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NCAA Basketball Pick – January 8th

SEC rivals are going to duke it out in college basketball betting action on Tuesday night at Mizzou Arena, where the Missouri Tigers play host to the Alabama Crimson Tide.

Alabama is going to have to slow down the pace in this game to have a chance to get the job done. The squad is scoring just 65.5 points per game this year, but in spite of its offensive problems, it is still allowing just 58.8 points per game, ranking in the Top 40 in America. This is the first conference game of the year for the Crimson Tide, and they are going to eventually have to get some offense going after posting five straight games with 66 points or fewer put on the board. G Trevor Releford is one of the four main guards in this lineup. He is averaging 15.6 points, 2.8 assists, 2.6 rebounds and 2.0 steals per game, and those are numbers that are as good as any scoring guard in the conference. The problem for the Tide? They just can’t rebound the basketball. No one on the team is averaging more than 4.5 boards per game, but part of the problem is that the team just hasn’t had much in the way of consistency. There are just five players that have played in all 13 games this year.

Think that it’s funny that we’re talking about Alabama’s problems rebounding the basketball? The biggest problem that it has right now is that it is going to be playing against the best rebounding team in America. Whereas there isn’t a soul on the team in crimson that is averaging even five boards per night, there are five players averaging at least five rebounds per game for the Tigers. Mizzou is the polar opposite team in every respect to Alabama. It ranks 30th in America in scoring at 78.5 points per game, and it will run up and down the court on every single possession if it gets the chance to do so. Don’t think of this team as one that can’t play defense, though. The Tigers are allowing 64.6 points per game, but they are only allowing teams to shoot 37.5 percent from the field. If that keeps up over the course of the rest of the year, not only will Head Coach Frank Haith and the gang challenge for the SEC title, but it might be a team that can get to the Final Four, too.

Prediction:

This is a hefty point spread to be laying in a conference game with a very defensive-minded team on the other end of the court. Though we really don’t think that Alabama has much of a chance to win this game, we do think that in the end, it will be able to stick inside of this number. Missouri 74 – Alabama 68