Reasoning: I am not making the Colonials a premium play because it almost feels a little too easy and that's scaring me a bit too much for my liking.
I admit that Richmond is the far superior team in terms of sheer overall talent led by a couple of studs in Kevin Anderson and Justin Harper. Both of those guys could dominate any game they are in and tonight may be no exception but overall the Spiders have not exactly been tearing things up of late and to be laying around a Baker's Dozen just seemed way too steep. Chris Mooney's team has regressed a little bit of late. Losing at home to both Rhode Island and Bucknell is beyond inexcusable and earlier in the season fell to Iona and on a neutral site to a pretty lacking Georgia Tech squad. Those are four games that a very good team should get. Maybe one underachieving loss is acceptable in that mix but not to all of those teams, no how no way. Something just does not seem to be fully right with these Spiders right now.
George Washington is a solid enough squad these days, not good but not the horrific junk they became in a few recent seasons. No doubt the road is never easy and I'm not coming close to calling for Karl Hobbs' boys to get the outright but these visitors have won their first three conference games and should be feeling fairly confident right now, even if the victories were against the lower level Atlantic-12 teams.
The Colonials had won five in a row and eight of 9 before that last loss to Harvard. Falling to the Crimson certainly isn't great but Tommy Amaker is doing a quality job in Cambridge so it's not all that bad.
GW will have to step up its game here for sure against a Richmond team that can be elite in the conference like last season but until the Spiders regain some of that form I'll grab this number with Tony Taylor and the fellas.
The pick: George Washington
For more information: Nobody can win every day as was the case yesterday with the Georgia Bulldogs but the best will win most days. That is the epitome of what I do and will do one more time today. A trio of winners that will inflict some pain on that Crookie today. 400,000* Cincinnati-Notre Dame, 300,000* Iowa State-Oklahoma State and a 200,000* Duke-NC State. Rivers premium picks are up
