation has been on the field against the Leach passing schemes, since they have not played the past two seasons, and that also means the first go-round for DC Tom Bradley (State lost 44-36 as +16.5 in 2012, the only Leach/Mora meeting so far). It creates a particular matchup opportunity that goes beyond the power ratings, and it also means biting off a little +360 or better (there is a high as +400 available in Las Vegas) for a portion of the ticket is also reasonable.
In the Sights, Saturday Market Basket Bonus…
Earlier this season there was a take on the impact that Philip Montgomery was having at #119 Tulsa (time change to 7:30 Eastern/4:30 Pacific), an Art Briles disciple that had his team playing with energy and pace, and by the markets pushing Cincinnati to -22.5 for this evening this one fits well on the value meter. This is a setting you simply do not see often, a favorite that has allowed at least 33 points in five of nine lined games laying this much wood to an underdog that has scored at least 34 points in seven of nine games, including at least 40 in each of the last three. Plenty of back-door potential for the Golden Hurricanes, who will bring the proper focus off of back-to-back wins, which has them alive in the bowl chase, while the Bearcats lack any major zeal for this one, that loss at Houston last week taking away any conference title hopes.
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