Kent State vs. Akron Pick

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NCAA Basketball Pick – March 8th

The regular season in the MAC is winding down, and as we get closer to the end of the campaign, the games for the Akron Zips get more and more important. Friday night’s fight against the Kent State Golden Flashes is the last college basketball betting battle of the season in Akron for the hosts.

The Flashes are really not fighting for much at this point. They probably aren’t going to have enough time left to get into the NIT, and they are a sure thing for the CBI or the CIT if they want to go there. However, the team has won four straight games, and it has gone 5-1-1 ATS in its last seven, so this isn’t a team to mess with. Kent State likes to fly up and down the court, and it does so by substituting some of its players a ton. Alas, all of the scoring really boils down to just three players. F Chris Evans, G Randal Holt, and G Kris Brewer are the three men that really make this team go, and they are averaging over 40 points per game between them. Evans is the team’s leading scorer at 16.8 points per game, and he is also the top rebounder as well at 7.7 boards per night. The other two are three-point shooting assassins, as Holt and Brewer are hitting 38.9 percent and 45.2 percent from downtown respectively.

All eyes are going to be on Akron, though. The Zips are 24-5, they haven’t been beaten here at home this season, and they are team sitting dab smack on the bubble. They’ll be the huge favorites to win the MAC Tournament next week in Cleveland, but in the event that they don’t do so, they’ll have a very intriguing case to still get in the field of 68, especially after the Iona Gaels made it as the last team in the dance last season. The Zips are outscoring teams by 11.3 points per game this year, and they rank in the Top 75 in scoring, defense, field goal shooting percentage, and field goal percentage allowed, and there aren’t many teams in the country that can boast all of that. C Zeke Marshall is the hero for Akron. He is the team’s leading scorer at 12.9 points per game, and he has a ton of intangibles, too. Marshall already has 104 blocks on the season, he is knocking down 66.7 percent of his shots from the field, and he is good for 6.9 boards per night. F Demetrius Treadwell is averaging 11.2 points and 7.5 rebounds per game to boot. If the Zips are going to win this one, they’re going to have to do without G Alex Abreu in the fold. Abreu has been suspended after being arrested for suspected drug trafficking. Abreu is averaging 10.3 points and 6.0 assists per game this year, and he is clearly one of the catalysts of this team’s good fortune.

Prediction:

The Zips have really garnered a ton of national attention, but they really aren’t doing a great job covering spreads. This is a team that is just 0-2 ATS in its last two games and 3-5 ATS in its last eight dating back to the beginning of February. We’ll take the points with the Golden Flashes, who, as we have already documented, are covering games at will, especially knowing that Abreu isn’t going to be in the building for the Zips. Akron 69 – Kent State 66