Houston, UAB, Jelly Walker discussed on Bet The Board

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Talk to me about Houston. I don't hate Houston. What I will say is that Houston threw up enough bricks and they tournament exit last year to build a homeless shelter. It's not the most aesthetically pleasing brand of basketball, but these guys will fight you tooth and nail because Houston unlike most teams that can actually make perimeter jumpers, Houston's best offense is a missed shot coming straight out of the bob huggins playbook. I had to. I know who's in the family. I know he's in the coaching tree. I gotta take as many shots as I possibly can. So you woke Houston up, even if they don't know it. I got a text message during the Cincinnati game that said, man, Houston stinks. And then they just went on forever. They played with a chip on their shoulder, especially in the AC final. I gotta give him credit. They look like a team that was fully pissed off having lost a Memphis twice during the regular season. They were fully engaged wanted to be there and I tipped my hat to a team with a veteran leading group that played with something to play for. So this may shock some people and you did mention the two injuries. If not for those two injuries. We have them power rate better than duke. And you know what? I've seen duke do so. Duke would be curled into the fetal position if they had to face this level of physicality and toughness that Houston would throw at him. So what stinks here is, again, it's two teams that the committee paired against each other that were by teams in Houston and UAB. And yes, you mentioned Houston being down the two key cogs. And it's true, but like sasser and Mark, they've been out since December. So they've kind of lived life without those two. They know what it's like. I do think ultimately those two guys being out is what could prevent a serious serious run. Giving Arizona potentially all they can handle. Now, if you listen to sasser, he's claiming he wants to play at some point in this tournament, has the broken foot typically takes three to four months. It happened three months ago. He's itching to get back. I don't know if it's going to happen. When I look at this game though, you mentioned it. UAB has nothing inside. So it becomes the Jordan walker show. And I don't think Samson with 5 days to repair is going to let a 5 9 guard beat out. That you can shoot. He lets it chuck. He also likes layups to extend leads to 11 with about 11 seconds to go for some undoubtedly. He was hunting 40 that night, buddy. He was hunting 40. He was hunting for 40. And killed the cover. That is certainly true. If you look at Houston, big guards, right? And so you can throw some of those big guards at him. And you look at a Taj Moore who's 6 5 in super long and lanky. And maybe that gives jelly walker some trouble. I would fully expect Samson to trap ball screens here. They rotate very well. If you look at the three games where UAB's face similarly ranked defenses like a South Carolina, like a San Francisco, it like north Texas in the most recent meeting. Those three teams held the UAB to 63 61 and 57. They're all kind of in that same defensive class as Houston, although Houston's a little bit better, but all top 30 defenses and efficiency. Effusion is able to contain gelly walker and have him score like the inefficient 2023 25 with lots of long threes. It's going to be tough to score. And if that's the case, I'm not sure you would be can survive defensively. I mentioned UAB's lack of size. There are 278th and allowing near proximity shots defensively. Houston 6 in the country making near proximity shots. Houston typically dominates this class of opponent. They tend to struggle when they step up and play elite teams. UAB kind of feels like Houston light athletically. The matchup is bad. And if this is a game where one team's chucking contested threes and the other scoring at the rim and you have a couple minute cold streak from jelly walker could put this thing out of touch and God forbid Trey Jameson or KJ boof and get in follow trouble for UAB. And those guys have a tendency to get involved trouble. It could be tough. So I do like, when I look at this, I think the numbers probably a touch inflated to like 8 and a half feels kind of high. We make it about a point lower. I just don't like the matchup. I think it stinks and quite frankly, these are the teams that Houston just embarrasses. And there's really only one punch at this point for UAB. And I just think you have 5 plus days to repair Samson's going to come up with something to make jelly walker. When you look at Houston, what's the ceiling for this team in the tournament? It's a good question. Obviously, I love Houston. I've liked them for many years, probably more than the entire market. I am a fan of Samson. I think he can coach. And we do have Houston power rated better than duke. But unfortunately, I don't think, without sasser and Mark, their style is necessarily a good one to go up against Arizona and think that they have a fighting chance. As you mentioned, a lot of stuff inside a lot of second chance points crashing the offensive glass. When you look at Arizona's height, it probably wouldn't bode overly well and you're looking at an Arizona defense that defends the two very well. They are also top 50 in near proximity defense as well. So that's a tough challenge and ultimately I think when you look at this setup where the committee has absolutely screwed the AAC where an SMU should be in Memphis clearly isn't a 9 in Houston is probably closer to being power rated in the top 5 than an actual 5 seed. They probably get bounced in the sweet 16 round, but had you placed them in the Midwest where we have them power rated much better than a Wisconsin or a Providence. But if you put them in that lower tier of the Midwest and made them a three seed, where Wisconsin is, you could certainly see even Houston without full health, make a final four run. But in terms of the bracket and this is something we probably should have touched on at the top. And ultimately, you've probably heard it a couple of times. We've been doing these podcasts for four or 5, 6, 7 years now. And the evolution of the sports betting content space is very much monkey see monkey do. So people listen to this type of podcast and then go and create their own content and just regurgitate what's set on shows like this. If you are doing a bracket podcast or a bracket pool rather and you are in one with your buddies, you're in one with people.

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