NCAA Round 2, Saturday Specials and a look ahead to tomorrow

In our opening NCAA tournament posting the team here at Picks4Players offered up 8 opportunities where we saw the lower seeded team as having real opportunities to win their first round games. Of those 8 opportunities we selected 5 outright winners in Maryland over Cal, USC over Boston College, Wisconsin over Florida State, Michigan over Clemson, and the Siena Saints ousting Ohio State. Of the 3 upset selections that did not come through Utah State battled Marquette down to the wire before falling by one point. Our upset special of the day, Portland State battled in the first half before finally being worn down by a bigger, deeper, and more athletic Xavier squad.

We really went out on a limb on Thursday and as predicted, North Carolina took it to Radford, putting up 101 points without starting point guard and tempo controller Ty Lawson. Look for LSU today to give North Carolina all they can handle today and whether or not they win, look for Trent Johnson to immediately be the front runner for the position at ACC rival Virginia. The timing isn’t great for Trent, but Virginia will give him tens of millions of reasons for multiple years to make it the right time and not have Trent burn too many bridges at LSU. Trent’s path from the WAC, to the Pac-10, to the SEC, to the ACC? All coaches should take that expressway.

Today also look for Connecticut, Villanova, Washington, Duke, Memphis, Oklahoma, and Gonzaga to move forward. We’ll check back later today with an update and prep for tomorrow.

NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Tournament, Crit’s March Madness Musings and other pearls you want to know

Let’s be clear here, the first two days of the 64 team NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball tournament are the best two days of reality television for the pure sports fan. That’s saying a ton because, as you well know, we here at Picks4Players love the NFL, each and every Sunday, but make no mistake, this Thursday and Friday from 12:20 pm EST or 9:20 PST (you lucky b*stards out West) until the conclusion of play at the end of a long day, College Basketball reigns supreme.

The first round games are littered with potential upsets every year. The number of kids who are putting on a uniform for the last time, playing their last truly competitive game far outweighs the number of kids we’ll ever see move on to the NBA. Seeing these kids selling out and giving every thing they’ve got for their team in what could be there ’shining moment’ is beautiful and all too realistic. The genuine emotion on both ends of the spectrum make for the most captivating and compelling reality TV there is, and it’s on all day long. That’s right, all day long.

As far as the 2009 Field of 64, this is going to be an outstanding tourney because every single team is beatable. Connecticut looked unbeatable for a good portion of the season, but with the loss of Jerome Dyson, they have come back down to earth. North Carolina should crush Radford in their opener, but Ty Lawson’s toe will not be healthy at any point in this tourney and at some point along the way it will cost them. My prediction is that UNC goes down in the second round to Trent Johnson’s LSU Tigers. In fact look for Trent to take LSU to the Sweet 16 and once again be the subject of ridiculous speculation about every major job opening in the country. While only being at LSU for one season, the rumors will swirl about Trent jumping ship for a higher profile program, but look for Coach Johnson to sit tight for a year or two so he can follow through on his commitment to the administration and his recruits at LSU.

My Elite 8 consists of Louisville, West Virginia, Connecticut, Missouri, Pitt, Villanova, Gonzaga, and Oklahoma. While Bob Huggins’ West Virginia team will make a great run, Louisville will advance, beat Connecticut in the semi-finals and face Gonzaga in the finals. The Zags are deep. The Zags are talented. All five starters are capable of scoring 20 points on any given night and Picks4Players feels that it is Gonzaga’s time to shine. The Louisville vs. Gonzaga final will be fun to watch. Pitino’s pressure defenses will definitely force some turnovers, but it will also allow Gonzaga to get a lot of easy baskets in transition as they carve up the pressure at times. While we don’t know yet what the spread will be, I’d lean heavily toward the OVER as both teams will thrive in the fast paced playing environment.

If you’re looking for upsets in the first round, Picks4Players likes the following underdogs to rise up and shock the nation: First and foremost we here at P4P love #13 seed in the East, Portland State to smack Xavier today in the first round. Strong guard play is so important in the tournament and Xavier will surely overlook Portland State point guard 5′ 6″ stud Jeremiah Dominguez. That will be a costly mistake for the Musketeers as Dominguez coupled with all world scorer Dominic Waters will have Portland State giving Xavier all it can handle today. Look for Waters to explode today for more than 30 points with a beautiful array of threes, runners, and floaters in the lane, and he’ll probably go 9-10 from the line. He’s a special talent that reminds this Crit of another great scorer, current Celtic Eddie House. Other upset specials we like in the first round include Maryland over Cal. This game is at 2:50 EST, that’s 11:50 am in California. The Bears will sleep walk through the first half before finally getting acclimated late in the game and making a surge with a barrage of threes, but it will be too little too late. USC on the other hand is peaking at the right time and the travel to the Midwest bracket won’t bother them at all. Who knows which BC team will show up, is it the team that beat North Carolina or the team that then came home and lost to Harvard? I’m looking for BC to lay an egg and for USC to advance. Other first round upsets should include #11 seed Utah State over #6 seed Marquette, #12 seed Wisconsin over a spent #5 Florida State squad, #10 seed Michigan over #7 seed Clemson, #10 seed Minnesota over #7 seed Texas, and the #9 seed Siena Saints in a mild upset over # 8 Ohio State.

The Picks4Players selection for the NCAA National champion for 2009 will be Louisville who will beat Gonzaga in the Tournament Final 91-84. So our recommendation would be Louisville and the OVER.

Enjoy the next few days of College Basketball. For the true sports fan this is pure joy.

Please check back in during the course of the tournament for updates, last minute selections, and information from your team here at P4P. Also, please sign up and become a Picks4Players team member. It’s free and easy and you’ll get update alerts e-mailed to you directly. Check it out.

Tuesday night “FREE” hockey selection!!!

Happy St. Patrick’s Day to everyone from your friends at P4P!

We will try to get you your Pot O’ Gold tonight with this free NHL selection. After a small bump in the road on Saturday, we are feeling confident about tonight’s FREE selection.

The Washington Capitols travel to Florida to face the Panthers. The Capitols are in the midst of a tough stretch, playing 4 games in 6 nights including a back-to-back matchup between Atlanta last night and Florida tonight. Anyone who watched last night’s game saw a very disorganized offense from Washington who is without star defenseman Mike Green again tonight. Florida on the other hand comes into tonight well rested having not played since Saturday. Plus they have the added motivation of needed every win to secure the 8th playoff spot in the east.

OUR SELECTION: FLORIDA -110

NCAA Selection Sunday Special-SEC Final

Bruce Pearl’s Tennessee Volunteers battle a hungry Mississippi State team. Tip off is set for 1:00 pm EST. The Volunteers are a 5 point favorite and the Total is listed at 149. Tennessee scores in bunches and Mississippi State has thrived with some outstanding three point shooting in the SEC tournament to reach this SEC final. In their only match-up earlier this season, Tennessee beat Mississippi State 81-76 in Knoxville. This game will be an old fashioned SEC barn burner. The points will be coming early and often, in transition, as well as in the half court. This game should be a see saw battle until the Volunteers begin to separate themselves from MSU in the final ten minutes. While our basketball experts here at P4P feel pretty strongly about Tennessee pulling away from a spent MSU team, the last 3 minutes should be a barrage of three point attempts from Mississippi State and a bunch of free throw attempts by Tennessee. This will lead to an easy cover if you roll with us here at Picks4Players and cruise with our selection: Tennessee/Mississippi State OVER 149. If you feel like really rolling the dice, parlay the OVER 149 with Tennessee -5.

In the next few days check back for our NCAA Tournament preview. Our analysis should help clarify your brackets and make selections for your office pools a little more competitive than usual. Continue to stay with Picks4Players through the tourney, the NHL stretch run, the NBA season, the upcoming MLB season, before rolling back around to the NFL and our Award Winning football handicapping team here at Picks4Players.

Good luck from your team of consultants here at P4P. Play on Players.

“FREE” Saturday Hockey Selection

Your sports handicapping consultants at P4P apologize for the delay between selections.  But we are back today with another solid NHL selection.

Today we are looking at the Atlanta/Buffalo matchup.  Buffalo comes into this game on the heels of a 3-1 victory over Florida with a stellar effort in goal from Patrick Lalime. Meanwhile, Atlanta is riding a 4 game win streak but is playing their 3rd road game of the week and they will be without Ilya Kovalchuk and possibly Kari Lehtonen with the flu.

Without Kovalchuk, the Atlanta offense will sputter and without a goalie who is 100% look for the strong Buffalo offense to take advantage of a weak backup. Buffalo’s strong home record seals the deal here.

 

OUR SELECTION: BUFFALO -1 1/2 goals at +150

“FREE” SUNDAY NHL SELECTION!!!

We are back for another “FREE” hockey pick!  At 3pm est today the Pittsburgh Penguins take on the Dallas Stars.  Your consultants at P4P have been on a good streak lately and we look to keep it going today.

On the surface this game looks to be a possible OVER selection, but key injuries to both sides will effect the scoring in this game.  Pittsburgh is without Crosby and possibly Sykora and Kennedy while the stars will be missing bruising 1st line forward Steve Ott and are already without Brad Richards.  Mike Modano is playing in a back-to-back games for the first time since recovering from the flu last week.

OUR SELECTION: PITTSBURGH-DALLAS UNDER 5 1/2 goals at +115

CHECK BACK EVERYDAY FOR OUR NEXT “FREE” SELECTION!