The Buffalo Bulls were good enough to pull off one of the big upsets of the opening round on Thursday in the NCAA Tournament, and they served notice that they are going to be a tough "out" for anybody. On Saturday they will try to advance to the Sweet Sixteen as they tackle the Kentucky Wildcats in a South regional game that is set to get underway at 5:15 PM ET at the Taco Bell Arena in Boise, ID. BetAnySports gives you the opportunity to place wagers while this game is in progress, using the facilities of Live Betting Ultra.

Nothing is going to beat the shock that was created by Maryland-Baltimore County as the blew out Virginia on Friday, but Buffalo did something rather similar, as they caught Arizona asleep and rolled to an 89-68 victory on Thursday. Only four teams in the country use less of the shot clock on a per-possession basis, and the Bulls continually were able to get good shots up before the 'Cats were able to set themselves up on defense. A lot of those were three-pointers, obviously, and the Bulls made 15 out of 30 from beyond the arc. That was naturally a huge factor in the 89-68 defeat.

Arizona was outscored 49-30 in the second half, and you got the sense at one point that they had given up. So you had a very charged-up team against another that may have been looking ahead to a potential matchup with Kentucky. That isn't necessarily an excuse for them, and indeed there are some other things that were involved in this upset. But it had nothing to do with the tension that might be swirling over the athletic department, prompted by the current FBI investigation, which may have touched the players to some extent, but not all that much.

Now the task might be a little harder for Buffalo as they face Kentucky, which has a much better idea about who they are dealing with.

In the odds at BetAnySports  by which we will make our NCAA Tournament picks, this band of Wildcats (as opposed to the previous band) is the favorite:

Kentucky Wildcats -5.5
Buffalo Bulls +5.5

Over 156 points -110
Under 156 points -110

We have a pretty good idea of what Kentucky brings to the table; a number of kids playing their first year of collegiate basketball who are becoming more and more accustomed to playing with each other. There is already a certain amount of discipline; the Lexington-based 'Cats are very solid on the defensive end, and they are among the top teams in the country when it comes to defending the triple. Against Davidson in their opening round game, THOSE Wildcats, who have taken 48% of their shots from beyond the arc, went just 11-of-33 from long distance. So they can perhaps nudge Buffalo's offense a little off balance.

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (SGA, if you will) has really cemented himself as a formidable floor leader. Against Davidson he had 19 points and seven assists and he only committed two turnovers. There are underachievers on this squad, like maybe Hamidou Diallo, but John Calipari knows how to get a team peaking around this time of year.

But can they stretch out this Buffalo defense? Arizona wasn't able to do that with a lot of success, making just two of 18 from three-point range. Like Kentucky, Arizona is not a team that relies on the triple all that much, and they attempted only six from downtown against Davidson, missing all of them. The point is, when you do what you're not all that good at, you waste offensive possessions, and we doubt very seriously that a guy like Wenyen Gabriel, who went 7-for-7 from the arc against Georgia in the SEC Tournament, is going to do that kind of thing again.

Buffalo doesn't need any lessons in togetherness; one coach they played against in the MAC, Western Michigan's Steve Hawkins, said that while game-planning for the Bulls, "Their chemistry jumps off the film."

They will sink enough threes. They believe in themselves. They will force the pace. And they have been finding their stroke toward the end of the season, hitting 50% or better in eleven of their last 15 games. We'll take the points.

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