Sports Handicapper ASA's Picks & Predictions

ASA NBA play on Boston Celtics -6.5 vs Charlotte Hornets, 7:30pm ET - These two teams had fantastic February’s with the Celtics going 9-2 SU, the Hornets went 8-3. Boston had the 3rd best Net rating in the league at +12.3, the Hornets ranked 6th at +8.9. But Charlotte’s February isn’t as impressive when you look at their schedule. They’ve currently won 5 straight games, none against a team with a winning record. In the month of February, they have exactly 1 win over a team that currently has an above .500 record. Boston meanwhile is beating quality teams in this current stretch and have now vaulted to the odds-on favorites to win the East. In the month of February, the C’s have beaten 6 teams currently in the playoff hunt. Boston is 6-1 SU at home in their last seven games and all but one of those wins came by double-digits. The Celtics are winning at home by an average of +7.8ppg, Charlotte is a respectable 17-15 SU away from home but winning in Boston is a big ask. The Celtics have won 6 straight against Charlotte and 9 of the last ten meetings. Boston is clearly the better team with an efficiency differential of +8.0 (2nd in the NBA) compared to the Hornets +3.1 eDIFF which ranks 10th. Charlotte won’t sneak up on the Celtics here, lay the points with Boston.

#708 ASA PLAY ON SMU -1 over Miami FL, Wednesday at 7 PM ET - Huge home finale for SMU who sits right near the bubble of the NCAA tourney with a 19-10 record. The bracket matrix currently has the Mustangs as a consensus 11 seed but a loss here and then @ FSU on Saturday could drop them completely out. They are 15-2 at home this season and we’re catching them in a good spot coming off 2 losses on their recent swing to the West Coast @ Cal and @ Stanford. That ups the importance of this home tilt. The Canes come into this game having won 6 of their last 7 games, however 5 of those 6 wins have come vs teams that are currently .500 or worse in ACC play. That typifies Miami’s season as they’ve played the easiest overall schedule in the conference and the easiest schedule in league play. They have a very solid 23-6 record and unlike SMU, are safely in the Big Dance, however they are just 2-4 vs teams currently ranked in KenPom’s top 40 (SMU is currently 39th). Miami does have 7 road wins but 6 of those have come vs teams ranked outside the top 70 and all of the ACC road wins have come vs teams in the lower tier of the conference except NC State. That was a 1 point win a game the Canes led for only 25% of the time. SMU has the better offensive efficiency, better eFG%, better 3 point FG%, better FT%, and they turn the ball over at a lower rate. They should have a solid edge from beyond the arc as the Miami defense ranks 15th in the ACC defending the 3 and on offense the Canes are 16th in 3 point FG% (SMU is 1st at 41%). The Hurricanes have a big game on deck hosting Louisville and this is a much more important game for the host. Let’s take SMU minus this small number.

#703 ASA PLAY ON UAB -1 over Charlotte, Wednesday at 7 PM ET - With UAB sitting as a 1 point favorite (opening number on Tuesday night) home court advantage for Charlotte is factored in as we have the Blazers favored by around 5 points on a neutral court. Well you can throw out home court advantage when dealing with UAB which gives us some solid value here. Why? Because the Blazers are a perfect 8-0 in AAC road games and they are 1-7 at home in conference games. A very rare twist where a team is simply better on the road than they are at home and by a fairly wide margin. They have road wins @ South Florida and @ Tulsa, the 2 highest rated teams in the AAC (both top 56 nationally). Charlotte already has 3 home losses in conference play and most of their wins at home have come vs lower tier AAC teams. The one impressive win they have at home was in early January vs Wichita State and that game went to double OT. These 2 are tied with a 9-7 league record but Charlotte has played the 12th strength of schedule in the AAC (out of 13 teams) and UAB has played the 2nd most difficult slate. Despite the same record, the Blazers are the much better team ranked nearly 60 spots higher than Charlotte. One good comparison is how these teams have done vs higher level competition. UAB is 3-3 on the season vs Quad 1 and 2 teams (roughly top 135 teams) while Charlotte is 0-8 vs those teams. If we push it out to include Quad 3 teams, UAB is 9-9 and Charlotte is 4-12. Most of the 49ers wins have come vs poor teams. The Niners might also be short handed here as 2nd leading scorer, Dezayne Mingo (12 PPP & 38% three point shooter) injured his ankle 2 games ago and has not returned. We like UAB to get another road win tonight.