Super Tuesday: Who to Fade and Back on PrizePicks

This is a game built for Fred Payne. He should be set up with a good floor of volume tonight with Donald Hand out for Boston College once again. Payne thrives in these faster pace games where he will get looks from three and in transition. While FSU has been playing much better as of late, their style is exactly that. Run and gun just to outshoot you. While Payne has had some rougher games recently against teams like Miami and Duke, he has thrived in matchups like these against teams like Syracuse (26 pts), Louisville (22 pts), and NC State (24 pts). And those were of course with Donald Hand’s 13.8 PPG in the lineup as well.

Like I mentioned already, FSU has seemingly turned a corner the past few weeks, winning 5 of their last 7 with their 2 losses both being by 3 points against SMU and Virginia. Their defensive scheme hasn’t really changed too much, maybe with just a slightly bigger emphasis on keeping teams out of the paint. But with that they’ve benefitted from some not so great shooting nights from teams who don’t want to shoot 30 threes a game. Outside of Virginia Tech who shot 9-18 (and probably should’ve shot more): Virginia 10-33, Notre Dame 10-31, Stanford 12-34, Cal 10-28, SMU 10-30. That’s 33% from deep in those five games, which should be considerably higher if teams were able to make open looks. 

Payne can take his own off the dribble instead of relying on catch and shoot looks like the teams just listed did. Not to mention this spot screams of huge letdown potential for the Noles after what is likely their most complete performance of the ACC season in their 23-point road drubbing of Virginia Tech.

New Mexico is a very deceiving defense. They allow the 12th most threes in college basketball (28.3/game) so you’d see that and assume that backing a 3PT shooter against them would be free coin. But they have the 20th best 3PT defense, holding teams under 30% from deep. The Lobos aren’t just benefitting from bad shooting, but it’s a part of their scheme. They’ll let the guys shoot who they want to shoot. The only way to force 3PTA against this defense is to take them off the dribble, and Hobin is almost a strictly catch-and-shoot guy.

The first matchup between Air Force and New Mexico showed just that. They struggled to score and ran Hobin off the line all game. He ended with just 2 points on 0-2 from three in 24 minutes. Quite different from Hobin’s last two games where he had 5 threes in each of them. On solid efficiency too with 10 and 9 attempts. Typically he isn’t that efficient, as he shot 6 for his last 33 prior to those two games. In his games this season where he has made 3+ from deep, he has needed 7+ attempts in every single one of them. I don’t think New Mexico will let him get many looks tonight. 

Luke Haupt and Antonio Chol saw a good bit of him defensively last game, and the defensive side of the ball is both of their main jobs on the court. The blowout could help too since New Mexico is nearly 30 point favorites as they should be since Air Force is actually one of the worst teams in CBB. But they’re so used to getting blown out at this point that their starters don’t even get their minutes cut too much even if they’re down a billion. But it can only help!