Tonight the BYU Cougars will take on the Gonzaga Bulldogs in the Finals of the West Coast Conference Tournament, which will be played at the Orleans Arena in Las Vegas Nevada. The game has a start time of 9:00 pm (Eastern) and will be televised on ESPN. Current Vegas betting odds have the Bulldogs listed as 7.5 point favorites, while the total is set at 154.5.
Analysis: The BYU Cougars come in on an 8 game winning streak, which includes a big 3 point road win at Gonzaga in the regular season finale. The Cougars have the 2nd seed in the WCC tournament, while overall they have gone 25-8 on the year. They got to the WCC Finals by beating Santa Clara and Portland. BYU has gone 6-1 ATS in their last 7 games following a S.U. win, but just 17-35 ATS in their last 52 neutral site games. The Cougars have been a very good offensive team this year, ranking 2nd in the nation in scoring (83.8 ppg), 41st shooting (46.9%), 30th in 3 point shooting (38.8%) and 5th in FT shooting (76.8%). The defense for this team has been very poor, ranking 306th in points allowed (72.0 ppg), 188th in defensive FG% (43.2%) and 74th in 3 point defense (32.2%).
The Gonzaga Bulldogs have had a great year so far, but they did lose their chance at a number 1 seed when they lost at home to BYU in the last game of the Regular season. The Zags still grabbed the top seed in the WCC tournament and they did bounce back from their loss to BYU with wins over San Francisco and Pepperdine to get a chance for revenge against BYU in the WCC Finals. The Zags have gone 18-7-2 ATS in their last 27 games vs. a team with a winning % above .600, but just 1-5-1 ATS in their last 7 neutral site games. The Bulldogs have been a very good offensive team this year, ranking 14th in scoring (78.8 ppg), 1st in shooting (52.4%), 7th in 3 point shooting (40.3%) and 174th in FT shooting (69.3%). Defensively the Bulldogs have been very good this year, ranking 37th in points allowed (60.5 ppg), 15th in defensive FG% (38.4%) and 77th in 3 point defense (32.2%).
Pick: I will go with the Under in this game. First off we note that the Under is 8-1 the last 9 meetings. Next we note that BYU has really started to play good defense as they have allowed just 66.7 ppg in their last 7 games, while the Zags have been very average on offense of late, averaging just 71.8 ppg in their last 5 games. The Cougars can score, but Gonzaga has played very good defense this year, allowing just 60.7 ppg overall, including just 61 ppg in their last 8 games, plus we note that the Zags have allowed just 67.6 ppg in their last 9 games vs the Cougars. Both teams like to run, but the Zags know how to slow it down and they seem to do that vs BYU most of the time. Also after losing the last meeting between these teams at home I really look for the Zags to come out with a ton of defensive intensity. This should be a pretty close game throughout and that should give us plenty of walking the ball up the court in the latter stages of the game. The Under is 8-1 in the Cougars last 9 vs a team with a winning record, while the Under is also 8-1 in the same situation for the Zags. I see this one around the mid 140s.
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