No,’Cougar Hunting’ isn’t an adult film with an all 40+ cast.  We’re going to look at more March Madness betting opportunities in Thursday’s early games by heading to Oklahoma City for a 9:20 Pacific start time game between BYU and Florida.  I’ve been looking for good opportunities to play against BYU for much of the year but they haven’t come around often.  For whatever reason, the other teams in the Mountain West Conference (well, most of them anyway) never figured out how to defend BYU.  They’ll be facing a team with a serious tournament pedigree here as they take on the Florida Gators.

BYU VS. FLORIDA:

BYU has always had a decent basketball program and have made a number of NCAA tournament appearances.  They don’t do too well once they get there, however, losing eight straight appearances including 5 straight both SU and ATS.  That alone would give us reason to consider Florida, a team with *serious* NCAA credentials from a tough conference.  In fact, those credentials probably got them into the tournament over a more deserving (IMO) Mississippi State team.  Now that they’re here, however, they’ve got themselves a very favorable first round matchup.

In many ways, this handicap is similar to our previous play on Murray State over Vanderbilt.  BYU does a lot of things very well.  They take care of the basketball, don’t commit a lot of turnovers, shoot free throws better than anyone in the country and knock down a high percentage of their outside shots.  What they don’t do, however, is respond well to physical play.  UNLV and New Mexico both figured that out and played them this way, which is why the Rebels and Lobos were 4-1 SU/5-0 ATS against BYU this season.  Utah State played them this way, earning an outright win.  And Florida is a perfect candidate to play them this way too.

BYU doesn’t play defense very well either, though they do get a lot of steals.  In other words, they’re a team that lives for uncontested baskets and we don’t think Florida is going to play that way. Gators don’t have a ‘marquee player’ at this point, but they have a lot of depth with five double digit scorers.  In other words, they’ve got the personnel to make BYU fight on every possession for the entire game and take the outright upset.

PLAY FLORIDA +5 OVER BYU