March 10, 2013

Liberty vs. Charleston Southern Pick

NCAA Tournament slot No. 3 will be handed out on Sunday afternoon in Conway, South Carolina, where either the Liberty Flames or the Charleston Southern Buccaneers will win the Big South. The team that beats the college basketball betting lines in this one is going to likely be stuck in one of the play-in games a week from Tuesday.

The Flames have been the real shock of the Big South Tournament, and if they were to win this game and get into the dance, they would almost certainly be the lowest ranked team in the field according to the RPI. This was a team that went just 6-10 this year in conference play and finished fifth in the North Division, clearly the inferior of the two divisions in the Big South. That’s the magic of March, though. Thus far, the Flames have taken down the Coastal Carolina Chanticleers, the High Point Panthers, and most recently, the Gardner Webb Bulldogs in the biggest upset that we have seen thus far in this tournament. We have seen G John Caleb Sanders really take over for Liberty in this stretch as well. He has scored 19, 12, and 10 points in three games in the Big South Tournament, and he now has averaged 18.3 points per game in his last 10 outings.

The Buccaneers are the favored side in this one, but they have yet to cover a spread in this tourney. They only just missed against the Winthrop Eagles and the VMI Keydets, but ATS losses are ATS losses from a betting standpoint. Of course, just the fact that Charleston Southern is still hanging around in this wild tournament, which has featured a slew of shocks, is somewhat impressive in itself. G Arlon Harper is the team’s second leading scorer at 14.6 points per game, and he was the hero in the Big South semifinals against the Keydets. He shot 10-of-20 from the floor and 5-of-8 from long range, accounting for 33 points and nine boards in the outing. G Saah Nimley, who is regularly one of the top distributors on the team, had a big day on the glass, coming up with 14 points and 12 rebounds. He also shot the ball 20 times from the floor. Take away Nimley and Harper, and the rest of the team only took 34 shots in 40 minutes. For a game that was up and down the court for the full 40 minutes, that’s a bit surprising.

Prediction:

Liberty really did a nice job in this series this year, losing at home by just four points in a game that was very close. This is one of these matchups that could once again come right down to the wire, and we think that it is going to be another tight one. Expect to see the Buccaneers dancing when push comes to shove, but we think that the Flames are going to hang and finish out this tournament at 4-0 ATS. Charleston Southern 73 – Liberty 68

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Adam Markowitz

is a staff writer living in the Orlando area. He has covered NFL, MLB, college football, CFL, AFL, NBA, college basketball, NASCAR, golf, tennis, and the NHL for a number of various outlets in his career, and he has been published by a number of different media outlets, including the Orlando Sentinel and the Wall Street Journal.