NCAA Basketball Betting – Is Gonzaga Out For the Rout vs. LMU?

  • In Charles Jay
  • Thu, Feb 14th, 2019 9:37:51 am
  • By Charles Jay - Exclusive to OSGA


The Gonzaga Bulldogs are on a roll, and running up scores. Can they do that against the Loyola Marymount Lions on Thursday?

The way the NET rankings are configured, margins of victory count for something. And the Gonzaga Bulldogs are playing like it. They are running up some huge scores on opponents, and the Loyola Marymount Lions will try to get in the way of that on Thursday night when these teams get together at the Gersten Pavilion in Los Angeles. This home game for LMU will be televised on ESPN 2, beginning at 11 PM ET, and BetAnySports customers can not only get reduced juice before the game starts, but Live Betting Ultra can facilitate real-time wagering after the contest tips off.

Gonzaga comes into this game with a record of 23-2 straight-up, but it's their pointspread record that really catches our eye. They are 18-7 against the number, covering 11 of the last 14, and over their last six games they have come out on top by margins of 23, 59, 30, 16, 30 and 48 points. In other words, they are creating big margins purposefully.

Loyola Marymount Gonzaga pickLoyola Marymount will ultimately be invited to some post-season tournament (perhaps the CBI) and currently sport a record of 17-8 straight-up and 13-11 ATS. In their last outing they defeated Portland 72-55 on the road, with James Batemon erupting for 28 points. Admittedly, however, the Pilots are a bottom-feeder in the West Coast Conference.

In the NCAA basketball betting odds posted on this game by the folks at BetAnySports, Gonzaga is laying considerable points on the road:

Gonzaga Bulldogs -19.5
Loyola Marymount Lions +19.5

Over 139 points -110
Under 139 points -110

Gonzaga has lost only to Tennessee and North Carolina, and they have a victory over Duke, who could wind up being the #1 overall seed in the NCAA Tournament. But to be perfectly honest, the 'Zags have their own designs on that, or at least being the top seed in one of the four regions of the Big Dance. And that is a partial explanation for why they have been laying it heavy on their opponents. The statistics they've been able to compile are extremely impressive; they are first in the nation in Adjusted Offensive Efficiency, not to mention Effective Field Goal Percentage. There the best in the nation shooting two-pointers (61.5%), and very few teams take care of the ball as well as they do, as they ranked fifth in Offensive Turnover Percentage.

Gonzaga free pickThe 6-8 forward, Brandon Clarke, is eighth in the nation in individual Offensive Rating, not to mention the top 20 in Blocked Shot Percentage for Gonzaga. The other 6-8 forward, Rui Hachimura of Japan has shot 63.3% over his last five games. So these guys are very much in form.

LMU had early wins over Georgetown, UNLV and Boise State, but they are just 5-6 in conference play. Batemon, a 6-1 guard, is on the floor almost all the time (ranking 19th in the nation in percentage of minutes played) and he had 12 points against Gonzaga in the previous encounter. We already mentioned that he had 28 against Portland, but on Fabruary 2 he went scoreless in 29 minutes against BYU. Talk about extremes!

As we went over those impressive offensive numbers for the 'Zags, the defensive numbers are almost as good. And this is where we see the difference. If you look at Loyola's offensive approach, they are one of the least-dependent teams in the nation on three-point shooting, scoring 55% of their points INSIDE the arc. Unfortunately for them, that plays right into Gonzaga's strength, as the Bulldogs have yielded a little less than 43% in two-point shooting, which is sixth-best in the nation. LMU was just 35% from two-point range against the vise-like Bulldogs when these teams played. And keep in mind that even though Gonzaga won by a 73-55 margin in the first meeting, they did lead by 29 points with nine minutes left in the game. So there's a huge gap between these programs.

And if the visitor is motivated to keep pouring it on, we can make a recommendation because we know they are fully capable of doing just that. So we will take Mark Few's team as the favorite in this WCC matchup.

At BetAnySports you can get good value on NCAA basketball betting odds, and of course, after the game has started, you can engage in real-time wagering through Live Betting Ultra…… Deposits can be made using your Visa card, person-to-person transfers (like Western Union) or the virtual currency of Bitcoin, which is fast and easy with their automated system, and NEVER incurs a transaction fee!


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