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NCAA Basketball Pick – January 23rd

There aren’t many games this time of year that truly will make a difference in the race for the NCAA Tournament. On Thursday night though, we have one of those games in the little known West Coast Conference, as the BYU Cougars take on the Gonzaga Bulldogs at the Kennel.

Beating the college basketball betting lines is a necessity for BYU at some point this year against the Zags and the St. Mary’s Gaels. Right now, the Cougs are probably on the right side of the March Madness bubble, but a heartbreaking loss against St. Mary’s at home last Wednesday really could prove to be crippling when push comes to shove down the stretch as the bubble shrinks. The Cougs really only have a two-man team offensively, but those two men are flat out awesome. G Tyler Haws averages 21.6 points and 5.0 boards per game, and he has averaged 30.0 points per game in his last six. F Brandon Davies is the big man in the middle, and he can really dominate in the paint. At 18.0 points per game, Davies really has been remarkable this year, though unlike Haws, his numbers have dipped just a bit of late. BYU loves to run, averaging 78.3 points per game, and it is going to likely need every single one of those points to compete with the Bulldogs.

Gonzaga lost its second game of the season over the weekend when it went on the road to Hinkle Fieldhouse and lost to the Butler Bulldogs. No big deal though, as that doesn’t change what we think about this team. The Zags very well could be a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament this year when push comes to shove, though they might have to run the table to be able to do that. This is an insanely efficient team, shooting 51.2 percent from the field and putting up 79.4 points per game for the season. There are legitimately six men that can put up 20+ points on any given night for Head Coach Mark Few, and F Kelly Olynyk does it more often than not. The seven footer only scored 14 against Butler, snapping his streak of three straight games with at least 21 points and at least eight rebounds. Add in there F Elias Harris, G Kevin Pangos, G Gary Bell Jr., and the combo of big men, C Sam Dower and C Przemek Karnowski, and the makings are there for this to be a truly special team.

Prediction:

The Bulldogs are for real, but we think that BYU is, too. Haws can keep his team in any game against any squad in the nation, and this isn’t going to be an exception. We do think that this is going to be a heartbreaking loss for the Cougs in the Kennel, especially after Gonzaga was beaten by Butler, but we want the points on our side that we are going to be getting. Gonzaga 73 – BYU 71