NCAA Pick of the Day 12/16/24 (99-69): Montana +10.5 -108

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Analysis:

Hello again, welcome back, and thank you for reading! There are plenty who simply see the bet above and play it, and I thank them, too, as they trust the POTD blindly, which is a testament to what we're doing around here. Five of the last six POTDs have won, and we'll hopefully look to complete a gentleman's week (6-1) tonight with our fourth straight win!

The play tonight is Montana +10.5, or 11 if you can find it, but it's largely gone. Either way, should still be plenty of value here and probably through to +9 if we see some movement. The simple reason why is the obvious, redundant one that you're very used to around here... SQ thinks there's a team in this game that is over or under performing.

That's a bingo! It's always a bingo. Imagine expecting someone to yell a different word during a game of bingo? Good comparison for the POTD. Bingo!! The Northern Iowa panthers lead Division 1 in overall expected offensive regression at 0.11 PPP difference between expected and actual. They are shooting 41% from deep, SQ expects 35% - second largest gap in the nation. They also have a 6% difference at the rim, which is good for 11th largest.

This creates a rather large inflation in the efficiency models, which is fair... a team shooting like this would be close to the top 100 in the nation but SQ sees through it and rates them closer to 150th. The opposite holds true for Montana, who rates 114th in SQ's net adjusted rankings... so while these aren't power ratings... that's a good sign.

That red hot shooting of UNI is going to be constrained by Montana's ability to chase people off the 3PT line, they're 61st in three point attempt rate allowed at just 35%. Neither side is necessarily great on the boards, but that should be seen as a good thing since we're getting a double digit spread.

The SQ projection feels a bit aggressive in our favor today, but I'm not upset to see it be excited about this play. I am too. Grab the Grizzlies and root for Big Sky Country to come through!

Projection: UNI 73 - MONT 69.5

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