CBB PrizePicks Plays for 2/2

Been a while on here. Was planning on getting the Saturday squares written up over the weekend but had a long Friday night and had to get ready for sweats. But the last article was pure piss. The first completely moose article of CBB squares since I've been firing em up. Okorie hooked by a point, Scovens hooked by a point, Edmonds was for once the benefit of foul trouble against him, and Hubbard never had a shot. Bad plays but we start to get it back tonight. Definitely a bit more excited for tomorrow's slate but we do still have the typical two big Monday games.

Kingz is coming off of a career-high 28 points on 11-17 shooting and 5-10 from three against Notre Dame. The UNC matchup should be a bit different. Not because they are an elite 3PT defense, they’re middle of the pack ranking 188th. But because of how UNC will be allowed to guard the Cuse offense.

Kingz is pretty dependent on catch and shoot threes for his shot volume and that likely doesn’t change much against UNC’s defense with Veesaar and Wilson protecting the rim. If you look at the two games in ACC play where Kingz had more than 11.5 points, it was 28 vs Notre Dame and 27 vs Boston College. Two teams that struggle to defend the rim due to their size. Which means they were essentially taking the “anyone but Donnie Freeman and William Kyle” approach. With Veesaar and Wilson, UNC will be able to defend them straight up without much help at all.

Kingz feasts off of the extra pass or the dribble drive, both of which often result in him spotting up at or around the corner. Like I mentioned previously, UNC’s 3PT defense is relatively average but they have gotten burned a lot more above the break than in the corner in ACC play. If anything the Cuse PNR game will be paramount tonight per usual with a heavy shot volume from Starling and George. Definitely think there is some scoring drought potential for Cuse in this game too which would certainly not hurt.

Council has gone over this number in four of his last five games, but has had much better matchups and gotten a multitude of fortunate bounces. In KU’s last game against BYU, Council had 6 boards. Those included three tips produced by battles between Flory Bidunga and Keba Keita/Abdullah Ahmed inside, a missed three that bounced out to the 3PT line, a missed FT that bounced back out to Council at the FT line, and a Bidunga block on Dybantsa that fell to him. That holds largely true for a number of his last games, as his rebound profile is largely lucky bounces and weak side rebounds from bigs 3PTA.

Texas Tech is a tough rebounding matchup for guards for a couple of reasons. JT Toppin is obviously incredible on the glass and absorbs plenty of volume there. But the focus of defending the Texas Tech offense revolves around two things. Stopping the Anderson/Toppin two man game and staying glued to one of the most lethal shooters in the country, Donovan Atwell. Council likely draws one of the two responsibilities of following around Anderson or Atwell. Regardless of which matchup he gets, his focus should be on the perimeter. 

The secondary rebounding matchup beyond the big men likely comes down to Tiller vs Watts in my opinion. While the possibility of him sticking on Atwell could leave him in position for weak side rebounds, I don’t think that in itself would be enough to send him to more than this projection. I think it may take another effort of bounces similar to that BYU game or a horrific Texas Tech shooting performance to do that. If Council is able to benefit from more crazy bounces in a matchup that should be much tougher to do so in, I’ll tip my cap.