Free Analysis: NCAA Tournament

Dr. Bob Basketball

Free Basketball Analysis by Dr. Bob

My Monday Free Best Bet on Boston +12 over Dallas won. So far this season I am 15-14-2 on my Free Best Bets and 58-52-2 on my Free Opinions and the free analysis has been winning lately after a horrible start to the season.

I am 74-56-2 in the previous 6 seasons on my Free Best Bets and 614-566-24 for Free Opinion.

I ran my NIT situations and some games popped up but I have tons to do for NCAA Tournament analysis, so I’m not going to spend time getting into those games.

2 games in the NIT apply to a 49-18-1 ATS NIT first round situation and those teams are St. Mary's (pick) and Belmont (+7).

2 games apply to a not as significant 19-3-1 ATS NIT situation and those teams are Clemson (-6) and Arkansas (-9 1/2).

I'll consider those 4 teams as opinions.

The analysis of tonight's two NCAA Tournament games is below, neither of which are even opinions.

Mount St. Mary’s (+2) vs Albany

03:40 PM Pacific Rotation: 531

These two are opposite teams, as Mount St. Mary’s is pretty good offensively (99th in compensated points per possession) and horrible defensively (292nd in compensated defense) while Albany is a pretty solid defensively (they rank in the top half of the nation in compensated points per possession allowed) but the Great Danes are a horrible offensive team (230th in compensated offensive efficiency). My ratings favor Albany overall by 2.8 points, but Mount St. Mary’s was destroyed by good teams, losing to Villanova by 31 point), to BYU by 32 points, and to Michigan State by 33 points. The Mountaineers even lost by an average of 20.5 points to Penn State and Texas Tech, the next two best teams they faced. Mt. St. Mary’s was relatively better against worse teams and my ratings, excluding each team’s games against good teams, favors Albany by just 1 ½ points (with a total of 142.3 points). That’s not enough line value to make a wager on, but I think the line is a little higher than it should be.

Xavier (-3 ½) vs North Carolina State

06:10 PM Pacific Rotation: 534

These teams both like to do their work inside the 3-point arc and neither team is particularly good at defending the paint (both allow 47% on 2-point shots) so I expect both teams to operate offensively pretty well. Xavier has the advantage of playing this game only 44 miles from home, but that has already been worked into the line and ratings favor the Musketeers by 4 points (with a total of 141.5 points). I don’t see any value in playing this game.

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