The West Coast Conference is probably the most bet upon of all of the mid-major conferences due to the fact that you always seem to get games like this one on Saturday night. In what will be the very last tip of the evening, the Gonzaga Bulldogs will take on the Pepperdine Waves in a game where many bettors will be hoping to boost their bankrolls just in time for the Super Bowl.
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HOW THE GONZAGA BULLDOGS CAN COVER THE SPREAD
Size is going to matter in this game for the Bulldogs. Pepperdine's forwards top out at 6-foot-8, which means there shouldn't be many answers for both Domantas Sabonis and Kyle Wiltjer. Wiltjer was actually relatively quiet in the first game of the year against Pepperdine with just nine points and 11 boards, but Sabonis went off with 23 points, eight rebounds and six assists.
The ball simply has to get into the big men somehow. Wiltjer can play on the inside or the outside, and his game is going to be about shooting over smaller players. Sabonis is a big man with soft hands, and he's awesome at seeing the floor around him when he has the ball with his back to the basket.
Scoring is nice, but it's really a product of how many these two men can be responsible for between putting it into the hoop themselves and distributing to their teammates which is so important to covering this game.
HOW THE PEPPERDINE WAVES CAN COVER THE SPREAD
The Waves might've been blown out of the gym in Spokane a couple months ago when these two teams were on the court, but a lot of their defensive problems were really just dumb luck. The Zags shot 16-of-26 from beyond the arc and 19-of-21 from the charity stripe. If those two numbers were just regulated to some version of the norm, the Bulldogs probably would've been held in the low-80s, and we would've had a game on our hands.
So from our standpoint, there isn't much more that the Waves have to do to cover this spread than exactly what they did at the Kennel. They only turned the ball over six times, and though they were -12 on the glass, they still were only -3 in second-chance points off of offensive rebounds.
Even though Lamond Murray Jr. was a disappointment with just four points, Jeremy Major overachieved with 21, and as long as one of these men takes the alpha role and scores in the low-20s while Stacy Davis and Jett Raines are at least on par with their double-digit scoring averages, the Waves should be alright.
ANALYSIS AND ODDS PREDICTION
Gonzaga is going to be awfully public in this game, and it's going to take a big effort for it to ultimately cover this spread. The Zags are just 1-4 ATS on the road this year and 2-6-1 ATS in all games played away from the Kennel in Spokane.
After being favored by 12 at home against Pepperdine just before Christmas and winning by 26, Gonzaga is surely going to be the popular pick in this game, but we're going to go rouge and take the points with the hosts. The Waves have already won games against BYU and St. Mary's here at home, and they've gone a perfect 9-0 SU here at Firestone Fieldhouse this year.
We do think there's enough pure talent here to get Mark Few's boys in the win column once again, but this is going to be a touch and go game throughout, one in which the Waves won't go quietly.
Gonzaga 76, Pepperdine 72
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