Happy Friday, sports betting amigos! Thursday was a terrible night for us on the college hardwood, as our player props went 0-2 to run our record to 38-33 on the season. That brings our overall profit down to +0.47 units.
Needless to say, the sledding has been quite tough here lately. After getting up nearly +15 units of profit, we've gone ice cold to get back to practically even. In case you haven't noticed, sports betting is freaking hard!
Our pick on Northwestern's Matthew Nicholson never had a chance. The Wildcats gave him the ball much more than they normally do, and he made the most of it, much to my chagrin. He finished with 10 points to bust our Under 6.5 ticket.
Our Over ticket on Rodney Rice of Maryland didn't fare much better. He continued his super-hot shooting to light our Under 15.5 ticket on fire as well. We've got to shake it off and find a way to get hot again. Good luck my friends, and have a blessed weekend!
Marquette at Villanova: 7:00 PM EST (FS1)
Faithful readers of my column just knew that this play was going to be a part of the Friday card! Poplar has been good to us this season and he's been in excellent form lately. The former Miami star has easily gone over this line in four straight games, and I expect him to stay hot tonight at home.
Marquette has a few nice defensive stats, but they've done a lot of it with smoke and mirrors. A closer look at the numbers tells us that the Golden Eagles are just 259th in two-point defense and just 166th in opponent shooting percentage. That should be good news for Mr. Poplar!
A lot of folks may shy away from this play since Marquette held Poplar to only 8 points back on January 24th. However, Poplar's confidence is much higher these days and I look for a big game from him in front of his home crowd. Let's play the Over to get this Friday party started.
Poplar is 15-12 to the Over vs. this line in '24-25.
Poplar has gone Over this total in 4 of his last 4 outings.
Poplar has gone Over this line in 9 of his 15 home games this year.
Dayton at Loyola (IL): 7:00 PM EST (ESPN2)
How about a little A-10 action to wrap up the Friday card? I love that ESPN2 features this conference on Friday nights! There's a lot more talent in this league than most folks realize.
At first glance, I thought this line was simply too low. Cheeks is a consistent scorer for the Flyers, as his median point total this season is 13. That's quite a bit of implied value on the Over, so we'll play it with confidence.
Loyola doesn't have a terrible defense, but they struggle in a couple of areas that Cheeks should be able to exploit. This defense ranks just 175th at defending the three and 112th in opponent shooting efficiency. Let's get it!
Cheeks is 15-10 to the Over vs. this line in '24-25.
Cheeks has gone Over this line in 6 of his last 10.
Cheeks is 6-4 to the Over vs. this line in road/neutral games.