The Texas A&M Aggies used one of the best runs of the NCAA Tournament to knock Northern Iowa out of the dance. They know they'll have to be better if they want to keep playing on into the weekend, as they have a very tough task ahead against the Oklahoma Sooners in what has suddenly become a wide open West Region.
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HOW THE TEXAS A&M AGGIES CAN COVER THE SPREAD
When the Aggies were at their best against Green Bay and Northern Iowa, they were pounding the ball inside. They've got great drivers to the hoop in Danuel House and Alex Caruso, and Jalen Jones can really throw his weight around as well. These guys aren't the only ones by any stretch of the imagination who can score for A&M, but they're the most likely candidates. Relying too heavily upon outside shooting could be a massive cause for concern.
The Aggies only went 7-of-32 from deep against UNI, and though they finished a respectable 7-of-19 from deep against Green Bay, they didn't start the game well and weren't working the ball from the inside to the outside.
HOW THE OKLAHOMA SOONERS CAN COVER THE SPREAD
We're not going to make any bones about the fact that we hate jump shooting teams in the dance, and Oklahoma is the consummate jump shooting team. However, when you've got the best player in the nation on your side, you can get away with a lot of things.
Buddy Hield has struggled in the first half of both NCAA Tournament games this year, but he's really took over in the second half of both games. In neither case was it enough to cover the spread, but OU might not have beaten Cal State Bakersfield without Hield going off in the final 10 minutes, and it certainly wouldn't have beaten what proved to be a pesky VCU outfit.
Ryan Spangler really has to play better basketball than he has of late as well. He only has a total of 11 points and 15 boards in his two games in the dance, and he has five turnovers in that span to boot. The Sooners are good enough from the outside to cover some of his mistakes offensively, but if he isn't going to be a double-double threat, he really has to play well in the post defensively, and he hasn't really done that either.
ANALYSIS AND ODDS PREDICTION
Even though the chalk has held up in the West for the most part, there really isn't a team which could be that happy of how it has played still alive in the Sweet 16. Oklahoma knows that it needs better play out of men not named Hield, while Texas A&M has to figure out how to get back to its strong defensive ways.
We're not sure that either will happen in this game.
What we do like in this one is the under. The over has been almost an epidemic here in the first week of the dance, and we think things are going to calm down here in Week 2. A&M should keep the pace of this game down just a bit, while the Sooners could end up missing some shots to let the Aggies stick around.
Given our choice, we'd take the points, but we think the under is the better of the plays in this game.
Oklahoma 68, Texas A&M 66
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