Recent Play Details

Northern Arizona (4PM ET ESPN Plus) – Niagara holds on for a hard-fought cover to cash our only bet for Friday and it’s now an excellent 10-2 run overall.  We are red hot on the CBB hardwood, I love a few spots on Saturday and I’ll head to the Big Sky Conference to lock in my first BEST BET of the day as the Northern Arizona Lumberjacks take on the Eastern Washington Eagles at the Walkup Skydome in Flagstaff, Arizona.

Here we have two teams at opposite ends of the Big Sky Conference, but my power metrics are telling me these two really aren’t that different.  Eastern Washington has come out of nowhere to start Big Sky play 7-0 but it feels like the Eagles have been super fortunate to catch just about every opponent at the right time.  Eastern Washington has also benefitted from four consecutive winnable home games and the Eagles continue to come out on the right end of close games. Northern Arizona has been the complete opposite, the Lumberjacks have lost eight of nine but two of those games were in overtime to excellent competition (Utah Valley and Southern Utah) and two more were by a bucket.  Northern Arizona’s one win on that stretch was at Walkup against a Montana team I have similarly rated to Eastern Washington so I think it’s very possible NAU wins this game with a respectable effort here.  Eastern Washington is just 4-5 on the road this season and this is a tricky spot coming off a road win in Greeley on Thursday night.  I think there’s big time value catching +4 with Northern Arizona in this spot, Eastern Washington is due for some luck regression and I think a strong effort turns into the Lumberjacks pulling the mild upset here.

Let’s take a look at the matchup, Northern Arizona can be sporadic offensively but Jalen Cone is one of the best guards in the conference averaging 17.7 points per game and I think this is an excellent matchup for Cone as Eastern Washington doesn’t handle opposing guards particularly well.  Eastern Washington has improved their interior defense and rebounding big time from last year when the Eagles finished outside the Top 250 nationally in total defense but there’s been a number of instances where EWU has been torched by opposing guards this season and I think that sets up nicely for Cone and backcourt mate Xavier Fuller here.  Eastern Washington is 7-0 in Big Sky play because they have managed to not really have a weakness, the Eagles aren’t elite in any area but they do most things well and it’s allowed them to put away close games.  If there was a weakness for Eastern Washington it’s turnovers, as the Eagles rank outside the Top 300 nationally committing close to 14 turnovers per game, and that could play in NAU’s favor here as the Lumberjacks are active defending the perimeter.  The Walkup Skydome has some interesting sightlines, visitors don’t always shoot it well here and if Eastern Washington is coughing the ball up and giving Northern Arizona easy baskets that’s going to be enough to keep the Lumberjacks in this game.  Again, Eastern Washington comes off a big win over Northern Colorado on the road on Thursday and if the Eagles aren’t fully engaged here I don’t think they leave Flagstaff with a win. 

It's insanely difficult to stay unbeaten in any conference, especially one with as much parody as the Big Sky, so Eastern Washington becomes an even bigger fade going forward now that there’s big time expectations on this team that simply weren’t there a few weeks ago.  There was optimism for NAU coming into the season but now it’s the “same old Lumberjacks” and I think that actually helps here as Northern Arizona can go out and play with “nothing to lose”.  Northern Arizona has tight losses to Utah Valley (2x) and Southern Utah with impressive wins over Montana, Santa Barbara and Pacific.  This NAU team can play, they just struggle to close out games, so I’ll take my chances that if the Lumberjacks can’t close this one out it’s another loss by four points or less.  Play on Northern Arizona +4 (-110) for 4% (or 4 units)