Friday, March 20, 2009

March Madness: Round 1, Day 2

Florida State -2 1/2 Wisconsin - Florida State is setup as the sort of team that could make a little run in this tournament...really good defensively (7th nationally in FG% defense), they've got a borderline superstar senior guard in Toney Douglas, and they can create transition offense to survive periods when shots aren't falling. Wisconsin is a slow it down team, ranking 334th out of 344 teams, so this will be the sort of game that will make you want to gouge your eyes out if you're rooting for the Seminoles, but the Badgers were borderline not worthy of making the tournament and Big Ten teams were 1-3 against the number yesterday.

Arizona +1 1/2 Utah - Arizona doesn't deserve to be in the tournament, but they've been hearing that all week and will come out fired up. They'll also have the two best players on the court in Jordan Hill and Chase Budinger. When those guys play like they care, Arizona is decent. In the tournament, they should probably do that. Utah is a good but not great team. They were 4-4 against tournament teams (but that includes a Morgan State win) and 0-3 on the road in those games.

Leans:

Arizona State -5 1/2
Siena +3 1/2
Tennessee -2

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