NCAA Pick of the Day 02/25/25 (128-95-1): Ball State +8.5 -110

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Analysis:

No song lyrics today, though it worked, somehow... since I lost all but one of my plays yesterday... I'm not going to question it. We are hot, the data and the SQB model are clearly pointing us in the right direction, and we'll stick with what has worked here for over 220 CBB plays. Vamonos!

Ball State is third in the nation in free throw rate, fifth in defense against shots at the rim by SQPPP, and they run the 40th most efficient transition attack in the country— which I'm sure leads to some of those free throw attempts.

They struggle a bit attacking the rim efficiently, and though they get to the line, they're not the best free throw shooters... but even with those woes, and some others... like poor offensive rebounding and not forcing turnovers... they're still a valuable play here at home because they're going up against an over rated squad in Akron, which is where the majority of our edge is today.

The Zips currently are playing with a net point per possession rate of around +5 for every 100 possessions, ShotQuality expects them to be a bit closer to +1 or even a flat 0 in this net exchange of points. That differential is large enough to impact the spread and their deviation from their expectation, in their favor, led to four unexpected wins in January en route to their 14-game win streak. It takes luck to run a streak like that, and that's what SQ confirmed. That said, if they were 16-9, not 19-6, this spread would likely look a bit closer to what the SQB model is projecting, which is a very close game.

It's late in the season, and with the streak having just ended, there's extra reason to believe that Akron will be playing for the win moreso than the cover, if you care for that type of narrative. For our basic purposes, the data lines up... trust it.

SQ's Projection: AKR 75.8 - BALL 75.3.

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