College Basketball Picks

Basketball Betting Game Trends

NCAA Basketball Pick – March 9th

On the final day of the Big East season, the Georgetown Hoyas and the Syracuse Orange will go to battle with all sorts of implications for the Big East Tournament and the NCAA Tournament on the line.

The Orange know that they can’t win the league title in their final year in the Big East, but they can get a double bye into the quarterfinals of the event with a win and some help down the stretch. This is a team that really has played stifling defense all season long, but it is also a team that we think just hasn’t totally put it all together for long stretches. F James Southerland missed some games in the middle of the season, and he is back, but now, the team’s second leading scorer, G Brandon Triche has been all over the place and hasn’t been a great shooter over the course of the last month or so. He rarely leaves the court, and he only has averaged 10.3 points per game in his last four games, shooting under 40% from the field in the process. Perhaps the win over the DePaul Blue Demons will help, knowing that that ended a three-game losing streak both from an SU and an ATS perspective.

The Hoyas were probably on the No. 1 line for the NCAA Tournament before losing to the Villanova Wildcats on Wednesday night. Georgetown can get back there, but it is probably going to take winning this game and at least getting to the final of the Big East Tournament, or winning the tourney for that to happen. This is a strong defensive team, but as we saw against Villanova, the offense really isn’t there, and that might be what ultimately sees this team out of the dance prematurely. F Otto Porter has been tearing things up during what was an 11-game winning streak before losing to the Wildcats, and that includes dropping 33 on this Syracuse outfit back on February 23rd. Aside from that though, points are few and far between for most of the rest of the players on this team, and that could be a real detriment going forward.

Prediction:

We have already seen these two go at it in a huge defensive battle once, as the Hoyas went on the road to the Carrier Dome and walked out with a 57-46 victory. That was the big day for Porter and a terrible day for the Syracuse defenders trying to stay in front of him. That being said, we think that the Orange have some real grit and tenacity. They have already proven that by being able to go on the road to Louisville to score a victory, and we think that they could do the same on Saturday afternoon in DC. Syracuse 62 – Georgetown 57