06
JAN
2017

NCAAB January 6th

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NCAAB November: 41-32-1, (56.16%) +5.8 Units
NCAAB December: 31-48-1, (39.24%) -21.8 Units 
NCAAB January: 8-6, (57.14%) +1.4 Units

0-1 yesterday with a swing and a miss on Manhattan. Have your typical small Friday slate but hopefully can still turn it into something. Here’s what I’ve got…

Dayton/Rhode Island Un 136.5: Two very solid A-10 teams do battle here in what I expect to be a low scoring affair. Dayton comes in ranked 19th in the nation in defensive efficiency and their average defensive possession is 18.0 seconds, which ranks 316th in the nation. Davis and Smith are good perimeter defenders and cleaning things up behind them blocking shots are Miller and Williams. Rhode Island prefers to score down low in the paint, which is a problem for them as Dayton packs everything in and lets you try and beat them from 3. As I mentioned beating people from 3 is not Rhode Island’s style as they only score 27% of their points from beyond the arc. This isn’t a good matchup for the Rams offense. On the other end Dayton does prefer to beat you from 3 point land. They shoot the 3 well, and they shoot it often. Problem for them is Rhode Island flat out doesn’t allow themselves to be beaten by the 3. On the year they rank 43rd in 3 point % allowed at 30.8% and rank 8th best in the country allowing opponents to only score 22.3% of their points from 3 point land. If you want to beat them you’ve gotta do it from the inside, and again that’s just not what Dayton does. On top of all that is the fact Rhode Island’s average defensive possession is 18.5 seconds which ranks 344th in the nation. If that isn’t enough arguably Dayton’s best player Charles Cooke is questionable with a bad back. Cooke has the highest usage rate on Dayton’s roster, so if he’s out needless to say that’ll impact the offense in a big way. Even if he does play though, this is a still a bad matchup. Him sitting would just take it from bad to worse. To sum this all up you’ve got two solid defenses who force you into long possessions, and in this case specialize in taking away what the other team wants to do. Both teams are going to have to go out of their comfort zones to score in this one. Dayton wants to shoot from 3, but URI won’t allow it. URI wants to score down low, but Dayton won’t allow that. This has the makings of a real hard fought battle and defensive struggle.

Ohio (-7.5): I don’t know what the hell happened in that Kent State/Ball State game on Tuesday. Out of nowhere we saw 82 possessions, and from Kent State 100 points and 1.22 points per possession. All of which is just absurd for a team that on the whole is pretty mediocre offensively. Hell the Flashes were even 31-31 from the foul line to top if all off. Not only do I think their offense comes back to earth against a solid Ohio defense, this is a bad matchup for the Kent State defense. Ohio gets off the bus chucking 3’s. They love to shoot the 3, they shoot it often, and they shoot it well. The nightmare with Ohio is they have guys 3 guys 6’7″ or bigger that can all step out and fill it up. I’m not talking guys who will shoot a 3 here and there to keep you honest. I’m talking guys who will sit out there all day and just bomb from deep. Kent State isn’t good defending the 3 at all allowing opponents to hit at nearly 37% and score about 33% of their points from 3.

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