Sixty-eight teams will begin warfare for the right to be called National Champions on Tuesday night, and it all gets started with the first of the First Four games between the Fairleigh Dickinson Knights and the Florida Gulf Coast Eagles.
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Fairleigh Dickinson Knights +6
Florida Gulf Coast Eagles –6
HOW THE FAIRLEIGH DICKINSON KNIGHTS CAN COVER THE SPREAD
It's a foregone conclusion that there isn't going to be a heck of a lot of defense played in this game, so the biggest thing the Knights are going to have to do is score against a sneaky-athletic front line of Florida Gulf Coast.
Darian Anderson and Earl Potts Jr. are coming off of huge games in the NEC Final against Wagner. They had 55 points between them and are going to have to do similar in this game.
Still, there's a concern about the frontcourt more than the backcourt. The Knights average just 33.6 rebounds per game, and against an FGCU team which ranked No. 22 on the glass this year at 40.2 rebounds per game, that could be a huge problem.
FDU will need to step up its shooting game on Tuesday or find some bigs who can crash the offensive boards, or there are going to be a ton of empty and very fast possessions.
HOW THE FLORIDA GULF COAST EAGLES CAN COVER THE SPREAD
The Eagles have to continue to put pressure on the FDU defense. They're going to be perfectly happy to run up and down the court as well, but they have the big in Marc-Eddy Norelia who can make a big difference in the frontcourt.
Norelia averages 17.2 points and 9.2 boards per game, and he had a fantastic Atlantic Sun Tournament with a pair of double-doubles and a 16-point showing against Stetson in the final at home.
The emergence of Antravious Simmons as a legit center could help FGCU out as well. He had 21 points and 12 rebounds versus the Hatters, who are similarly undersized to FDU. There were times when the Eagles used both of their big men on the court at the same time, yet they never lost their will to try to get out and run.
ANALYSIS AND ODDS PREDICTION
FGCU deserves to be the favorite in this game, but we aren't sure it's by this many points. Fairleigh Dickinson won't have the bigs to bang in the paint, but let's not forget that it shot 46.2 percent from the field this year as well. The Eagles aren't going to necessarily be able to slow the Knights down much either in this one.
There's definitely a bias here against the NEC, and for good reason after just two of the 10 teams finished more than one game above .500 this season. Still, between Anderson and Potts, we think the Knights can keep this one close. These First Four games aren't often all that close, but we think this one is going to break the mold.
We do expect to see Norelia and his bigs do enough damage on both ends of the court to get Florida Gulf Coast to the main bracket, but this won't be as easy of a game as many will suspect.
Florida Gulf Coast 77, Fairleigh Dickinson 73
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