again, by Justin Perri
Oh boy, so… this is the actual winner of the poll. I guess I just wrote about the one I wanted…
Welcome to the more casual version where I need to write this up in about 20 minutes for it to have any relevance. Let’s hop to it.
Iona is most likely winning this game. Canisius is on a losing streak and Iona has taken a few Ls this season that they probably wish they didn’t. Which is exactly why the preseason favorite to win this conference finds themselves in second place.
Make no mistake, this is a safe parlay leg. Iona should win this 9 of 10 times, if not more. The ShotQuality Projection model, which is fit to SQ scores and not those meaningless, pointless actual results, rates this game as a 15.5 point win for the Gaels.
Now, that shouldn’t send you running to your sportsbook to place a bet. Unless of course you have a time machine and go back to last night when this opened at -11 and thus would have been a play for the system.
If you got the nightly email at 8pm ET yesterday, you probably locked this one in, and good- its a good play.
SQ Rates Iona’s offense 180 spots higher than Canisius’s (?) and thats not where it stops, Iona is going to run the Pick and Roll Ball screen effectively which is a major weakness of the Golden Griffins.
Check out this slice from the Matchup Breakdown Stats:
The Gaels, on the left, run the P&R Ball Screen 30th most frequent in the nation. They have had decent success out of this PlayType, but more importantly… Canisius likely wont have an answer for Nelly Junior Joseph and Walter Clayton and Berrick JeanLouis.
This one could definitely get messy if Iona just routinely creates space for their shotmakers…
Canisius also struggles to defend Isolation possessions, so even when the Gaels get forced into a bad look late in the clock, they should still be able to convert against a defense that is 342nd in midrange PPP allowed and faces the 15th most ISO in the nation just to allow 0.93 SQ PPP (246th best)
Maybe we see a shocker, but the Golden Griffins would essentially need to hit every three they take. You can definitely expect them to try to shoot their way out of a big loss, they hoist up the 27th most Catch & Shoot Threes, but are 291st at actually creating points from them.
I laid the -11 with Iona late last night, but I’ll be watching the Niagara Quinnipiac game, as that has more implication and should be a battle.
I wrote about that one mistakenly… check it