Friday Discussion

[Giraldo5]

Some early games to make the work day go faster. Any thoughts on Towson / UNCW? I'm reviewing the stats as I know nothing of either team and am leaning towards Towson +2. Anybody have better knowledge or fans of the conference?

[PhilRivers]

I kind of like Wilmington (which means Towson will blow Wilmington out of the water!). Both teams are pretty ****ty but I think Towson is the more ****ty of the two. I doubt I'll play it either way though.

[Nicky Santoro]

I put this in the Thursday thread because I was so pumped up for the game. Now that KSU is getting 3 I like it more!

JoePa is probably the guy to listen to on the Kent/ Akron game for Friday night, but here's my 2 cents. This great match-up will be televised on ESPN2 at 8. Same records for both teams overall and in conference and you can almost bet it's a pick game. Whatever team gets the points (which won't be much) I'd lean hard that way. These two teams don't like one another and I could agree with that totally as I am a KSU alum. I will definitely have a homer pick with a small play on Kent. The winner will be adjudged the Mid-American Conference regular-season champion, receive the top seed in the conference tournament next week in Cleveland and be assured of getting at least a bid to the National Invitation Tournament.

Rhodes arena is not a large facility holding an average of 3,000 Zips. Not all that good especially if the Flashes pull away it will be dead quiet. KSU is hot right now winning 12 of the last 13. Sophomore forward Justin Greene posted his sixth double-double of the season with 18 points and 11 rebounds to lead the KSU attack against Miami. Named the MAC East Player of the Week for a third time since Jan. 1 on Monday, Greene is averaging 21.7 points and 8.7 rebounds the last three games while shooting 74 percent (23-31) from the field and 86 percent (19-22) from the foul line. He leads the team in scoring (14.1 ppg) and rebounding (6.8 rpg) this season and as of Wednesday ranked fifth in the nation with a +11.9 ppg scoring increase from last season.

Senior guard Chris Singletary is a MAC Player of the Year Candidate and the only active player in the conference with over 1,000 points (1,181), 400 rebounds (448), 300 assists (309) and 150 steals (186). He leads the team during MAC play averaging 13.7 points and 4.0 assists per game. The Golden Flashes would be only 12-18 overall and 6-9 in the MAC without Singletary this season

Big key in the game for KSU is Anthony Simpson, they are 12-0 this season when he scores in double figures. He's now a strong 6th man shooting over 70% from 3 over the last 9 games!!

Taking Kent around a pick

Which was my guess, I'll take the ML play now.

[PhilRivers]

I took the time for this write up in my thread, so I figured it's relevant here as well:

Detroit -2 vs Wisc. GB (WGB)

I looked at this game for a while. WGB has the better conference record and has beaten Detroit by two points both times they have played this season. That being said I looked at the rosters and Detroit is far and away the bigger and more physical team from what I can gather (also read an article on a diff site where WGB coach talking about how much of a matchup problem detroit presents). So I dug deeper and looked into both games already played to find out why Detroit lost.

In the 1st two point loss, WGB shot 55% from 3 point land (6-11) and Detroit shot only 36.5% from the field. Still only lost by 2.

In the 2nd two point loss, Detroit only shot 12.5% from 3 point land (1-8). They make one more and they win.

I didn't see the games, but maybe Detroit hasn't really had luck on their side. Either way the team with the lesser conference record who has already lost twice to the same team is favored by two points, so I'm thinking the linesmaker has a good lean to which team is going to win, hence my pick!