Nov. 22 Plays

We were one garbage bucket by South Florida away from a perfect Friday. Nonetheless, we were up 8 Units thanks to Ohio State's holding down a late Cal charge, Vanderbilt grabbing a road win at St. Mary's and Iowa finally breaking its shooting slump at home over Bowling Green.
Here are Saturday's plays. Enjoy.

Kentucky (-18) over Rider 2 Units
Kentucky has looked like anything but a top 10 team in the nation thus far, squeaking out a couple of home wins. The problem for UK has been turnovers (20 pg) and defense, allowing 73.7 ppg.
The Wildcats have a huge talent edge here, and this line may be skewed since Rider upset a ranked Mississippi State team earlier this month.
The Broncos are no walkover as they have four players averaging in double figures. But the recipe for an easy win against Rider is to play defense, which Virginia did and won 79-46 on Thursday.
This will be the game UK shows its true worth, but it’s only worth 2 units. We need to see consistent defense for Kentucky before we invest a lot in them.

Long Beach St. (+5) over Wisconsin-Green Bay 3 Units
The Phoenix returns from a tournament in Kent, Ohio to face the favorite of the Big West Conference. Long Beach is a long, athletic team that might give Green Bay problems.
Jet lag won’t be a problem for the 49ers as they played at Notre Dame on Thursday and stayed in the Midwest for this one.
Green Bay has gotten a couple of wins it shouldn’t have so far this season, and this line respects the team’s record more than its actual talent. Take LBSU for 3 Units.

Siena (+4) over Temple 3 Units
This is a matchup of two very different philosophies. Temple likes to get into your face defensively, while Siena can score with anybody. The difference is Siena can play defense too, when it needs to, especially on the perimeter.
The Owls had trouble scoring against Georgetown earlier in the week, and it’ll be tough for them to pull away from a talented and experienced Siena squad.
Take the Saints for 3 Units.

Oklahoma (-3.5) over VCU 4 Units
Both of these teams are trying to figure out how to play without their best player from last season. Oklahoma loses Blake Griffin and VCU loses Eric Maynor.
It seems at least so far that the Sooners are doing a better job of filling the void. The Rams lost badly to Western Michigan this season, and now host their former coach, Jeff Capel.
Oklahoma is now Willie Warren’s team, and he is an NBA talent who enjoys playing on the road. The Sooner should take care of business with this one, and be able to neutralize VCU’s best player, Larry Sanders, with their own big man, Tiny Gallon.
Take OU for 4 Units.