Grab Bag - March 24

One win and three losses in my weekend post, March has been an absolutely brutal month for me. My F1 picks were god awful thanks to the Red Bull engine failure and the McLaren lack of speed. We've got World Cup qualifying and more March Madness on Thursday to get back into it.

Now, let's get to some picks.

Italy to Record a Shutout Win (-155)

World Cup qualifying is back for another round on Thursday, with the European playoff semifinals taking place for teams that finished second and third in their respective pools. Italy slipped up in qualifying and recorded a few draws, leading to them finishing behind Switzerland and dropping into the playoff. They take on North Macedonia on Thursday afternoon in Italy, needing a win to get through to the "championship" match.

If you didn't skip to the next pick or completely close the tab when you read that I was making a pick on North Macedonian soccer, I've got some stats for you. One major stat, really - Italy has allowed just two goals in the entirety of qualifying thus far, eight matches. They're mostly the same team that won the Euro's last summer and have one of the best defenses in the world. They should look to put this game away early by scoring a goal or two, and then playing keep away from the North Macedonians from there.

You might not even know where North Macedonia is. Here's a tip, if you're looking for Macedonia on the map so you can simply look North of it, stop. There is no Macedonia, at least not anymore. The North Macedonians can't even name their country properly, how are they supposed to score a goal against Italy, a world soccer power. If they were actually smart, they would have named their country North Greece, because that's what's South of them. There's a bit of juice attached to the pick, but Italy should come out focused and ready to win this game and advance to the qualifier final.

Texas Tech Pick 'Em vs. Duke

Let me preface this by saying I have a future on Texas Tech to win the national championship (+3300 from back before the Super Bowl, not a big deal), and that I hate Duke. Coach K thinks he's god's gift to basketball and is somehow the moral compass of college basketball, which is patently insane.

My bias aside, this line makes no sense to the average fan, so I'm going to pretend to be smarter than I am and break it down. For starters, Duke is a two seed and Tech is a three seed. While the seeds aren't everything, an uneducated bettor would take Duke here. Duke is also, well, Duke, and have the reputation as one of the best programs in the country. Just based on the public perception of them, you would think they would be favored to try to keep the money even on both sides of the line. Reading between the lines here, Vegas is telling people to take Duke. I don't want to say Santa Claus isn't real, but I will spoil another secret - Vegas isn't your friend. They don't want you to make money. They want to take your money. Santa isn't real (I did want to say it). I'm reading this line as the books telling me to take Duke, but I know they aren't my friend so I'm taking the Red Raiders. A first year head coach against Coach K is cause for concern, but the Tech defense should be able to slow Duke down and win this game, especially if A.J. Griffin is out for the Blue Devils.

After coming back to this and rereading what I wrote, I want to add a disclaimer that I don't know where the money is coming in. There are definitely places you can go to find that information, and maybe the public is on Texas Tech, which would mean you should discount my analysis. I wrote that based on what I think the public will do and picked accordingly. If you have access to percent of money on each side, use that to your advantage here.

Josh Carlton over 5.5 Rebounds vs. Arizona

Let me start this blurb with a quick rant about the sweet sixteen scheduling. I understand they schedule these games based on TV ratings and people are at work during the day, but there's only four games each day. I have two TVs in my living room, so it isn't a huge deal to me personally, but there are plenty of people who can only watch one game at a time. There's no need for the games to start a half hour apart, and at ten at night on the East coast. I don't know who's in charge of that but I'd like to speak with them. Enough about my feud with the march madness scheduler, let's talk about something much more interesting: rebounding.

Josh Carlton averages over six rebounds per game this season, playing just 22 minutes a game; that's 11.5 rebounds per 40 minutes. He won't play 40 minutes unless this game ends up in several overtimes, but he should still be able to grab six boards. On Sunday night against TCU, Eddie Lampkin Jr. destroyed Arizona on the glass, grabbing 14 rebounds. Arizona struggled to grab rebounds all night, giving plenty of second chance opportunities to TCU. Arizona has size, Christian Koloko is over seven feet tall, and Azuolas Tubelis comes in at just under seven feet, but Tubelis has been inconsistent and found himself playing just 16 minutes on Sunday night, even with the overtime period.

I disparaged Houston's strength of schedule when I last wrote about them, reciting a quote from Alabama super fan Phyllis on the Paul Finnebaum show. I'd like to rescind my previous comments and say that Houston has in fact played somebody, Pawl. Houston defends like hell, and they rebound like hell. Brad Underwood threw the kitchen sink at Houston in terms of strategies, bringing in extra shooters to play from the inside out, but they defended everything that Illinois tried and eventually ran away with the game. Both Tommy Lloyd and Kelvin Sampson Jr. are great coaches and will come to the game on Thursday night well prepared, although I'm giving the edge to Sampson here with Arizona's defensive rebounding flaw exposed in the last game. I like Sampson to keep Josh Carlton in the game more than he normally would for some extra size and help on the glass, to try to force Lloyd to play Tubelis or even Oumar Ballo more than he wants to. Arizona knows they need to be rebound to win this game, but look for Carlton to play extra minutes and eat up some easy defensive rebounds. Even if Arizona does bring in more size to help on the defensive glass, he Carlton should be able to gather six rebounds off Arizona misses alone.