Sports Handicapper ASA's Picks & Predictions

ASA NBA play on Boston Celtics -3 at Atlanta Hawks, 7:40pm ET - We like the situation here for the Celtics and will lay the short number with the road favorite. Both teams last played Thursday on the road as the Celtics were at Miami and the Hawks were in Portland. Boston beat the Heat 119-114, the Hawks lost to the Blazers 101-117. Atlanta is in a much tougher scheduling situation here though. Since Jan 2nd they have played 8 games, seven of which were on the road, the last 4 were on the West Coast. Boston is flying under the radar right now at 23-13 SU on the season with the 3rd best efficiency differential in the league at +7.3. The C’s are 13-8 ATS on the road this season with an average plus/minus of +6.8ppg. We like what the Hawks did in trading Trae Young for a proven scoring vet like McCollum and it will pay dividends down the road, just not in this situation. Atlanta is 17th in eDIFF at -0.9 and have a 7-11 ATS home record this season, minus -2.4ppg. These two teams have similar offensive numbers but the Celtics defense is significantly better than the Hawks. Lay the short number with Boston.

Spanish La Liga: Rotation #201937/201938 ASA PLAY ON Over 3.5 Goals (-135) – Real Madrid vs Levante, Saturday at 8 AM ET - Real Madrid favored by 2 goals and we look for plenty of scoring here as newly promoted Levante is capable of scoring as well here and we have seen at least 5 goals in each of the last 3 meetings between thee teams. Levante is undefeated in their last 3 matches and has scored 5 goals in the games. Real Madrid, including Champions League action as well as other competitions in Spain in addition to La Liga, has scored multiple goals in 7 straight games! 4 of their last 6 games have totaled at least 5 goals and they have been conceding more often than usual of late. Look for that pattern to continue here. We are looking for 4 or more here and adding to the value in this one is the fact we have only a moderate price to lay in the one on the Over 3.5 goals! We will take the 'over' here.

#792 ASA PLAY ON Texas Tech -2.5 over BYU, Saturday at 8 PM ET - Texas Tech is an extremely dangerous team, especially at home. They are 13-4 on the season with all 4 of their losses coming away from home (road or neutral) vs high level opponents. 3 of their losses have come vs teams ranked in KenPom’s top 11 (Purdue, Houston, and Illinois). They are 9-0 at home this season and 24-3 here since the start of last season. The Red Raiders already beat Duke on a neutral court in NYC (MSG) so they are good enough to beat anyone. The Cougars come in with a near perfect 16-1 record but this team is ready to get clipped in our opinion. They’ve been close to getting upset recently holding on to beat an OK at best Utah team (lowest rated team in the Big 12) by 5 and then coming from behind at home to beat TCU 76-70 on Wednesday night. In that win, BYU trailed at home for 53% of the game and held on for a tight win despite getting the friendly whistle at home making 11 more FT’s than the Horned Frogs. The Cougs 2 conference road games were vs KSU and Utah, the 2 lowest rated teams in the Big 12, and those are their only 2 true road games of the entire season. They’ll be walking into a hornet’s nest here as the students are back for Tech and a huge crowd is expected. The Red Raiders offense is as good as any on the country (18th in efficiency) and they are one of the top 3 point shooting teams in the country (24th). Head coach McCasland has always been one of the best defensive coaches in the country and after a slow start on that end of the court, Tech has been really good on that end over their last 6 games. They’ve held each team during that stretch below their offensive efficiency averages and all 6 of their opponents rank in the top 90 on offensive efficiency. BYU has another match up with Utah, their arch rival, on deck and we like Tech to take them down on Saturday.

#759 ASA PLAY ON Texas A&M +5.5 over Texas, Saturday at 6 PM ET - Texas is off a huge upset home win over Vanderbilt on Wednesday in a game they shot 53% overall, 41% from deep, and 86% from the FT line, all well above their season averages. They possibly benefited from a Vandy peak ahead to their huge game today vs Florida. The Horns haven’t been all that impressive this year. They already have 2 home losses, including vs Mississippi State who is the 2nd lowest rated team in the SEC, along with a 19 point loss vs Virginia. The Aggies are coming off an OT loss @ Tennessee (on Tuesday so an extra day) in a game they led 75% of the time. It was an impressive performance vs a Vol team that has smoked everyone at home, including this Texas team, prior to A&M taking them to the wire despite making 10 fewer FT’s. In their other SEC road game the Aggies beat a very good Auburn team so they’ve proven they can get it done vs high level teams on the road. A&M is a very good shooting team (24th in eFG%) and they make almost 37% of their 3’s. They should make hay from deep in this game vs a Longhorn D that allows opponents to make 35% of the triples (235th nationally). Defensively the pesky Aggies create turnovers at the highest rate in the SEC and 17th most in the country. Texas struggles to protect the ball ranking 11th in offensive turnover rate in SEC play and that should lead to extra possessions for Texas A&M. Since starting the season 2-2, TAMU has won 11 of their last 13 games with their only 2 losses during that run coming in OT vs SMU and Tennessee, 2 teams both rated higher than this Texas team per KenPom. The Horns are just 3-6 this year vs top 100 teams and we like A&M to cover and have a great chance to win this game outright.

#626 ASA PLAY ON Ohio State -4 over UCLA, Saturday at 1 PM ET - We have a huge situational edge for OSU in this one. They are coming off a loss @ Washington last Sunday (we were on Washington) and now they’ve had the entire week off to rest up and get ready for this game. They lost starting center Tilly (12 PPG) in the first half of that game to a head injury. He’s had a week to rest and head coach Jake Diebler is confident he’ll be OK on Saturday. On the other side, UCLA is in a really rough spot here. Their last 5 games they played @ Iowa (loss), @ Wisconsin (loss), came home for 1 game vs Maryland and won, then had to travel to the east coast to face Penn State on Wednesday and now Ohio State today. That’s 5 games in 15 days with 4 coming on the road all with long travel. They are coming off a win on Wednesday @ PSU but caught a break when the Nittany Lions leading scorer Dillone injured his ankle 8 minutes into the game and did not return. On top of that, Penn State made only 4 of 22 from 3 (18%) and the Bruins were 21 of 21 from the FT line. UCLA played that game without leading scorer Skyy Clark (3rd game in a row he missed) and he is highly doubtful in this one. They’ve also had the flu running through their team this week with a few players bed ridden which could definitely be an issue here. In their 2 recent road games @ Iowa and @ Wisconsin, 2 very similarly rated teams to OSU, they lost by 13 (trailed by 24) and by 8 (trailed by 20) respectively. The Buckeyes are one of the top offensive teams in the country ranking 25th in FG% while averaging 83 PPG while making 79% of their FTs. Those numbers jump to 52% and 88 PPG on their home court. Since losing Clark, UCLA’s top 3 point shooter, they’ve hit just 19 of 74 from beyond the arc (25%), spanning their last 4 games. Today they face an OSU defense that allows only 29% from deep which is 24th in the country so we expect very little from 3 for the Bruins in this game. They’ve also averaged only 67 PPG over their last 4. We’re not sure they can keep up offensively in this game and with the sickness, injuries, and terrible travel schedule, UCLA might not have much left in the tank. Take the Buckeyes.

#389/390 ASA PLAY ON Under 45 Points – San Francisco 49ers vs Seattle Seahawks, Saturday at 8 PM ET - These 2 NFC West rivals faced off twice this season and scored 47 total points in BOTH games combined. In week 1 of the season the Niners topped Seattle on the road 17-13 and then in the final week of the season in a winner take all match up for the division title, Seattle won 13-3. In those 2 games, the offenses combined to average only 287 YPG on just 4.7 YPP. We don’t see anything changing in this match up. Seattle’s defense has been one of the best in the NFL all season. They are rated as the #1 defense in the NFL per DVOA (advanced metric), 1st in opponent’s 3rd down conversion rate (just 32%), 2nd in scoring allowing 17.2 PPG and 2nd in YPP allowed at 4.6. Seattle allowed more than 20 points in a game just 4 times this season. While SF’s offense was potent at times this season, the Seahawks have been their kryptonite as they’ve scored a total of 20 points in their 2 games. The Niners faced 8 teams that were top 10 DVOA defense this year and averaged 19 PPG in those games. They will also be without one of the key weapons as TE Kittle was injured last week @ Philly and is done for the year. On the other side, San Fran’s defense has been up and down all season, however they are peaking right now allowing 13 and 19 points their last 2 games (vs Seattle & Philly) and they held the Seahawks to 26 total points in their 2 games. They’ve allowed 24 points or less in 6 of their last 8 games. Seattle’s offense loves to run the ball (3rd in rushing attempts per game) and that shouldn’t change here. QB Darnold will go in this one but has an injured oblique to you can bet they’ll try and protect him if they can run the ball and eat clock. They ran it 39 times @ SF a few weeks ago and we see a similar situation here. These teams know each other very well and low scoring games have been the norm. 7 of the last 9 meetings have failed to reach 45 points and this one won’t be any different. Let’s grab the Under.