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NCAA Basketball Pick – November 13th

The 24 Hours of College Basketball betting action wraps up on Tuesday night from the Georgia Dome with what easily amounts to be the best game of the day, as the Kentucky Wildcats tango with the Duke Blue Devils.

The Dookies got off to a respectable start to the season when they took down the Georgia State Panthers without all that much of a hassle. They aren’t as good as they were last year quite yet, but this is still a team that clearly is one to be reckoned with. Mason Plumlee might be one of the best big men in the nation this year, and he had no problems ripping apart Georgia State to the tune of team highs in points (19) and rebounds (14). Seth Curry came out of the blocks hot as well, putting up 15 points, while Tyler Thornton added 14. This isn’t a particularly deep team at this point, as even against Georgia State, there were just seven players that scored and just eight were in the rotation, but we have seen teams do it with basically six players in college basketball, and that clearly is going to be the methodology that Coach K and the Blue Devils elect to go with this year.

Kentucky, on the other hand, was not nearly as impressive in its first game, and this is why it is a dog on the college basketball lines. The Wildcats were pushed to the brink by the Maryland Terrapins, and there was a real chance every step of the way that they were going to get beaten. Of course, Maryland is a lot better than its perception suggests this year, but the fact that UK played poorly was not an accident. This is a very young team, and though it ranks highly in terms of the recruiting class that came in, the talent is still raw, and Head Coach John Calipari knows that the squad isn’t going to likely be quite as strong as it was last year. All of the pomp and circumstance for Nerlens Noel didn’t appear to be worth it through one game, as he had just four points on six shots. He did block three shots and pull down nine boards though, and he’ll be a force to be reckoned with on Tuesday night against Plumlee. Kyle Wiltjer scored 19 for the Cats last Friday, while Archie Goodwin piled on 16.

Prediction:

We’re just not buying the Wildcats quite yet. They just aren’t as good of a team right now as they were at the end of last year. Play this game in another two months, and we might have a different story to tell, but for now, Duke is clearly the better of these two teams, and it should show in Atlanta. Duke 75 – Kentucky 71