By: The Big 3 for 3
The Pick: San Diego State (+2.5) @ Boise State
The Mountain West has been nothing less than amazing this season and as it stands today, the conference has three teams projected to be in the NCAA Tournament field (San Diego State, Nevada and Boise State) and another on the bubble (Utah State). San Diego State will have a chance to secure the MWC regular season title with a win over Boise State tonight – who currently ranks second in the conference.
This San Diego State team is very talented, and at 22-5 they are currently projected as a 5-seed in the NCAA Tournament. The real story with the Aztecs is that, this isn’t your typical mid-major 22-5, this is a very legitimate team that has played a tough schedule. San Diego State has played the 30th toughest schedule in the country and played a non-conference schedule that included Arizona, Saint Mary’s and Arkansas. While they did end up losing to all 3 of those non-conference opponents, Shot Quality had them beating Arizona by 10 and Saint Mary’s by 6 as shown in the figure below.
One of the primary matchup components that favors San Diego State in this game is the Aztecs high efficiency finishing at the rim (where they rank 18th in the country) and Boise State’s inability to defend opponents at the rim (where they ran 312th in the country). This is a popular ShotType and accounts for over 30% of San Diego State’s offense, and their advantage at the rim on offense should be very noticeable in this one.
ShotQuality disagrees with most analytics sites on Boise State’s ranking. The Broncos are currently ranked 77th on Shot Quality (Off: 75th and Def: 72nd). Most other analytics sites have the Boise State offense in this same range, but “box score analytics” have Boise as a top-15 defensive team and based on the quality of shot allowed, Shot Quality disagrees. As shown below in the Boise State Regression Table, the Broncos have been quite the luck-box defensively this season. They are only allowing 0.92 PPP on defense, but based on the shots they have allowed, they are expected to have given up 1.01 PPP – a massive difference. Imagine where this team would be ranked if they haven’t been so fortunate on defense.
Lastly, the Shot Quality Bets model has San Diego State winning this game outright, which is all the reassurance I need to back the Aztecs at a cheap +2.5 here.
The Play: San Diego State +2.5 -105
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