Happy Friday, everybody. I’m sorry about your bracket. I know you spent hours sweating over it (OK, maybe it was five minutes), searching for the perfect outcomes, and seeing it all go up in flames on the first day because of Princeton or Furman was painful.
But it’s going to be OK. We will soldier on. We will continue to watch the tournament, and we will continue to bet on it in this newsletter. We will also read these stories.
The ball was tipped, and now here we are.
All times Eastern, and all odds via Caesars Sportsbook
🔥 The Hot Ticket
No. 6 Kentucky vs. No. 11 Providence, 7:10 p.m. | TV: CBS
Key Trend: The over is 9-3 in Kentucky’s last 12 and 6-1 in Providence’s last seven.The Pick: Over 143 (-110)
Kentucky has been one of the more difficult teams to figure out all season, but it probably shouldn’t be a surprise. It’s an efficient offense (14th nationally, according to KenPom)… but the efficiency is misleading.
Kentucky does not shoot the ball well. It ranks 148th nationally in eFG%, 103rd from three and 182nd from two. Its 70.3% free-throw shooting percentage ranks 240th. What it does well is crash the offensive glass, where its 38.7% offensive rebound rate ranks second nationally. So it misses shots but gets a lot of second chances.
Tonight it faces a Providence team that is almost the same team. Providence ranks 16th nationally in offensive efficiency but doesn’t shoot the ball well. What it does is crash the offensive glass! All of which leads me to believe this game can go one of two ways. It will either be hideous, with both teams struggling to score, or it will be a bizarro track meet in which every missed shot results in a putback of some kind. While both outcomes are equally likely, my numbers tell me this total is too low. I would have it closer to 150, so I can’t pass this play up.
Here’s what SportsLine is saying about the game: While it’s not an A-grade, the Projection…
Source link : https://www.cbssports.com/college-basketball/news/trying-to-figure-out-kentucky-plus-more-march-madness-bets-for-the-weekend/
Author : CBS Sports Staff
Publish date : 2023-03-17 20:13:45
Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source.
