By Justin Perri
Quinnipiac @ Niagara
The winner of our twitter poll, the Bobcats head out to Buffalo to take on the Purple Eagles. Qunnipiac sits as a two point favorite at the time of writing with a total set at 132.5. This matchup profiles as a defensive game with both these MAAC teams excelling at limiting opponents from taking the more valuable looks available.
Niagara features a defense that has allowed the 13th best Spacing against all year, teams do not find room on the floor when playing the Purple Eagles. That impressive statistic likely contributes to a 69.9% Rim & 3 Rate against, 12th lowest in Division 1, as well as the all-important Shot Selection against which Niagara is in the top 20% of nationally.
Qunnipiac’s offense looks like it might struggle here, coming in as the 333rd team in Rim & 3 SQ PPP does not bode well against the team that is 23rd against it…
Good thing for the Bobcats that this game looks oddly similar when going the other direction. Quinnipiac is even better than Niagara at stopping teams from getting valuable looks. 5th best shot selection against in the country, and first overall in R&3 SQ PPP!! First!!
It’s going to be interesting to see how these teams manage to score on each other, feels as though the winner will be who can generate extra possessions by winning the turnover and rebounding battles.
Personally, I will be playing the Under 132.5 on this game, and for more of a reason why (besides my model already liking it and what I’ve mentioned so far…) lets take a peek at the Niagara In-Conference Regression data.
Essentially they’re shooting the lights out in the midrange, and teams are hitting more shots than expected against them. Smells like we’re buying a line that stems from this Purple Eagles team which should be scoring and allowing less points than they have been. That’s value.
SQ Trends
We can quickly dive into the trends to see that both Quinnipiac road games in these similar low total scenarios have gone under without much doubt. The Bobcats stayed under the lines against MSM and SPU by a combined 40 points (see below). SQ Made it closer, but the defense definitely rears its head in these MAAC battles.
Another one is that all MAAC conference games with a line between 131 and 134 have gone under. A little spooky, sure, but SQ shows them as expected to be 3-6, which is still a solid rate.
Expanding the range on this to totals between 129 and 136 in MAAC play still yields a solid trend, of the 37 games between conference foes between those numbers, just 13 have gone Over. Not too shabby if you like a good conference trend…
Now, the SQ model doesn’t really agree with me here, expecting the game to go Over by about three points. So if you want to listen to the +123.3u system, don’t play anywhere here, and given the success rate of Overs recently… might not be the worst time to heed the warning of the Model… but I’ll be betting it.
As for the winner, I’d put my money on Quinnipiac to get it done and even cover the two points. I wont be playing that but it feels like a game against a top tier MAAC team where the luck Niagara has experienced could crash down on them a bit. They are the 9th luckiest team on our good friend Ken Pom’s site.
Grab some popcorn though, the only promise I can make is that this will be a battle. With both teams at 8-5 in the conference, late momentum is certainly at stake. Enjoy and good luck!
About the Author
Justin Perri is the product and content lead for ShotQualityBets.com and the co-host of the SQB Podcast. When not working to make SQ Bets even cooler, he spends his free time watching an amount of college basketball that has been called “humanely unenjoyable” and vigorously shaking his head at bad beats. Follow Justin on Twitter to see all his plays and more!