After a week in which they were able to really roll through some of the top competition in the SEC, the LSU Tigers suddenly once again look like a fringy bubble team at best for the NCAA Tournament. Games like the one on Tuesday night against the Georgia Bulldogs are nothing but potential traps, as a win won't move the needle all that much, but a loss could be catastrophic.
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HOW THE GEORGIA BULLDOGS CAN COVER THE SPREAD
Georgia is very quietly a good rebounding team, and in these last two games, it has managed double digits in offensive rebounds and has won the rebounding battle by at least eight in totality. It's going to be darn near impossible to outdo Ben Simmons and company on the glass in this one, but it can't be a runaway either.
The Bulldogs have to make this a slower game than you might expect. Yante Maten is a beast in the paint, averaging 16.3 points and 7.9 boards per game, and he'll have to be a double-double candidate on Tuesday night to keep this one close in Baton Rouge.
The pace of this game can't get out of hand, because J.J. Frazier, Kenny Gaines and Charles Mann aren't going to be keeping up with the Tigers’ guards either. Keeping this game in the 60s, perhaps the low-70s is crucial for a team which averages just 69.9 points per game and shoots 43.4 percent from the field.
HOW THE LSU TIGERS CAN COVER THE SPREAD
The Tigers have allowed all of their SEC foes to score at least 68 points against them, and at some point, that has to stop if they're going to start covering games.
Oddsmakers are on to the fact that LSU is a very public team with Simmons dominating on both sides of the court, and they've done a great job lining their games. Three of these last five games for the Tigers have finished within a bucket of the closing point spread, yet the Bayou Bengals are 0-5 ATS in those duels.
Every time we turn on an LSU game, we notice the exact same thing. When the ball is moving all over the floor and Simmons isn't necessarily the final stop, possessions tend to be fluid. When the Tigers get stuck in the half court and start to just lob the ball up to their big man to watch him work, that's when problems arise.
The best thing the Tigers can do to help Simmons out is make some threes. They're knocking down just 32.6 percent of their long range shots, and that won't cut it to cover the Dawgs.
ANALYSIS AND ODDS PREDICTION
Georgia has a real chance in this game, but we think it's going to come up just short. The matchup between Simmons and Maten should be a fun one throughout, but we do think that the possible No. 1 pick in the NBA Draft next year will rule the day.
LSU's defense though, is still too worrisome to wager on. The Bulldogs should come up near their scoring average in this one, and if they do that, we think they'll cover the spread.
LSU 74, Georgia 69
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