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Re: 2-23-10
trushel
florida/regular
trushel
florida/regular
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Re: 2-23-10
DAVID MALINSKY
4* KANSAS STATE/TEXAS TECH Under
Some of the best pointspread value late in the season comes when we find teams that are changing their stripes a bit, which lessens the significance of early-season results that carry so much weight in the databases. That is the case with Pat Knight and his Texas Tech team, and this high Total gives us plenty of value to exploit this setting.
Knight’s roster is not loaded with depth or size, and with John Roberson and Mike Singletary being the offensive catalysts there was an early focus on getting into the open court so that those two could make plays. That has worked – they are averaging 16.9 and 14.6 per game in Big 12 play. The problem is that no one else is scoring in double figures, and they are losing the battle of the boards by -5.1 per conference outing. So as the season progresses we see Knight doing what he should – slowing things down. It protects a thin bench and reduces the number of rebound battles that will take place, while still allowing Roberson and Singletary to make things happen off the dribble late in the shot clock. And in a home game against a superior opponent when Knight knows that his team is out-manned from a talent standpoint the focus really tightens on slowing things down – in competitive losses to Texas A&M (67-65) and Texas (71-67) in the last two games on this court, the games fell a collective 36 points below the projected Totals. It shows that the markets are far away from the way Tech is trying to manage games.
Kansas State loves to play fast, because of the explosiveness of Denis Clemente and Jacob Pullen in the open floor, but Frank Martin’s team does not mind getting into a grinder because of that physical front-court. They get forced into that here, for while so much of their offensive production has come from that aggressive defense taking the ball away, Tech has only turned it over 139 times in Big 12 action, including only 28 from Roberson in 401 floor minutes. When those TO’s are not there the Wildcat offense can become a fingernails-on-chalkboard exercise at times (even Clemente and Pullen are shooting just 38.3 percent in Big 12 play, and as a team they have 18 more TO’s than assists), and that gives us a setting that brings neither the pace, nor the offensive efficiency, that the marketplace is calling for.Comment
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