Top NCAAB Pick: Two Team Parlay (+102) at Bovada (visit our Bovada Review)
Top-rated sportsbooks have released their NCAAB odds for today’s college basketball action.
Four games interest me: Texas Tech vs. Houston, Baylor vs. Iowa State, Oregon vs. Arizona, and NC State vs. Virginia. For your best bets, I will recommend investing in three plays: Texas Tech-Houston Over, the NC State-Virginia Under and to make things interesting we have a two-team parlay taking Arizona and Iowa State on the moneyline.
Texas Tech Red Raiders vs. Houston Cougars
Friday, March 15, 2024 – 07:00 PM ET at T-Mobile Center
What Texas Tech Wants to Do Defensively
Under head coach Grant McCasland, the Red Raiders want to play a “no-middle” defense. As the name suggests, they try to keep opposing ball-handlers away from the middle region inside the arc, the idea being that ball-handlers have a better chance of scoring or making a pass that leads to points when they enter this region.
The Red Raiders’ ball-screen coverage tactics and help defense are supposed to help them achieve this aim. Instead of allowing players to engage the middle region inside the arc, Texas Tech wants to force opposing ball-handlers into baseline drives.
The Reality
There are “no-middle” teams that play strong defense, but Texas Tech is not one of them. Among Big 12 squads, Texas Tech ranks ninth in defensive efficiency. The Red Raiders commonly allow over 80 points.
For starters, they try to rely on guards like Joe Toussaint who are not considered good on-ball defenders. Offenses are comfortable against Texas Tech because their ball-handlers don’t encounter significant ball pressure. This helps explain why Texas Tech, unlike stronger no-middle defenses, struggles to create turnovers.
Video footage shows the ease with which offenses achieve ball-reversals in the half-court, such that even a transition-oriented offense like TCU’s was comfortable enough in two games against Texas Tech to exceed 80 points both times largely by relying on its half-court offense.
Against the Red Raiders, offenses use ball reversals to shift the defense, which, along with ball screens, facilitate dribble penetration, especially against a defense missing strong on-ball defenders.
The Importance of Guards
Being able to attack inside, to manipulate the help defense and to make crisp passes to help create propitious shooting opportunities are all critical things against Texas Tech’s no-middle defense. Especially considering that, as evident in its inclination to trap, it can be aggressive. All of these things are guard-centered.
Good guards, therefore, will help an offense score a lot of points against Texas Tech’s defense.
When the Red Raiders played Houston, the Cougars were able to rely on 29 points and ten assists from their point guard Jamal Shead. Houston does have strong guard play. Shead regularly excels at amassing assists while avoiding turnovers. His shot creation will be useful again tonight against Texas Tech’s defense.
Without being pushed by the Red Raiders’ offense, Houston scored 77 points largely due to its guard play.
Hard to Rely on Scoring on Houston Inside
We have to be honest and recognize that Houston’s defense is, by any objective standard, excellent. But the Cougars will exceed 77 points tonight because they will be pushed, in this rematch, by Texas Tech’s offense.
Houston’s chief objective on defense is to prevent teams from scoring at the basket. Relying on the aggressive athleticism of their defenders, who are an elite group of shot-blockers despite their lack of height, the Cougars allow the eighth-lowest rate of shots at the rim.
Texas Tech’s Big Opportunity
It’s obviously not impossible to score inside against Houston. Texas, for example, has had success scoring on Houston’s basket by spreading the Cougars’ defense out in order to create more driving space inside.
However, the best way to score a lot on Houston’s defense is to thrive along the perimeter. Teams that have beaten and scored around 70 or more points against Houston have relied on efficient three-point shooting.
The Red Raiders have the ability to succeed tonight offensively because they are a great passing team, an assist-heavy group led by solid guards who have several excellent shooters to find.
These guards are not afraid to attack defenders and are unphased by pressure, which is largely why the Red Raiders’ offense ranks second in the Big 12 at limiting turnovers. They have one player who shoots over 39 percent from deep and two others who shoot over 46 percent from deep.
They’ve exceeded 70 points against top-caliber defenses, with Iowa State being one example, and they can do so again tonight.
NCAAB Pick: Over 130 (-115) at BetOnline (visit our BetOnline Review)
North Carolina State Wolfpack vs. Virginia Cavaliers
Friday, March 15, 2024 – 09:30 PM ET at Capital One Arena
The Key Difference
Virginia allowed 76 points on January 6 at NC State but 53 points, including overtime, on January 24 at home to NC State. What made the difference between these two games? What should we expect from tonight’s game?
The key difference is the emergence of center Jordan Minor. It takes time to learn Tony Bennett’s pack-line defense, so Minor, who transferred from Merrimack, needed time to develop in Virginia’s system.
On January 6, he wasn’t ready to contribute. He played seven minutes and did not make an impact. However, he played over 20 minutes in each of the following four games, including the game against NC State. In the rematch, the Wolfpack shot 36.7 percent inside the arc largely because of Minor’s presence inside.
As evident in his ability to shut down Boston College’s Quinten Post, Minor is a strongly built defender with good footwork who makes it hard on players around the basket. With Minor on defense, Virginia has less of a need to employ a post-double, allowing it to focus instead on limiting opposing shooters.
Virginia’s Pack-Line Defense
Virginia’s pack-line defense aims to encourage opposing ball-handlers to enter the middle region, as opposed to the base-line, where it is well-prepared.
UVA’s defenders rely on strong positioning to be able to help each other close up gaps and prevent dribble penetration. They effectively create a wall that forces opponents to settle for perimeter shots.
NC State Is Generally Less Dangerous
Boston College created a tough matchup for Virginia because it has good three-point shooters whom UVA’s defense had to focus on, often at the expense of devoting its usual attention, which includes a post-double inside the arc, especially when Minor is on the bench.
NC State, though, does not have Boston College’s shooting prowess, which is a crucial point because strong three-point shooting is primarily how offenses have thrived against Virginia – which makes sense given the pack-line concept.
The Wolfpack ranks eighth in the ACC in three-point percentage and will have to try to find enough legs to shoot well in their fourth game in four days against a Virginia pack-line defense that wears and grinds offenses down.
Reece Beekman
NC State is more dangerous than Boston College in one respect: DJ Horne is, one must admit, a great scoring guard.
However, multiple-time ACC Defensive Player of the Year, Reece Beekman, is arguably better at defense than Horne is at offense. Aided by his length and quickness, Beekman will lock down Horne, who, along with Burns – who will struggle against Minor – is easily the Wolfpack’s top shot-taker.
NC State’s Ball Pressure
NC State is going to fight, and it’s going to succeed on defense. The Wolfpack are well-known for their characteristic on-ball defense, their man-to-man pressure.
On-ball pressure tends to unsettle Virginia because Virginia’s guards need to handle the ball long and well enough to allow teammates moving off the ball – probably coming off a screen as part of UVA’s very screen-heavy Mover-Blocker offense – to run and get open.
Virginia scored a combined total of 95 points against Wisconsin and Memphis because of their strong on-ball pressure. So far this season, UVA has scored 109 points in two games, including overtime, against NC State. Last year, the Wolfpack held a better Virginia offense – an offense that could actually make free throws – to 63 points.
It stands to reason that Virginia will score at most in the mid-to-upper 50’s, which will be enough to win this game.
NCAAB Pick: Under 121 (-110) at BetOnline
NCAAB March 15 Parlay
- Arizona ML (-700)
- Iowa State ML (-130)
Oregon Ducks vs. Arizona Wildcats
Friday, March 15, 2024 – 08:00 PM ET at T-Mobile Arena
Oregon’s Defense
Oregon’s recent games encourage the impression that its defense is not so bad. Allowing just under 70 points against Utah and UCLA doesn’t seem terrible. However, what those two opponents have in common is that, in conference play, they have shot poorly from deep.
Before scraping by those two teams, Oregon allowed 79 points in a loss to Colorado and 103 points in a loss to their opponent tonight.
Colorado converted almost half of its three-point attempts. Arizona made 14 of its 25 three-point attempts. Good offenses score a lot on Oregon’s defense, especially when they can rely on three-point shooting.
Arizona’s Offensive Power
In two regular season games against Oregon, the Wildcats amassed a total of 190 points in two wins.
They have guards who were able to race to the basket, blowing by Ducks defenders, where they could facilitate the scoring of multiple bigs who help Arizona’s offense rank as one of the nation’s most efficient offenses at the basket.
Ducks defenders sometimes perceived the need to sag off Arizona’s ball-handlers behind the arc because they had to protect against the dribble drive. Arizona, though, thrived behind the arc in both games against Oregon because it is also one of the nation’s top three-point shooting teams and it regularly had room to shoot.
The Wildcats boast three regular contributors who shoot 39 percent or better from behind the arc. Among other things, they’ll thrive from deep by exploiting Oregon’s employment of drop coverage and by benefiting from the team’s dribble penetration and concomitant inside-out endeavors.
This is simply a powerful offense that has too many ways of punishing a defense that, with some new players, has declined from last year.
Arizona’s Defense
Arizona just held USC to 49 points in its last game, demonstrating how it owns the Pac-12’s most efficient defense.
As evident in the Trojans’ 41.2-percent conversion rate, Arizona makes scoring inside very difficult. Partly by employing a post-double, the Wildcats rank 16th nationally at limiting opposing shots at the rim.
Center Oumar Ballo’s rim protection and the versatility of Arizona’s defenders enabling them to switch on ball screens further make scoring at the basket difficult for opponents.
Oregon Offense’s Outlook
Offenses succeed against Arizona’s defense by taking advantage of the post-double and by finding other ways to locate open shooters.
When the Ducks scored 78 points in their first game against Arizona, they were at home and shot 38.9 percent from deep. In conference play, though, they shoot 34.8 percent from deep. Away from home, they’ll score less because they’ll shoot less efficiently from deep. They’ll certainly fail to bring enough firepower to hang with Arizona.
Injury Question
To worsen matters, Oregon’s top shot-taker Jermaine Couisnard played through shoulder pain yesterday. His pain apparently affected him, as he missed 13 of his 16 field goal attempts.
This is crucial because when Oregon scored 83 points in its rematch – in a game that Arizona still won by 20 points – Couisnard accounted for 39 of those points. Without a strong Couisnard, Oregon will fail to sniff 70 points, whereas Arizona can blow past 80 points.
Iowa State’s Revenge Trend
Iowa State’s success in rematches makes it an excellent money-line parlay partner with Arizona. Of the Big 12 teams that they’ve faced twice, the Cyclones lost to Oklahoma, BYU and Kansas State.
In the rematch against each of those three teams, the Cyclones beat Oklahoma by 13, BYU by five and Kansas State by 19. The Cyclones are thus 3-0 in rematches so far.
NCAAB Parlay Leg 1: Arizona ML (-700) at Bovada
Baylor Bears vs. Iowa State Cyclones
Friday, March 15, 2024 – 09:30 PM ET at T-Mobile Center
Baylor’s Three-Point Defense
Iowa State lost 70-68 at Baylor where the home-court advantage is characteristically crucial for the Bears.
Strong three-point shooting is the best means of succeeding against Iowa State’s defense. At home, Baylor shot 12-of-23 from behind the arc, more than making up for the fact that it failed to convert 40 percent of its two-point attempts.
Baylor will struggle offensively today because it won’t be able to rely on three-point shooting away from home.
The Bears want to rely on three-point shooting no matter what, as evident in its shot profile yesterday against a Cincinnati team that is plagued by a weak interior defense. But on the road, Baylor’s three-point conversion rate drops by almost ten percent.
Iowa State’s Pressure
Iowa State owns the nation’s second-most efficient defense largely because it doesn’t let opponents breathe. The Cyclones will trap ball-handlers in order to force wild passes. Their on-ball defenders will be locked in. They’ll disrupt dribble hand-offs and fight through screens in order to prevent ball-handlers from finding ways to gain operating room.
It’s not like they’re easy to shoot threes against, either. Especially because they force a lot of long passes, their defenders will have sufficient time to transition from contributing on a compact interior defense to recovering to the perimeter in order to contest the three-point shot attempt.
While the Cyclones allow by far the fewest shots at the rim, they also rank third in the Big 12 at limiting opposing three-point efficiency.
The deciding point here for Baylor is its characteristic inability to avoid turnovers. Baylor lacks the guard play and the general comfort with the ball to handle high-pressure defenses. This helps to explain its struggles with a TCU team. Like Iowa State, TCU forces turnovers at a very high rate.
Mid-Range
Against Baylor, Iowa State grew comfortable on offense by figuring out how to use passes to create mid-range scoring opportunities.
The Cyclones, led by guards Keshon Gilbert and Tamin Lipsey, will amass assists partly because their teammates move well off the ball. They’ll find a teammate in the mid-range, especially against a Baylor zone that is vulnerable precisely in this area where Iowa State is most comfortable offensively.
Intelligent shooters getting open behind the arc and pick-and-roll actions are two other common features of Iowa State’s heavy ball movement on offense.
Baylor does one of the worst jobs in the Big 12 at limiting opposing efficiency inside and outside the arc. Opportunities will be present, even outside the mid-range. Iowa State’s offense will look to build off its 76-point output against a strong Kansas State defense yesterday.
NCAAB Parlay Leg 2: Iowa State ML (-130) at Bovada
NCAAB March 15 Parlay
- Arizona ML (-700)
- Iowa State ML (-130)
NCAAB Pick: Two Team Parlay (+102) at Bovada
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