NCAA Basketball Betting: Northern Iowa vs. Texas A&M
Texas A&M is yet another of the teams that fit my perfect ‘go against’ profile. There’s nothing better in this type of tournament than finding the overrated teams from ‘power conferences’ and circling them to go against. Now, there’s nothing wrong with Texas A&M nor is their anything wrong with the SEC–it’s just that the NCAA is of the opinion that just playing in a ‘power conference’ is somehow worthy of awarding come tournament time. Now we all know that the NCAA does everything they can to help the so called ‘elite’ schools and conferences–that’s why North Carolina and Oklahoma are playing in their home state. And Texas A&M is playing right next door to their home state. But mid-majors are getting more comfortable playing in hostile venues and that’s just not enough any more.
Northern Iowa beat a ho-hum Texas team that was overrated due to the quality of first year head coach Shaka Smart (former VCU mastermind). Smart is a great coach but his team isn’t “his team” at this point. Northern Iowa beat Wichita State twice this season so they’re used to playing quality opponents. Texas A&M had the worst result possible in their opening round game–it came too easy and they ran Wisconsin-Green Bay off the court with their superior talent. That won’t happen here.
Northern Iowa is a very fundamentally sound team–they shoot the ball well from both two point and three point range and do a decent job at the free throw line. They’re not a big, athletic team and are vulnerable rebounding the basketball. But we’re not sure that Texas A&M can exploit this vulnerability despite their superior athleticism. We really don’t like the way this game sets up for Texas A&M. They’re coming off an opening round game against Wisconsin Green Bay that was just ‘too easy’. They ran Green Bay off the court with their superior athleticism when the best thing for them might have been an opponent that posed a challenge. Before that, they lost to Kentucky in overtime in the SEC Championship Game. Northern Iowa is seriously underrated and that doesn’t look to have changed so far in the NCAA tournament. That’s why they’re on a 12-2 run against the spread.
BET NORTHERN IOWA +7 OVER TEXAS A&M
