March Madness spread picks, NCAA Tournament game previews for Friday, and everything sports bettors need to beat the bookmaker is in the free pick section of OffshoreInsiders.com
Oklahoma State vs. GA Tech and Purdue vs. Siena previews are here.
If you want to see two of the nation's best players, tune into Friday night's first-round game in Milwaukee between No. 10 seed Georgia Tech and seventh-seeded Oklahoma State. The Cowboys have opened as 1.5-point favorites on Bodog's NCAA Basketball Odds
Georgia Tech's star is freshman forward Derrick Favors (although fellow forward Gani Lawal is pretty good too), who is second on the team in points (12.5) and rebounds (8.5). Favors led the nation by shooting better than 61 percent from the field. The Jackets' confidence is likely pretty high right now after they reached the ACC title game and barely lost to Duke (that run may have saved coach Paul Hewitt's job). Favors was arguably the best player in the ACC Tournament. The Yellow Jackets (22-12, 16-11-1 ATS) are in the Big Dance for the first time since 2007. They are among the nation's leaders in field goal percentage defense but among the nation's worst in free throw shooting and turnovers.
Oklahoma State (22-10, 15-10-1 ATS) is led by All-American guard James Anderson, who led the Big 12 in scoring at 22.6 points per game (third nationally). Anderson, Obi Muonelo and Keiton Page have combined for 223 three-pointers, more than any other trio in the NCAA Tournament. OSU has won nine of its last 10 games when making 10 or more three-pointers. One of those victories was an eight-point home win over Kansas, which was the Jayhawks' lone conference loss.
Pay close attention to the halftime score of this one because Georgia Tech is just 3-9 this year when trailing at the half. When the Jackets trail with five minutes left, they are 1-9. The winner of this game faces the Ohio State-UC Santa Barbara winner on Sunday.
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How good is Siena really? Sure the Saints have a sparkling 27-6 record and won the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference regular season and tournament titles, losing just once in the process. But the Saints also have yet to beat a good team, going 0-4 against teams in this NCAA Tournament (losing to Temple, Georgia Tech, Northern Iowa and Butler). We should find out about Siena on Friday afternoon when it faces Purdue in Spokane, Wash. The Boilermakers are 4-point favorites on Bodog's NCAA Basketball Odds
The 13th-seeded Saints (16-14-1 ATS) are in the Big Dance for the third straight year and sixth time overall. Siena is 4-5 all-time in NCAA Tournament games but has won a game in four of the past five appearances (including an upset of Ohio State last year) but has never reached the Sweet 16. Its star is forward Alex Franklin, the MAAC regular season and tournament MVP. He leads the Saints in scoring (16.3 points) and is second in rebounding (8.0).
It's not really clear how good No. 4 seed Purdue (27-5, 12-18-2 ATS) is right now, either, as the Boilermakers shared the Big Ten regular season title but went 3-2 in the final five games after losing top all-around player Robbie Hummel to a season-ending knee injury. The Boilermakers were bombed by Minnesota, 69-42, in their last game, with Purdue only managing 11 first-half points against the Gophers. Rebounding has been a problem of late, as in Purdue's two most recent losses it was outrebounded a combined 96-46. Siena outrebounds its opponents by an average of 4.1 a game, led by Ryan Rossiter's 11.1 average.
Purdue, which has never faced Siena, has won 11 consecutive NCAA Tournament first-round games. It hasn't lost in the opening round since 1993. The winner of this game faces either No. 5 seed Texas A&M or No. 12 seed Utah State on Sunday.
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