Thankfully, we made it through Christmas eve and won’t have to endure another day with so little sports action on the board until the MLB All Star Break next July.  We did pick up an easy winner on the only thing on the board on Christmas Eve as SMU won outright over Nevada as +12′ point underdogs.  Nothing more vividly expresses the true ‘meaning of Christmas’ more than a double digit underdog winning outright in a bowl game that no one cares about.

Four college hoops games on the board for Christmas Day, all in the Diamond Head Classic tournament in Hawaii.  In the championship game, USC will take on UNLV and that’s where we’ll go for our free pick:

UNLV VS. USC

A strange characteristic of UNLV in the Lon Kruger era is how well they play early in the season.  The current edition of the Runnin’ Rebels may be the best in years, and they’re exhibiting the same strong early season performance that you’ve come to expect from UNLV.  The Rebels are 12-1 straight up, 8-3 against the spread and since their only SU loss of the year to Kansas State in mid December their opponents have been lucky to stay within 20 points.

USC, meanwhile, is 7-4 SU and 2-5 against the spread.  They’ve played a much tougher schedule so far which might count for something had they not been blown out every time they’ve stepped up in class with double digit losses to Georgia Tech and Texas.  Their biggest win of the year has been a 22 point blowout win over perennially overrated SEC entrant Tennessee as a +10′ underdog.

This UNLV team is flat out loaded.  Kentucky transfer Derek Jasper is nominally the team’s best player but they’ve got a ton of talent and a lot of players who can contribute to the scoring on different nights.  USC simply doesn’t have the same quality of players as the Rebels.  The big question over time is Kruger’s ability to keep UNLV focused and playing as a team, but so far so good.  They’ve not only got a multitude of weapons on offense but have been playing tenacious defense holding opponents to 39% shooting from the field.  USC has been playing good defense as well, but won’t be able to match UNLV on the other end of the court.

BET UNLV -3 OVER USC