College Basketball Grind Down: Wed, Mar 12th
Conference tournaments for the big conferences start today so get ready for a wild weekend in DFS. This is one of the most exciting weekends in sports with teams vying for conference tournament titles and trying to boost their tournament resumes with a deep tournament run. The next days salaries go up late, so I’m going to do my best to get write-ups in as soon as I can.
Basically we have a bunch of terrible teams playing today so it’s a great day to pick on the horrible defensive fast paced teams. I am expecting tonight to be fairly high scoring as well due to this. As always, score projections are from KenPom.com and make sure to check injury concerns on twitter before tip. Also a thing to keep in mind is that most of these games are on neutral floors so you can negate home field advantage.
Butler 65 vs Seton Hall 66
Butler
When I think of Butler in a tournament format there is a mystique that they will somehow find a way to win games. Butler beat Seton Hall in the last game of the regular season so why shouldn’t they feel like they can win now? The upside for Andrew Chrabascz has dissipated recently, although Fromm was probably getting minutes due to being a senior. Kellen Dunham had a monster game against Seton Hall and could do it again here as Seton Hall has a terrible 3 point defense. Fuquan Edwin is regarded as one of the best defenders but all he does is clog passing lanes to create steals and effect shots with his length and shouldn’t effect Dunham all that much. This game isn’t that great of a matchup so I would stray from Woods and Marshall and I do not trust Barlow all that much.
Seton Hall
Fuquan Edwin is playing here for another game in college and I think he has a really good game. They should go to him early and often and despite his poor last game, his thumb should have healed and he should be ready for this game. Butler has no one who can stop him. Gene Teague is cheap on a few sites and has a pretty high upside especially if he can stay out of trouble against the weak Butler interior. I really don’t like anyone else from this team as Sina, Mobley and Oliver don’t get consistent minutes, Sterling Gibbs has been terrible lately, as has Patrik Auda (minus the last game). There are other better games to choose from.
UCF 78 vs Temple 77
UCF
Both Temple/UCF games this year have been played above 70 possessions with hardly any defense and I don’t expect this to change much. The last game Sykes did not play due to injury, but he will be playing in this one and should have a monster stat line. Sykes is the best player by far on UCF and will have no problem driving and scoring against Temple. Daiquon Walker had 20 last game but I wouldn’t use him here. Tristan Spurlock is a GPP only option as he can score 25 but also score 8 and nothing else; definitely a risky pick but not a bad one against Temple. I wouldn’t use Newell as he only got options without Sykes in the lineup. Definitely pay up for Sykes but use caution with anyone else.
Temple
Temple has won 2 in a row still playing fast and using a 7 man rotation which is nice for fantasy purposes. UCF is bad on defense, especially against the 2 point field goal so I like Anthony Lee in this one as well as Will Cummings. Dalton Pepper is certainly not a bad play and Quenton DeCosey makes a nice GPP play. This game should be extremely high scoring and should be pretty even as both teams are about the same skill level making this game easily stackable.
Oregon State 74 vs Oregon 82
Oregon State
Oregon State takes on Oregon in the Pac-12 tournament and these first Pac-12 games feature some of the fastest teams in the conference with bad defenses. Oregon’s inside defense is pretty poor so look for Eric Moreland to have a nice game and also if Devon Collier continues to play well he could be an interesting play today but I am sick of playing guess the minutes with Craig Robinson. Roberto Nelson should play well today as well. Hallice Cooke is priced appropriately now so I don’t believe that he is a great play anymore.
Oregon
Mike Moser has been absolutely fantastic in the late part of the season in every facet of the game. Look for him to continue that here and he is one case where his salary increase might not even make him overpriced. Oregon St’s inside defense is a little better their perimeter defense but the good thing is Moser can make it happen in both areas. I like Joseph Young’s price especially over there on Draftstreet, and he should get his normal 15 shots per game with a few extra stats added in. He has been struggling from the field but against the terrible perimeter defense of Oregon State, he should have a nice game. Loyd got 35 minutes in the last game but he is way too inconsistent for me to trust. The only other option that gets a lot of run is Jason Calliste, but be careful as he needs to be cheap to be worth playing.
South Carolina 75 vs Auburn 76
South Carolina
After a bad game against Florida (who doesn’t have those), Sindarius Thornwell and Brenton Williams got back on the bus against Mississippi State. This should be more of that type of game and both guys make solid plays tonight. I think both approach 30 fantasy points and are both somewhat affordable. Duane Notice came off the bench last game but Martin is back and he trusts Notice more than anyone. I wouldn’t use anyone else as they just don’t get enough minutes to make it worthwhile.
Auburn
So what do we do with Chris Denson? His price has plummeted after a couple of bad games and now sits at a really affordable level. He has had some absolutely monster games in the SEC and now gets a team with an average defense that he scored 22 points on last time. At some places he is so cheap it’s hard to pass him up since he is still the guy who is going to take 30% of his team’s shots. KT Harrell is the other guard that runs the Auburn offense, and if I was choosing one of the two I would go with Denson due to pricing. Harrell is going to be a bit more expensive than Denson on most sites and gives you the same upside. Shamsid-Deen is really inconsistent but could have a nice day today in a high paced game. Dixon-Tatum is hard to trust but has been playing well enough to roster if he is near minimum salary.
USC 68 vs Colorado 75
USC
Byron Wesley finally got his full complement of minutes against Washington and scored 19 points but the auxiliary stats weren’t there. Andy Enfield has searched for any combination that will work this year and has failed so it appears he has gone back to the early season roster of Wesley, Jovanovic, Terrell, Oraby, and Howard with Jacobs getting nice minutes off the bench. All of the other guys outside of Wesley are only bargain options and need to be priced that way. Howard has the most consistent upside of all of them but I really wouldn’t look to roster any of these guys unless you were desperate.
Colorado
Tre’Shaun Fletcher will be back for this game, but I am not sure how he will be used. He is not a fantasy option in my eyes as I believe Boyle will stick with his recent rotation. I know that Booker has been trash in the last couple weeks but I still believe he has pretty solid 30 point upside. A game against USC who is extremely fast paced, has a really high turnover rate, and gives up a lot of points at the basket seems like a great matchup for the quick guard, in fact, last time against USC he had one of his best games of the year. Definitely think about adding him to your roster today. Josh Scott should also have a nice game as the interior defense of USC is suspect. Xavier Johnson played well last game against USC but he isn’t my favorite play today as his price has gone up on some sites.
DePaul 66 vs Georgetown 76
DePaul
I have been touting Brandon Young and Billy Garrett for this DePaul team for a while but I think the real bump goes to the Georgetown players in this game. Young and Garrett were literally the only players to do anything against Butler and I cannot imagine that this team’s morale is very high at all this game. I expect Georgetown to blow this game out, but Brandon Young could still provide value as he is the only guy on the team that can put the ball in the bucket. Just ignore everyone here because Young looks pretty expensive and I think there are less risky options out there.
Georgetown
I really like Georgetown players in this game and I think they could run away with this one handily. DePaul’s defense is completely miserable overall and I wouldn’t mind actually using both Markel Starks and D’Vauntes Smith-Rivera. I also think Jabril Trawick is too cheap on some sites and Nate Lubick could be a min-priced play that gets you 15 fantasy points. The rest of the team doesn’t get consistent minutes so I would avoid them.
Texas Tech 65 vs Oklahoma State 71
Texas Tech
Texas Tech isn’t as bad as people think. They are top 80 in the KenPom rankings and have the ability to really frustrate you if you let them play at their pace. Jaye Crockett is the top play on Texas Tech and he gets a tempo boost from Oklahoma State who plays markedly faster than TTU. Jordan Tolbert is the other solid player on TTU but is a GPP only play due to his wild upswings and downswings. Some guys who have been really cheap on FanDuel lately are Toddrick Gotcher and Robert Turner who both play a lot of minutes and have been solid min priced gambles for a while; against Oklahoma State, they could just pay off.
Oklahoma State
I imagine a lot of people are going to be on Marcus Smart today just because of how he has been playing. His play scares me though as he has done a lot of that damage at the free throw line. I am going to be off him today just because Tech plays so slow and I think his upside is limited to value. Of course, you pay the big money to not have much risk in making the value but his price is just too much for me right now with all of the other value out there today. Markel Brown is the same way as he is really expensive as well and I think if Oklahoma State falls into the trap they did their first game against TTU, someone is going to be really disappointed owning these guys. Kamari Murphy has been a pretty consistent low salary pick putting up like 15 points, so if that is all you want from him, you can’t get a much better bargain baller with consistent points. Forte is going to rely on 3’s and is not my favorite play, and Le’Bryan Nash is still Le’Bryan Nash not being able to show up for each and every game, so use with caution.
Mississippi State 59 vs Vanderbilt 66
Mississippi State
This team is terrible and they play like it. I have been avoiding them for the entire season, and until Rick Ray gets talent into their program they are going to continue to be horrible. You can’t count on anything with this program this year except for maybe Craig Sword. Sword is their best chance at a monster game but he has too many single digit games to make me pick him. Literally everyone on this team runs the risk of getting you a 5 point fantasy game, especially when they are playing a slow, defensive style team. I have just avoided Miss St players all year and am not going to start using them now.
Vanderbilt
Kevin Stallings has noted that Carter Josephs will start over Kyle Fuller tonight in the SEC tournament due to Fuller’s horrible play lately. Josephs is not a scoring threat, so only should be used on sites with a low minimum salary as he is limited to around 10-15 fantasy points. One guy you may want to look at here is 7’0 Freshman Luke Kornet who played a ton of minutes when Siakam fouled out. I would expect Siakam to be back playing more, but Kornet still makes an interesting value play against one of the worst interior defenses I have ever seen. That means that Damian Jones is going to be one of my favorite plays today. Stallings is in love with him and he is big and should be able to score on Mississippi State with ease especially with some of the other scoring options sitting.