VCU vs. St. Louis March 17 Free Pick

After a wildly entertaining season of Atlantic-10 basketball the dust has settled and the two best teams in the conference are the last two standing. Virginia Commonwealth and Saint Louis take the stage just five hours before the tournament selection committee set the field in a fitting battle of 1 vs. 2 for the A-10 crown. After opening as a pick’em at most shops, Saint Louis is now a steady 1.5 point favorite across most boards on the eve of the matchup.

Free Pick

Here’s the deal with SLU that many casual college basketball fans have still yet to realize – they’re really good. The Billikens are not only one of the deepest teams in the entire country, they have an incredibly versatile roster with five players on the court at all times that feature a complete repertoire of skills. They are also arguably the most well-schooled team in the country with a beautiful blend of Senior leadership, Junior experience and underclassmen youth. Jim Crews deserves national recognition for how he has managed this team, but it is also evident that the late Rick Majerus has his fingerprints all over this team. In my last write-up I mentioned Cody Ellis and why he would be my pick for the top sixth man in the country. The Australian is as good as anyone in the country at taking charges and he is a great spot-up three-point shooter from the power forward position. His New Zealand teammate, Rob Loe makes up the second half of what I like to call “Team Oceania” with a deft perimeter jumper and nimble post moves all in a 6’11” frame. I can continue to run down the list, but the fact is SLU has had seven different players lead the team in scoring for at least one game this season – Ellis comes off the bench and Loe is the team’s sixth-leading scorer to give a bit of context. The guards are skilled, smart and extremely unselfish. On top of a unique body that makes him an incredibly tough matchup for any guard he will see, Jordair Jett also possesses one of the coolest names in recent college basketball history and a headful of dreadlocks that ooze swag. Kwamain Mitchell and Mike McCall Jr. are both double-digit scorers with very different roles. While McCall Jr. scores at an incredibly efficient clip, Mitchell is the shotmaker who makes high-degree of difficulty shots with less efficiency – but when the team needs them. Plain the simple, this team is a well-oiled machine. They aren’t flashy, but they all have jobs and they almost always get them done. It has been a joy to watch this team play all season long – no matter what happens tomorrow or in the coming week(s).

I won’t spend nearly as much time on VCU, not that I don’t believe in this team, but I already raved long enough about SLU. Shaka Smart has a pretty simple philosophy: attempt more shots than the opponent. He does this with turnover margin – a very important category that VCU has led the nation in each of the last two years. The thought process is that every shot attempt represents a fraction of an expected point. Logical and simple, the approach has made Smart one of the most well-decorated young coaches in recent memory. The personnel he has with this VCU team is perfect for allowing him to accomplish what he sets out to do. There is not another backcourt combination that comes near wreaking the level of havoc that Briante Weber and Darius Theus do to oppositions. Weber was the A-10 defensive player of the year off the bench for the Rams. Treveon Graham and Juvonte Reddic lead the team in scoring with 15.8 and 14.3 points per game respectively. They prefer to bang in the post and each use well above-average athletic ability to find nifty ways of scoring down low. On the outside, Troy Daniels can get hot in the blink of an eye (see the semi-final game against UMass) and Rob Brandenberg isn’t much different in regards to outside shooting ability. It is amazing that this team can play 40 minutes of basketball at the intensity level that it does and still walk off the floor at the end of the game. In the end, its a testament to the superior depth.

It doesn’t get any better than this. The two best teams in a conference that snickers at the phrase “mid-major.” Expect right around 20 young men to take the floor tomorrow in a true chess battle of depth between two teams that like to play opposite styles. VCU plays fast; Saint Louis can play just about any way you want to. Someone has to lose this game, and fortunately, we’ll be able to see both in action again in less than a week. All this said, Saint Louis is the definitive best team in this conference. All they have to do is play like it.

Free Pick: Saint Louis -1.5