It’s the most wonderful time of the year for any sports fan. March Madness betting is upon us, with office basketball pools being filled out across the country.
The first game of the NCAA Basketball Tournament will put two of the No. 16 seeds against each other for the right to face the Villanova Wildcats on Thursday night. The Radford Highlanders are used to this. Even though they went 22-12 and won the Big South as the conference’s No. 2 seed, they have always been a No. 16 seed in the NCAA Tournament. This will be their first real opportunity to get a win at this level.
Their opponent will be the LIU Brooklyn Blackbirds. The Blackbirds are one of the tournament darlings after winning the Northeast as the conference’s No. 4 seed, and they are looking for their first NCAA Tournament win too. LIU nearly knocked off Northeastern in 1984, but have not really been competitive aside from that.
This war on the floor will go down Tuesday, March 13, 2018, at 6:40 p.m. ET at the University of Dayton Arena in Dayton, Ohio. The game will be televised live on truTV. We'll have NCAA basketball odds at BookMaker.eu available for this and every game throughout March Madness.
Opening NCAAB Basketball Betting Odds at BookMaker.eu
Long Island +4
Radford -4
Over/Under Check Back Later
Radford had the conference open up for it after UNC Asheville lost in the Big South Tournament. The Highlanders didn’t make it easy though. They failed to cover as a 13-point favorite against lowly Longwood, winning by just six, and narrowly squeaked by Liberty in the Big South Championship Game. However, Radford was able to cover the NCAAB basketball betting line in the win.
The Northeast was Wagner’s to lose this year, but Long Island was able to go into their house and punch their ticket to the Big Dance. After barely squeaking past Fairleigh Dickinson in the conference semifinals, the Blackbirds were a nine-point underdog according to the NCAAB basketball lines. Long Island played its best defense of the season in the first half though, and reverse covered Wagner in an upset victory.
Matchup to Watch
These two teams play at totally different paces, so it will be interesting to see how this game progresses. Radford plays an extremely slow brand of basketball. According to Ken Pomeroy, the Highlanders play at the sixth-slowest pace of any team in the country. Their average game has less than 132 points.
Long Island wants to pick it up. The Blackbirds play at the fastest pace in the Northeast and one of the fastest paces in the country overall. They aren’t very good on defense, so they try to win games by trusting their offense to take, and make, more shots.
Player to Watch
Long Island has relied on Raiquan Clark down the stretch. Like many other smaller schools, the Blackbirds don’t have a lot of size, so they rely on Clark to play close to the paint as a hybrid guard/forward. He has had a good amount of success in this role this year. Not only is Clark the team’s leading rebounder, but he is one of the leading scorers too with 17.4 PPG.
In this role, Clark has had to eschew his perimeter game, but that’s a good thing. He is just 6-28 from beyond the arc this year, but he is hitting better than 56 percent of his two-pointers.
Free March Madness ATS Picks
It’s great that the Blackbirds got to this point in head coach Derek Kellogg’s first season on the job, but this is where their run ends. They were a little fortunate to get past Wagner and will have a tough time breaking down this Radford defense. The game will be played at a faster pace than Radford typically plays at, but the Highlanders will get the win.
NCAAB Basketball Betting Odds: Radford 73, Long Island 66
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