Sports Handicapper ASA's Picks & Predictions

ASA NHL play on Buffalo Sabres -140 at San Jose Sharks, 10pm ET - The Sharks have not been to the playoffs in 7 years and it looks like the pressure of making the post-season is starting to get to them this season. San Jose was looking good in terms of playoff chances as recently as 2 weeks ago but then they started to squeeze the sticks a little too tight!  The Sharks have lost 5 of 7 games and seem to be cratering under the pressure.  Buffalo, on the other hand, is thriving.  This Sabres team is one of the top teams in the NHL right now and is on a 10-1 run including 5 straight wins on the road!  Our money is on Buffalo to take that road run to 6 in a row here!  Buffalo just hammered the Sharks 6-3 when these teams met in upstate New York a week ago and they do it again in this one.  San Jose has allowed 4.4 goals per game in L5 games.  Sabres have allowed only 1.8 goals per game in L4 games!  Lay the price with the road team for a strong top game Thursday. 

ASA NBA play on Miami Heat -2.5 vs. LA Lakers, 8pm ET - This sets up perfectly with the Heat desperate for a win – at home – off a pair of losses and now facing a Lakers team off a big game last night in Houston. L.A. has played three monster games in a row, two against the Rockets, one versus Denver, and will have a tough time finding their legs for this non-conference showdown. You may be surprised to know the Lakers are just 6-9 SU as a road dog this season with an average loss margin of minus -7.9ppg. Miami is 23-12 SU at home on the season and have won 7 of their last eight in South Beach. The Heat have the 6th best average point differential at home of +6.1ppg on the year. The Lakers are playing well right now but this isn’t a great situation for them and their defense (20th in efficiency ratings) will have a tough time slowing down the Heat who play at the fastest rate in the league and rank 13th in offensive efficiency. Let’s face it, the Lakers still have a big target on their backs and the Heat will be up for this one and back to near 100% health with Herro and Powell back in the lineup. Miami is 17-13 SU off a loss with an average +/- of +3.1ppg. We will lay it here with Miami.

#724 ASA PLAY ON Illinois -25 over Penn, Thursday at 9:25 PM ET - Illinois took a number of lower level teams to the woodshed this season and we think it happens again on Thursday night. They are 8-2 ATS this season as a favorite of 15 or more points and they covered 5 games when favored by more than 20 points. They played only 5 games this season vs teams ranked outside the top 150 per KenPom which is where Penn sits and in the games the Illini beat Jackson St by 58, Florida Gulf Coast by 43, LIU (who’s in the NCAA tourney) by 40, Southern by 35, and Colgate by 19. Illinois is the 2nd most efficient offense in the entire country, a top 5 offensive rebounding team, they send teams to the FT line at the lowest rate in the country and they make 79% of their FT’s. This is the tallest team in the country and should completely control the glass here vs a Penn which should lead to a lot of 2nd chance points. They will carve up a Penn defense that ranks outside the top 100 in efficiency while facing a set of offenses whose average efficiency ranking this year was 160th. Fran McCaffrey is the head coach now at Penn and he was at Iowa prior. The Illini thrashed his defenses at Iowa for an average of 84 PPG over the last 5 seasons. The Quaker offense won’t get much in the paint with the Illinois length and they won’t get many FT opportunities vs this D that doesn’t foul which we discussed above. They’ll need to get red hot from deep to keep this within shouting distance but will be playing this game without their leading scorer Ethan Roberts (17 PPG) who is a sharp shooter from deep (40%). On top of that, their 2nd leading scorer and top rebounder, TJ Power, has an illness and hasn’t been practicing this week so he is questionable and may not be 100% even if he does play. Teams coming off a loss as a favorite (Illinois) have been very good in their opening NCAA game with a 24-11 ATS record. The Illini roll.

#732 ASA PLAY ON Houston -23.5 over Idaho, Thursday at 10:10 PM ET - Idaho got hot and had an impressive 4 game run in the Big Sky Tourney to get here but the fact is they were just 9-9 in conference play in the regular season finishing in 7th place in the 10 team conference. Now they run into a physical buzzsaw and they’ve seen nothing close to this Houston team this season. In fact, Idaho played only one top 100 team all season long and lost by 15 to Notre Dame who was the 4th lowest rated team in the ACC and finished with a 4-14 conference record. We know Houston doesn’t have any problem pummeling inferior teams into submission. Their last 2 NCAA opening round games the Cougars won by margins of 38 and 40 points and they’ve won by margins of at least 29 points in 4 of their last 6 NCAA tourney openers! The Houston defense should fluster this Idaho offense with their athleticism, length and ability to create turnovers (11th best in the nation). The Vandals offense ranks outside the top 200 in FG% and they sit at 176th in offensive efficiency despite playing 19 teams this year with defenses ranked outside the top 200. Only 1 team in the Big Sky was ranked inside the top 100 in defensive efficiency and that was Portland State who held Idaho to 66 and 67 points winning both games. Now they face a defense that is a gigantic step up from Portland State with Houston ranking 5th nationally in efficiency. The Cougs offense should also roll here as they averaged 77 PPG this year vs a set of defenses whose average rank was 24th which is light years better than this Idaho defense. The Vandals didn’t have a single player on the 1st or 2nd team All Conference teams in the Big Sky while Houston has 4 players projected to go in this year’s NBA Draft including a lottery pick (Kingston Flemings). The Big Sky has been overwhelmed in the Big Dance with a 3-14-1 ATS the last 18 years and if Houston comes to play, as we expect they will, this will get ugly.

#716 ASA PLAY ON Georgia -1.5 over St Louis, Thursday at 9:45 PM ET - These 2 teams were heading in opposite directions over the last month or so. UGA won 5 of their last 7 games including wins over Bama, Texas, and Kentucky, all NCAA tourney teams. Their losses during that stretch were by 8 @ Vandy and by 4 in the SEC tournament vs a red hot Ole Miss team who also topped Texas & Alabama in the conference tourney before losing in OT to eventual champ Arkansas. The Billikens were 24-1 heading into mid February but finished just 4-4 over their final 8 games. Still a great season but this team simply isn’t playing very well right now. How far have they dropped off? For the season on Torvik analytics, St Louis ranks as the 48th most efficient offense, 61st defensively, and 45 overall as a team. Since mid February, those numbers are 109th, 218th, and 149th respectively. The defense sitting at 218th during that span is very concerning vs a UGA offense that ranks 18th nationally in efficiency for the season and since mid February the Bulldogs are ranked as the 3rd most efficient offense in the country (and 26th overall team rating). St Louis has had problems with high pressure defenses that create turnovers. UGA is just that. They rank in the top 75 nationally in creating turnovers and this will be the most athletic team STL has seen this season. There are just 2 teams in the A10 that are top 75 at creating turnovers and St Louis had a record of 1-3 vs those teams (Dayton & Rhode Island) and had an offensive turnover rate of 22% or higher in 3 of those games. Georgia has better efficiency margins (offense minus defense) than St Louis this year despite playing the much tougher schedule. The Bulldogs also have had an extra few days off after losing last Thursday in the SEC tourney while STL played on Saturday. We think this line is too short and Georgia gets the win and cover.

#737 ASA PLAY ON Texas +2.5 over BYU, Thursday at 7:25 PM ET - We did take a shot with BYU to win this Region at 50 to 1 simply because we thought it was a solid value play if they would happen to hit their stride. We’re not confident in this team whose numbers dropped off a cliff down the stretch. Teams that come into the tourney that have lost at least 7 of their last 15 games (BYU is 6-9 their last 15) are a terrible 11-33 SU and 13-24 ATS in the NCAA opener dating back to 2013. Going back even further, the Cougars started the season with a 16-1 record and have closed out the season with a 7-10 record since then. The loss of one of their top players Richie Saunders has been devastating to this team and they haven’t been able to figure out how to fill his shoes. BYU ranks 296th in Haslam’s momentum metric and defensively they’ve been bad ranking 143rd in efficiency since February 1st. That’s not great facing a Texas offense that is 18th in offensive efficiency this season. The Longhorns played on Tuesday night and topped NC State in a 68-66 final. The Wolfpack made a late flurry but Texas controlled the game throughout leading for 88% of the game. Dating back to the 2010 season, double digit power conference seeds when tabbed a dog have covered 60% of the time. Texas was also a money making 9-5 ATS this year as an underdog. We don’t love the situation with Texas playing on Tuesday and then traveling to the West Coast, but we have a history with at least 1 First 4 team winning in the round of 64 in 12 of the last 14 seasons. We think that team this year is Texas.

#720 ASA PLAY ON Ohio State -2.5 over TCU, Thursday at 12:15 PM ET - OSU sits almost 20 spots higher than TCU in the KenPom ratings and they are surging late as they are now healthy. Top guard Mobley and big man Tilly have missed some time but they are back and healthy. They both played in the Big 10 tourney and took Michigan to the wire before losing 71-67 and Shot Quality score actually had OSU winning that game using their post-game stats and shot selection. Speaking of surging, Torvik metrics has OSU 26th on the season (TCU 49th) but since mid February he has the Buckeyes as the 5th best team in the country. Since mid February the Bucks have crushed Wisconsin, lost @ Michigan State by 6, topped Purdue by 8, crushed Indiana, beat Iowa in the Big 10 tourney and lost a tight game to Michigan. They also lost @ Iowa during that stretch which was their one outlier and they played that game without starting center Tilly. OSU has the much better backcourt with Thornton and Mobley and they have the best player on the floor with Thornton. They have a huge edge offensively coming in as the 16th most efficient offense and the 17th best eFG% team with TCU ranking 81st and 201st in those metrics. Ohio St is also top 60 in the nation in 3 point FG% and top 50 in 3 point FG% D while TCU is 223rd and 170th in those key stats. The Buckeyes also hit almost 78% of their FT’s with the Horned Frogs hitting 71%. The Frogs have won 9 of their last 11 but all but 2 of those wins were vs lower tier Big 12 teams who are not in the tourney. They aren’t great offensively and on defense they thrive on turnovers which we don’t think will be a huge issue here vs OSU’s high level backcourt. Short number and we’ll lay it.

#726 ASA PLAY ON Vanderbilt -11.5 over McNeese State, Thursday at 3:15 PM ET - McNeese had the potential to pull an upset in this round if they got matched up with the right opponent. This is not the right opponent. It’s a bad match up for the Cowboys. McNeese is not a great shooting team, especially from beyond the arc where they rank 315th making only 31%, so much of their offense is predicated on their defense creating turnovers. They do that very well. In fact, they are #1 in the nation causing opponents to turn the ball over almost 25% of the time. Problem with this game is, Vandy has an elite backcourt and they turn the ball over only 13% of the time which is 11th best nationally. We don’t see the Cowboys pressure causing big problems for the Commodores and if that’s the case, McNeese will have trouble staying in this game. Vandy is an elite offense ranking 7th nationally in efficiency and as we said their guards are outstanding. Duke Miles and Tyler Tanner, who combined to average 36 PPG and both shoot very well from deep. They both have outstanding assist to turnover ratios as well. The Commodores have a solid offensive edge here and they hit 79% of their FT’s as well. McNeese faced 1 top 20 offense this season (efficiency) and in that game Michigan lit them up for 112 points. Cowboy head coach Bill Armstrong is in his first year with the program and has never been a head coach at the collegiate level. Vandy coach Mark Byington has NCAA tourney experience taking his James Madison teams to the Dance plus he led Vanderbilt here last year and they lost by 3 in the opening round vs St Mary’s. They are also coming off a loss as a favorite in the SEC Tourney Championship games and teams entering the dance off a loss as a favorite are 24-11 ATS the last 3 years. Vandy a number of great wins over NCAA tourney teams including Florida (1-seed), Tennessee (twice), Alabama, Kentucky, Texas A&M, SMU, Georgia, VCU and St Mary’s while McNeese has played 2 tourney teams this year and lost by double digits to both (Michigan & Santa Clara). The Commodores are underseeded here as they rank 12th per KenPom (which would make them a potential 3 seed, not a 5 seed) and they are the 2nd highest rated team in the SEC behind only Florida. They are rated higher than 5 teams that sit on the 3 and 4 line. We like Vandy to bounce back from their loss vs Arkansas over the weekend and get a nice win and cover here.

#717/718 ASA PLAY ON Under 136 Points – Siena vs Duke, Thursday at 2:50 PM ET - Since 2018 Unders in the NCAA tourney have hit at a 56% rate and we like the Siena – Duke game to stay Under on Thursday. Siena is a very slow paced team ranking 341st on average offensive possession length and 319th on opponents average possession length (defense). They’ll slow this game to a crawl and Duke doesn’t mind playing slow ranking 287th in adjusted tempo. The Devils opponents average possession length is 18.4 seconds which is 341st. All that added up tells us this game should be played in the low 60’s for possessions. Siena will have very little (if any) success vs this Duke defense that ranks 2nd nationally in efficiency, 8th in FG% allowed and 12th in eFG% allowed. They allow just 63 PPG and that’s vs an average opponent offensive efficiency rank if 24th. Siena’s offense ranks 210th in efficiency and they are a terrible 3 point shooting team making only 30% (334th). Siena is projected to score 55 points and we don’t think they’ll get to that. They may not get out of the 40’s. Defensively Siena is quite good. They are just outside the 100 in FG% allowed and they rank 22nd in allowing just 65 PPG. We don’t expect them to hold Duke anywhere near that number but they won’t need to. The Devils will be shorthanded with starting PG Foster out and they have no reason to run it up here. We expect them to get a big lead in the 2nd half and just look to get the game over and move onto the round of 32. With John Scheyer as the head coach, Duke has gone Under in 8 of their 11 NCAA tourney games and when the total is below 140 the Under is a perfect 4-0.