Mike Calabrese and Tanner McGrath are back for another edition of our Pick & Roll. The dynamic duo has college basketball predictions for Saturday.
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McGrath's 2 Saturday Picks
Nebraska vs. Maryland
Maryland is among the nation’s most confounding teams.
I thought freshman Jamie Kaiser and veteran Donta Scott would start hitting 3s on the wing, thus opening up driving lanes for dynamic point guard Jahmir Young and freshman backcourt mate Deshawn-Harris Smith. Add in another year underneath Kevin Willard, and Maryland could soar to the top of the Big Ten.
But nobody is making shots.
Maryland is shooting 29% from 3 and generating a pathetic .83 PPP on catch-and-shoot opportunities. Scott has canned a surprising 34 of his 87 longballs (39%), but Kaiser is a disgusting 16-for-73 (22%), and the rest of the Terps’ complementary players are missing the broad side of a barn.
However, Maryland is finding the right shots. 57% of its catch-and-shoot opportunities are coming unguarded, which ranks top-25 nationally. The Terps rank top-100 in ShotQuality’s Shot Selection metric.
Theoretically, the drastic split between shot selection and making should narrow, making the Terps undervalued in the short term.
But my Maryland fan friends said the team simply wasn’t built to make shots. With no shooters on the roster, the Terps would continue to miss, and defenses would sag into those driving lanes that Young and DHS need to produce.
But, finally, after all this time, the Terps canned seven of their 15 3-point attempts (47%) against Iowa, resulting in a narrow road win. The positive regression train finally docked in College Park.
Sure, the win needed a classic Hawkeye defensive melt:
But winning on the road in the Big Ten is hard! As evidenced here:
That's an eight-season sample size of Big Ten home teams crushing the number in conference play. Home teams are 32-22-2 ATS in this young league season.
And that’s why I’m fine backing the undervalued Terps at home against the road Cornhuskers – Nebraska is 1-4 ATS on the road this year, adding to the Big Ten Home Team trend.
The Huskers aren’t an elite college hoops squad, but the Huskers score (and cover at home) because of Keisei Tominaga’s sharpshoot ability and Rienk Mast’s post-up ability.
But Maryland’s defense is legit good and a good match for Nebraska’s offense.
Nebraska wants to run secondary actions to pop open Tominaga, but Maryland is elite against handoffs (.73 PPP allowed, 72nd percentile) and off-ball screens (.63 PPP allowed, 94th percentile).
Nebraska wants to shoot 3s and score in the post. But Maryland is an above-average post-up defense (.81 PPP allowed, 66th percentile) behind low-block eraser Julian Reese (.51 post-up PPP allowed, 91st percentile), and they leverage Reese as the primary drop-coverage ball-screen defender.
Drop coverage means perimeter defenders overplay ball-handlers and shooters on the perimeter and wings, thus funneling them toward an interior defender that drops, or sags, toward the rim. That forces opposing ball-handlers to peddle in the mid-range.
Maryland ranks 12th nationally in 3-point rate allowed (28%) and in the 82nd percentile of D-I teams in paint points per game allowed (28).
I threw out plenty of numbers there, but essentially, Maryland won’t let Tominaga and the Nebraska shooters see open perimeter shots in any sets. And when the Huskers try to dump the ball down low to Mast and other bigs, Reese and Co. will swallow them up.
Meanwhile, Maryland should continue seeing positive 3-point shooting regression against a Nebraska defense that ranks 311th in 3-point rate allowed. If the shots fall, the lanes will open up for Young and DHS, and Willard’s offense will fall into place.
Between the tough offensive matchup and the looming Maryland shooting regression, Nebraska should drop this Big Ten road game following two comfy home wins. Projections make this spread closer to Maryland -5, so I'm happy at -4 or better.
Pick: Maryland -3 (Play to -4)
LSU vs. Alabama
It’s hard to stop the Alabama offense. The Tide boast the most dangerous attack in college hoops, in my not-so-humble opinion.
That said, I don’t entirely hate the matchup for LSU’s defense, which has been trending up in SEC play (third in conference-only Defensive Efficiency).
There are four key components to Alabama’s offense.
- The Tide are among the nation’s heaviest Rim-and-3 teams.
- The Tide heavily utilize the roll-man in ball screens, with mainly Grant Nelson, but Nick Pringle has been excellent on those actions.
- The Tide leverage hand-off sets to get Mark Sears and Aaron Estrada in space.
- The Tide push the floor in transition.
I think LSU stands a chance against all four.
The Tigers are a compact interior defense, so they allow plenty of 3s (332nd nationally in 3-point rate allowed) and aren’t great at closing out on them (185th in Open 3 Rate allowed). So, if Alabama shoots the lights out, I’ll have to tip my cap and move on.
However, LSU is an astounding interior defense. The Tigers rank top-30 nationally in 2-point defense (45%) and viciously deny paint buckets (25 paint PPG allowed, 96th percentile). It’s easy to protect the rim with 7-foot Will Baker and 6-foot-10 Jalen Reed anchoring the interior – this team is lengthy.
So, the Tide might struggle to generate interior offense at the rim, which plays into our next point.
The Tide are among the nation’s best teams at defending roll-men, ranking fifth nationally in PPP allowed on the sets. Again, it’s hard to get to the paint against LSU.
That also helps against hand-off sets, as the Tide rank above-average in PPP allowed against the handoffs (.79, 60th percentile). Swingman Jordan Wright has been solid in that regard, and his defense will be crucial against Alabama’s dangerous wings.
Finally, don’t try running the floor against LSU, as its athletes are excellent at defending in the open court (.68 PPP allowed, 78th percentile).
It’s nearly impossible to stop the Tide, but the Tigers might stem the Tide enough to keep this game within two touchdowns.
And if that fails, we can always fall back on the trusty Alabama defense.
Alabama’s defense has trended up in conference play, as the Tide rank fifth in conference-only Defensive Efficiency. But there’s some luck involved there, with opponents shooting under 30% from 3.
But that’s hardly mattered. Auburn shot 5-for-20 from 3 against Alabama and still generated over 100 points per 100 possessions. Tennessee shot 10-for-28 (35%) and posted 118. Vanderbilt shot 7-for-26 (26%) and put up 105.
Alabama is still a relatively useless defense. The Tide still can’t stop ball-screens or secondary actions. They’re fine against post-up sets and in transition, but they still get shredded in the mid-range (338th in mid-range PPP allowed, .82). Nobody can defend on an island (.88 isolation PPP allowed, 23rd percentile).
LSU’s offense doesn’t match up great, partially because the Tigers are facing an offensive identity crisis – Matt McMahon likes to run a motion offense, and now-eligible point guard Jalen Cook is better in the pick-and-roll.
However, scoring on Alabama is easy, and I expect the Tigers to find ways to score. At the minimum, Cook is a maestro in isolation creation, and the Tide doesn’t have a backcourt defender that can hang.
The Tigers should find enough scoring somewhere to keep pace with Alabama, even if they rely more on their defense to get there.
All that being said, I’m playing LSU because of the situational spot.
The Tide came through in a must-win home game over top-10 Auburn last time out, winning a physical that went down to the wire. You can’t draw up a better letdown, sleepy spot.
Meanwhile, LSU is off two losses, but the Tigers are playing better with Cook back and kept both games closing, losing the two by a combined six points. You can’t draw up a better bounce-back, buy-low spot.
At the minimum, the Tigers have enough schematic advantages to keep this one within 15. At the maximum, Alabama comes out flat, and the Tigers come out with their hair on fire, putting a real scare into the defense-optional Tide in Tuscaloosa.
The ShotQualityBets model projects LSU as a seven-point road ‘dog on Saturday, so we’re getting fine value with any double-digit number.
Pick: LSU +13.5 (Play to +10)
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Calabrese's 2 Saturday Picks
James Madison vs. App State
When the Sun Belt added Appalachian State in 2014 and James Madison in 2022, the hope was that regional rivalries would burn bright. On the football field, that was certainly true this fall, when College Gameday was on hand for App State’s overtime upset of undefeated JMU in Harrisonburg.
Now the basketball rivalry is starting to make some noise as well.
Dubbed the “Hatred in the Hills,” these two schools have a knack for playing nail-biters. Two weeks ago, App State handed JMU its second loss of the season in an absolute rock fight, 59-55.
The Mountaineers are so tough to crack on the defensive end. Once they settle into their half-court defense, teams rarely get uncontested looks at the basket. The result is a top-10 national ranking in effective field goal percentage allowed and defensive rebounding rate.
And the amazing part of Dustin Kerns’ defense is that the Mountaineers play so hard, yet they rarely foul. Opponents are averaging just 13.5 foul shot attempts per game (eighth nationally).
When you beat them, you really have to earn it.
The App State defense has carried it to a 16-4 start to its season, the program’s best start since 2007. But its offense leaves a lot to be desired.
The Mountaineers rank 147th in KenPom’s Adjusted Offensive Efficiency metric, and that’s because they struggle to shoot from beyond the arc (30.1%, 316th). They’re also dreadful from the line (66.6%, 316th) and squarely mediocre on the offensive glass.
This all translates to scoring lulls, like the one that nearly cost them their first game with James Madison.
Leading by 16 points 10 minutes into the game, App State scored exactly four points in the final 9:17 of the first half. Luckily, the poor shooting night didn't burn the Mountaineers, as the Dukes couldn't throw it into the ocean, finishing 3-for-17 from 3 with their top two players out of sync.
Terrence Edwards Jr. turned the ball over a season-high six times, and Boston College transfer T.J. Bickerstaff had only six points — the same duo that authored a November upset of Michigan State in East Lansing by combining to score 45 points.
I don't expect a repeat performance on Saturday.
This is a revenge spot for the Dukes against an App State team that's had trouble extending leads due to its anemic offense.
Therefore, I’ll take the plus money and bank on a big game from the Dukes’ stars.
Pick: James Madison ML (+100 or better)
Dayton vs. Richmond
The top two teams in the A-10 are meeting in Virginia’s capital on Saturday, and it should be a showcase for two players begging to be household names.
Richmond’s Jordan King has improved as a scoring point guard every season of his college career, and now he’s blossomed into an all-conference caliber threat with the ball in his hands. He’s gone off in three of his last five games, dropping 31 points on George Mason, 24 points on Davidson, and 32 points on George Washington.
Richmond can compete with just about any team when he's locked in.
And he’ll need to be because Dayton is countering with the best big in all of mid-major basketball.
But before I get into the DaRon Holmes II-lovefest, let’s talk about the Flyers' defensive prowess and how they can slow King down.
Dayton has the defensive scheme and personnel to give Richmond problems in this game. The Flyers rank 20th in opponent shooting efficiency and could opt to have the quicker Javon Bennett (5-foot-11) cover King or the rangier Enoch Cheeks (6-foot-2).
Per EvanMiya, Cheeks is the most impactful defender on the Flyers from a Box DBPR perspective, which is to say he creates turnovers and limits his assignments with on-ball pressure. He could be the Flyers’ answer to King and be responsible for breaking this game wide open.
Because if King isn’t scoring 25+ in this game, I foresee a Dayton runaway.
The Flyers are soaring, having won 13 straight (8-5 ATS). Dayton’s 3-point shooting — now up to seventh nationally at 40% — complements Holmes perfectly.
The Flyers big is playing off the charts. He’s the 10th-rated player in America by the Game Score Efficiency metric. Since December 9, he’s been averaging 23.5 points, 9.2 rebounds and 3.5 stocks per game, and he’s doing it all without getting into foul trouble.
Even when he's picked up his fourth foul — which he’s done twice since mid-December — he’s still managed to stay on the floor. Despite four fouls, he logged 36 minutes vs. UMass and 35 minutes vs. Troy. Dayton relies so much on him to play at an All-American level, so his best ability is arguably his availability to stay on the floor game in and out.
The final piece of this gambling puzzle has been Richmond’s schedule in the A-10. The Spiders deserve the buzz they’re getting after the media selected them to finish 11th in the preseason poll.
But remember that half of their conference wins have come against Duquesne, Davidson and St. Bonaventure, who are a collective 5-13 in A-10 play.
No one in the A-10 can simulate the mix of defensive pressure, 3-point shooting and superstar play on the low block that Dayton is bringing to the River City on Saturday.
I would lay up to 4.5 with the Flyers.
Pick: Dayton -2.5 (Play to -4.5)
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