I love Feast Week: The mid day games, the coaches wearing Hawaiian shirts in Maui, a plethora of top 10-15 matchups between conferences. It feels like the fall version of March Madness. There are games starting at noon and tipping off until midnight for 3 or 4 consecutive days. Lot of opportunities for teams to gain Quadrant 1 / 2 wins before conference play (not that I fully understand what distinguishes the different Quadrants but it is a buzz word that I feel obligated to use when discussing resumes in March). Even better, we are blessed with the presence of Bill Walton as the color commentator for these games.

I mean that clip is insane. One of the wildest things I’ve ever heard said during a sports broadcast, especially directed at the other person. The sneaky funniest thing about this is that it gets little to no attention nationally. Literally no one cares. There will be no backlash because college basketball fans have collectively accepted that Bill Walton is going to say some crazy things and thats just the way it is. He’s got an unlimited leash and rightfully so. Pure entertainment.

Now what makes college basketball the best is the willingness of the top contenders to play other great teams in the non-conference. In college football a lot of teams don’t schedule anybody to preserve the undefeated label as long as possible. But in college basketball, you are doing your team a disservice to not test them early in the season and establish a measuring point with the rest of the contenders. I also think these tournaments provide invaluable practice for getting in the mode of stacking 3-4 good games together, which is required for success later in the season. Tonight features the best double header of the season since the Champions Classic. And for better or for worse, I have strong opinions on both games and will be placing wagers on both.

The first of the two is #7 Tennessee vs #2 Purdue in the second round of the Maui Invitational. Purdue is favored by 2.5 with over 65% of the public money coming in on the Boilermakers. I’m all over Tennessee MoneyLine. Purdue is first on KenPom, have the returning National Player of the Year, and have largely the same team from the Number 1 seeded team of last year. I don’t care. I really don’t. Purdue is a fraudulent team masked by one player that is a difficult matchup for most teams. Outside of Edey, they are extremely mid. And if Edey is getting doubled and they aren’t hitting outside shots consistently, then they just can’t score and can lose to anyone (let alone a top 7 team). Braden Smith and Fletcher Loyer do not match up well with Tennessee’s guards at all. Tennessees got some experienced, big, and athletic guards. Who on Purdue is guarding Dalton Knecht? Tennessee is also first in Adjusted Defensive Efficiency via KenPom. They’ll guard you. Tennessee extends their guards out and Smith / Loyer struggle with ball pressure. I think they’ll have a plan to minimize Edey and force Purdues guards to win the game. I don’t see that happening. Feed me Tennessee ML at + 136.

Side note there is one large caveat to the analysis above: If Purdue gets the Zach Edey whistle. I understand he is a very good college basketball, but holy shit is he annoying to watch. Especially in Big Ten play. Edey so far this year is averaging 10 free throw attempts a game. That’s good for 5th in all of college basketball. The next highest Center is 23rd. And a lot of what he gets are extremely tick tack and makes it so hard to watch. So if by the first half he has 8+ free throw attempts, all of the paragraph above is thrown out the window.

The second game tonight is #4 Marquette vs #1 Kansas. Kansas is 4 point favorites with 68% of the public money on the Jayhawks. I might just be falling in love with the underdogs tonight just for the sake of being contrarian. Regardless, I really like this Marquette team. Outside of Arizona going into Cameron Indoor Stadium, Marquette might have the best win so far this season from a contending team. Illinois is not an easy place to play out, especially when Illinois has the players they do. Marquette went in there as underdogs (this matters to me) and handled them. They bring back a majority of the team that won the Big East last year. If you remember too, when Kentucky gave Kansas trouble it was when their guards got hot. Tyler Kolek and Kam Jones are as good as a backcourt as anyone in the country. I think Ighodaro can do enough on Dickinson to manage him. I like the Golden Eagles outright. Marquette + 146.

Happy Feast Week.