| Range | W | L | P | +/- (Units) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Yesterday | 0 | 0 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| Last 30 Days | 7 | 3 | 0.00 | +7.64 |
| Season to Date | 7 | 3 | 0.00 | +7.64 |
#768 RHODE ISLAND -3½ -103 over Providence
By the time this one tips off at 7:00 PM EST, there is a good chance that this number will drop so the recommendation is to wait until just before game time to pull the trigger here. We will wait until then to update this to either an official play or a no bet.
We could go into the X’s and O’s in this matchup but it’s not relevant here because our wager is not based on that. This wager has so many profitable angles working in the Rams favor that it instantly comes with a high win expectation. First, Providence is a recognized Big East team that went to the Dance last year. The Friars have already won seven of their first eight games this season, which includes a victory over then #11 Arizona. The Friars only loss this year was against #3 Michigan State so Providence has already played two-highly ranked teams. Let’s just recap that for a second. Coming off an NCAAA Tournament appearance as a #6 seed, this power conference squad with a great start and with one of the best players in college basketball in Kris Dunn (Dunn could have left for the NBA), Providence has mass appeal here but there’s still more. The Friars made both the AP and Coaches Polls for the first time this season this week and now appear as the #23 and #24 ranked team respectively in those two polls. One of our favorite angles is fading a team that appears in the pools for the first time because they are almost always overvalued when they first appear. We’re still not done. This will be the Friars first true road game of the season, which is another angle that works in our favor.
Rhode Island finished with a 13-5 record in the Atlantic 10 last year but was left out of the NCAA Tournament so they are on nobody’s radar. In fact, the Rams haven’t made it to the Big Dance since 1999. Many projections suggested if the drought was going to end, it would be because of E.C. Matthews. The junior guard averaged a team high 16.9 points last season but he injured his knee back in mid-November and is out for the year. Just to recap that; the Rams have not made the main event since 1999 and now they have lost their best player and they’re favored over the 7-1 Providence Friars? The Rams have played one ranked team this year. That came in Rhode Island against Maryland and the Terps smoked them by 23 points, 86-63. Rhode Island’s five victories have occurred against American, Cleveland State, TCU, Rider and Holy Cross. Nothing on paper or in the results suggests for a second that the Rams deserve to be favored here.
One can conclude one of two things here with the first being that the oddsmakers have no idea that Matthews is out and they subsequently posted a really bad line on this game. The other possibility is that the oddsmakers are taking into consideration that the Friars have not played a road game just yet and we were not ranked before the season began. Providence was not ranked because its frontcourt was absolutely decimated with the graduation of LaDontae Henton and Carson Derosiers and the transfer of Tyler Harris. The only top scorer to return is the aforementioned Kris Dunn. Almost every profitable angle that we endorse comes into play here. The oddsmakers don’t post bad lines in games that involve Big East teams. We may catch them off guard in a game involving Iona or CS Northridge (or some other marshamallow) from time to time but we did not catch them off guard here. When everyone is turns right, we like to turn left, which is the final angle in this game that we’ll mention. Pick: Rhode Island -3½ -103
Again, we'll update this closer to 7:00 PM as an official play because we're anticipating a better number.
