by Justin Perri
anddddd welcome on back to another SQ Bets conference tournament preview article!!! Today I sent four polls from my twitter to select the conferences that we would be discussing today. First up, tipping off at 2pm Eastern with three games today, is the Mountain West. This tournament is held out in Las Vegas and is usually a good one. In 4 of the last 6 years, the winner of this tournament has been the regular season winner or one of the teams with a share of that title. This year, that regular season champion is San Diego State and the price reflects that at +150 for the favorites while nobody else has odds under +350.
Let’s take a look at the SQ Standings for the conference to get a better idea of some of the value there might be on futures, if you’re bold enough to fade SDSU, and then we’ll dive into the three first round matchups.
First things first, SQ doesn’t disagree with SDSU being the top option here. Though they do have a less than stellar Record Luck and Rim & 3 rate, their defense and offense are both top 30 nationally. Boise State and Utah State are the next two seeded teams, and we get a little big of value here on Utah State based on how SQ sees these teams. Boise is ranked in the bottom half of the conference, so if you like one of these other top schools in the seedings, SQ leans Utah State.
These rankings also give a lot of credit to UNLV, rating them as he 3rd team in the MWC. They do play at home with the games being in Las Vegas, but they haven’t been crowned champion since 2007 and 2008, the first two years the conference was hosted at this venue. Of course before placing conference tournament champion futures, it’s worth it to do some math on the prices we see on the teams and their anticipated path. Here’s what I mean:
UNLV is -250 or so today, If they win they will face Boise, my personal estimation is they will be 6/7 point underdogs in that game so you’d get around +210, then you’re best off anticipating having to face Utah State and SDSU to win the future. They’re expected to be around 7.5 and 10pt underdogs in those games. So let’s say +250 and +400… that would get you odds of over 70-1 if you parlayed these games. Of course, the path will be made easier if Utah State or SDSU gets knocked out early and your ML roll over odds would drop, but important to realize that you probably aren’t always getting the best offer from the book on these futures. Either way, I do think UNLV is a team to watch here… let’s check out the games tipping off this afternoon.
8 Fresno St vs 9 Colorado State
SQ Projects: CSU 66.6 to 59.9
Currently at a -3 line in favor of CSU and a total of 133.5, this game is a SQ Under play. Both these teams are rated in the top 75 of defensive play per SQ, so I tend to agree with that play. Interesting to note that this might not line up with some of the trends in CSU’s play, as they’ve recorded 19 of their 30 games to the Over, but SQ’s analysis of those games expected just 9 of the 21 to go past the total. Those are great spots because the market and the efficiency numbers on CSU’s defense are a bit higher than we at SQ expect.
In fact, both of these teams are due positive defensive regression based on the shots taken. Teams are expected to be scoring 0.04 PPP less on CSU and 0.03 PPP less on Fresno. Great under spot by those numbers. It also appears that both teams have faced strong shotmakers. Fresno won’t get a break, as CSU is a top 20 Shot Making team, but Fresno themselves are a mid-tier shot making team. Likely has something to do with why the SQ model is expecting CSU to win by 6.7.
In terms of how these teams play schematically, nothing jumps off the page too much. Fresno is slow, doesn’t get to the free throw line enough and is bad at getting offensive boards. They do shoot Free Throws effectively when they get a foul, and they attack the rim effiencetly, but I’m not sure that will be enough.
CSU comes in looking like this:
The passing, low % of rim shots allowed (I know that wording is confusing but thats a good thing) and they shoot effectively from deep. You can see from their worst metrics here, they will let teams bomb away from three and they don’t defend that shot too well. I feel like that’s a bit of bad luck, but Fresno definitely will be shooting.
My take is CSU -3 for an ATS play but I’ll be officially betting on the Under 133.5 and riding with the Model.
7 Air Force vs 10 UNLV
SQ Projects: UNLV 67.2 to 58.4
We love a home team in conference tournaments. McNeese just finished up a great run, first 8 to make the SouthLand Semis (could be wrong, writing fast) and I think we may have found a bit of value again on the team that’s playing where they’re comfortable.
The market has moved against UNLV a bit here today, I’m seeing 5 on CZR right now. I think that’s pretty nice value. SQ projects this one at 8.8 and while 5 doesn’t fully trigger a play, I’m going to make it one. So grab the UNLV -5 line here and lets ride with the model projections again. I’d probably take -5.5 too, same win condition.
(Please don’t ever pay up in juice to get the line’s I use, remember -115 is a whole extra percentage on your win rate, -120 is 2%. Each of those 5 cent steps removes an expected 2% from your lifetime ROI.)
Let’s dive into the numbers a bit more here and make sure I like what I see. Or, more importantly to avoid bias, I try to find data to disqualify my picks rather than support them. Those numbers… really don’t help Air Force here… they rank 159th on offense and 194th on defense nationally. UNLV is 82nd / 24th. A top 25 defense!! I’m already liking the -5 even more.
I’m also seeing some spread luck on the side of Air Force. They went 17-14 ATS but SQ expected their games to result in a 15-16 ATS record. UNLV went 15-14 ATS but SQ expected those games to result in a 18-11 record. You can find all of these types of SQ trends on the Trend Finder, one of our premium tools.
Here are the issues with laying the points: UNLV is in the bottom 15% of Shot Making teams, they do not get open threes and Air Force is good at limiting open threes too, AFA also shoots the second most Catch and Shoot 3PTs in the country which UNLV is pretty bad at defending.
The counter point to some of these is luck has had a factor, UNLV is better than they appear to be. SQ says top 3 in the conference on the level of Nevada. The shot-based metrics also rank Air Force dead last in this conference, and this is home court for UNLV. Are we sure Air Force is 3 points worse on a true neutral? I don’t think so. I like UNLV to win by 6+ and make a statement to start the MWC. Let’s go!
11 Wyoming vs 6 New Mexico
SQ Projects UNM 75.7 to 74.5
So… uh… this line is +9 at some places right now and SQ basically has this as a toss up. New Mexico has lost 7 of its last 9 contests and people must be remembering back to the team that won 13 straight to open the season. UNM is not that team in the MWC. They are rated 67th in SQ’s standings and Wyoming is 68th. These teams are separated by a hair.
Wyomings 8-21 record might not make it seem that way, but they’re tough. They ended the season on a 2-4 run, but SQ expected those games to be 5-1 in Wyoming’s favor. The only loss coming to SDSU who is pretty clearly a tier above everyone else.
Wyoming handed UNM a serious loss, by 14, on UNM’s floor. SQ made that a much tighter contest at two points, but we’re getting 9 here tonight. We can lose by 8! I do not care.
New Mexico has shot 39% from deep in conference play and SQ expected those shots to result in a 34% rate. Meanwhile, the Wyoming defense has been getting very unlucky and is strongly expected to see positive defensive regression, just take a look at this chart.
0.08 Points Per Possession (PPP) is no joke. In a game with 60 possessions thats an average of 2.4 points per game that they shouldn’t be allowing.
I like buying low on teams like this, and SQ expected an additional 10 spread wins for Wyoming this year. It’s just all Wyoming all the way down for SQ. They run the 14th most out of the Half Court and are top 30 in creating points from those possessions, meanwhile UNM is the 299th best half court defense. I think Wyoming should be able to manufacture the points we need to cover. Grab the +9 with the dogs.
I’ll really quickly give the counterpoints, UNM is great the the rim and takes good shots which lead to a high Free Throw Rate, but they don’t have the 3s in their arsenal. How are you going to be 1st in Rim & 3 PPP but 348th in Rim and 3 Rate??? Thats legitimately how UNM plays. Effective at the hoop but they just don’t put up 3s. I have a hard time believing any team is beating market expectations, and thus spreads, without the deep ball. My counterpoints have made me like +9 even more. Good. Let’s go!