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NCAA Basketball Pick – March 9th

The 2013 Ohio Valley Tournament will come to a close on Saturday night in Nashville, where the Belmont Bruins will look to remove any doubts about their NCAA Tournament placing when they take on the Murray State Racers.

Many thought that the Racers were dead in the water a few weeks ago. They were beaten in back to back road teams by some of the very suspect teams in the conference, and they followed that up by losing to both Tennessee Martin and Southeast Missouri State. However, just as the Racers did all of last year when they were able to fight back time and time again, they have done so here in 2013, and they could be set to make a return trip to the NCAA Tournament if they can find a way to win this one. It’s not going to be easy, but the team has the tools and the experience to get the job done at this level. G Isaiah Canaan is averaged 21.6 points per game coming into this tournament, and he put up another 20+ point effort in the semifinal.

The last few days of the insanity before Selection Sunday are here, and this is the last impression that Belmont is going to be making on the Selection Committee. A win, and there is no doubt that the Ohio Valley is a one-bid league. A loss though, and this could become a compelling situation. The Bruins have an RPI of 22, and they have some pretty impressive wins against teams like Stanford and Middle Tennessee State to fall back upon. Can the team really sustain a third conference loss and still get into the dance, though? That’s the question that would be so interesting to try to answer. What we do know is that this team really had to fight its brains out to put aside the Tennessee State Tigers on Friday night in the conference semifinals. G Ian Clark knocked down six triples and finished the day with 26 points, while G Kerron Johnson had 23 for Belmont. The team was beaten on the glass, and the only reasons that it was able to move on to the final were the 21 forced turnovers and the fact that the Bruins went to the foul line 30 times.

Prediction:

Here comes bubble trouble for some of the other teams on the cut line right now in the dance. The Racers haven’t played really well of late, but Belmont has proven that it can be beaten. Tennessee State really had it dead to rights on Friday, and we think that this could be the upset of the Ohio Valley season. The Bruins will be watching and waiting for the next week, hoping that the bubble continues to thin out. Murray State 72 – Belmont 69