College Basketball Player Prop extraordinaire Mike Cutri (who is currently up over +100 units betting player props this season) unveils his best player prop for each round of March Madness’s opening weekend. It’s the most fun and exciting time of the year for College Basketball, so let’s dive into the data and see where we can beat the books on some prop numbers.
The Pick: Oso Ighodaro, Marquette – OVER 18.5 PRA (Pts, Rebs, Assts)
Battle of the elite backcourts here as Tyler Kolek led No. 2 Marquette squares off with AJ Hoggard led No. 7 Michigan State in a fun second round matchup. Both teams profile very similarly as they seek early offense by pushing the ball in transition and both run pick and roll offense at extremely high rates. Both Marquette and Michigan State also have very similar weaknesses as they are a bit undersized in the frontcourt and can be exploited in the paint and on the glass. The key here is that Marquette has a weapon in the front court in versatile Oso Ighodaro that the Spartans don’t have, which will be the main difference in this game. Per the ShotQuality matchup data, you can see how poor Michigan State has graded out in Shot Selection this year and in a game where I believe the Golden Eagles will control the pace and force a high tempo gameflow, we could see a lot of opportunities here for Ighodaro to grab a ton of rebounds. Michigan State also grades out as 257th nationally in rebounding per SQ.
As mentioned above, both Marquette and Michigan State are hyper efficient in their pick and roll offenses behind Kolek and Hoggard, but another main difference in this matchup is that the Spartans are much worse defending it. Opposing bigs in the Big Ten have absolutely crushed Michigan State inside all season, and with Ighodaro as Kolek’s roll man, he should be able to get a ton of easy buckets against the soft Spartan interior (we just saw USC backup big man Juwan Morgan score 14 points in their opening round game). If you look at Ighodaro’s Shot Quality metrics, he is extremely efficient at finishing at the rim (96th percentile). Overall, in a game where I think the tempo is pushed, Michigan State taking a lot of threes and tough two point jumpers, and Kolek & Ighodaro exploiting the Spartan poor pick and roll defense and soft interior, he should have plenty of opportunity to go over this number that has been in the low 20s all year.
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You can also find more of Mike Cutri’s College Basketball betting content over at FTN Bets.