Play-in Game and First Round NIT/CBI/CIT Picks
Posted by deaconcat08 on March 16, 2010
These spreads are based on the current lines according to the World Sports Exchange. I have also broken them down by their respective tournament providing one pick for each. All of theses games will be played on Wednesday with the exception of tonight’s play-in game.
NCAA Opening Round Game
Winthrop (-3.0) vs. Arkansas Pine-Bluff- All that needs to be said here is that the Lions may be one of the worst tourney teams of all-time, as they started the year 0-11 and have 0 wins over the RPI top 200!
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NIT First Round
St. John’s (+7.0) vs. Memphis- The Tigers may win this game, but it will be closer than 7 points. The Johnnies played well in the Big East tourney, and Memphis did not play particularly well at home this season.
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CBI First Round
Charleston (+2.5) vs. Eastern Kentucky- I’ll take a second place SoCon team over a fifth place OVC team any time. I’m not really sure how EKU got a CBI bid to begin with actually, much less a home game. Their profile looks more like a CIT bubble team. Maybe their neutral site win over Morgan State carried a lot of weight with the committee.
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CIT First Round
Portland (-1.0) vs. Northern Colorado- The Pilots (great nickname by the way) beat two NCAA tourney teams this year (St. Mary’s and Minnesota) and only lost 4 games in the WCC, two of which were to the Zags. Meanwhile, Northern Colorado lost the same number of conference games in the lowly Big Sky conference. Portland should have definitely been in the CBI, and if they decide to show up and play hard in this tourney, they should win it.
Overall Season Record: 40-30