March Madness must be near as our first Bad Beat of the conference tournament reared its ugly head. Our 2* selection on NC Wilmington -3.5 was sitting pretty as our main man Bo Montgomery cooly sank 2 free throws with 3 seconds left to put the Seahawks up 68-64. Winner Winner right? Well not so fast my friends. It turned out some guy named Dewilk Tavarez decided to chuck up a meaningless (well not meaningless to everyone) 3 at the buzzer and….yep….SWISH. In the blink of an eye our very nice +6 Unit evening turned into a very frustrating +2 Unit evening. We’ve all been there a thousand times but boy do those sting! Fortunately we had a “rocking chair” on our Top Play backing the OVER 139.5 in the Wofford/Furman battle (85-76) as a 4* ELITE Release. Our other 2* plays split with Gonzaga/SF hitting the Over and Towson watching their excellent season go down the drain in a pitiful no-show effort versus the suddenly red hot Delaware Blue Hens. Adding 2 Units brings our rolling 15 day record to 40-17 for PLUS 66 UNITS. It’s been a bit choppy the last few days, after a very strong run, but we will hope the bounces come back our way heading into the Tuesday card.
4* ELITE – Wofford/Furman OVER 139.5 (85-76) WIN
2* STRONG – Gonzaga/SF Over 155 (85-76) WIN
2* STRONG – NC Wilmington -3.5 (68-67) LOSS
2* STRONG – Towson -6.5 (72-82) LOSS
WRITEUP: 3-10-25: 4* ELITE – Wofford/Furman OVER 139.5 – Tonight we have the Southern Conference Championship, with a ticket to March Madness on the line, that features two teams nobody expected to be here. With the top 4 teams already knocked out, either the Wofford Terriers (10-8) or Furman Paladins(11-7) will be punching their ticket to the Big Dance. This one should be a SHOOTOUT and is our BEST BET on the Monday card. Furman ranks 5th nationally in “3 Point Attempts” and Wofford ranks 24th. Both of these teams like to bomb away. Wofford is also the Best Rebounding team in the conference so when they do miss they are often getting a second bite at the apple. These teams split their regular season meetings with the Terriers grabbing 20 and 17 offensive rebounds in the contests. To help our OVER cause, Wofford is terrible at defending the 3 as they rank 342nd nationally in “3 Point Attempt Rate Allowed”. So they hit 3’s themselves and cannot stop their opponents from hitting 3’s. Furman is red hot having won 6 straight and having just dispatched arguably the two best teams in the conference in Chattanooga and Samford. In those battles the Paladins hit an unconscious 29 of 57 from deep. This line looks 10 points short and we see the final tally being closer to 160 than 140 in what sets up to be a “Run and Gun Affair”.
WRITEUP: 3-10-25: 2* STRONG – NC Wilmington -3.5: Tonight we have a CAA Conference tournament semi-final matchup between the NC Wilmington Seahawks (14-4) and the Charleston Cougars (13-5) in a battle that pits squads against each other that finished 2nd and 3rd in the regular season standings. These teams met twice during the regular season with Wilmington winning by 20 at Home and 2 on the Road. The Seahawks are 4-0 straight up and ATS in their last 4 and are an impressive 9-4 on the road. They are coming off an easy win over Red Hot Hampton where no starter played over 32 minutes. The Cougars, on the other hand, had to go to Overtime to slip by Monmouth 79-78 as an 8.5 point favorite in a battle where their best player, Ante Brzovic, had to play 41 minutes. In conference tournament games, where teams are playing on consecutive nights, minutes played by key players can be a critical part of a handicap; particularly when the teams have comparable talent. These are two top tier teams in the middling CAA, and this should be a competitive contest, but the Seahawks are more rested, are in very good current form and match up well versus the Cougars as witnessed by a 20 point victory earlier this season. Wilmington takes care of business this evening on their way to a likely showdown versus #1 Seed Towson.