Line Drills: January 19th MAC Basketball Betting Guide

Uh oh. We're figuring this out. It's eerily similar to football season is it not? Tom put together a winner last Wednesday, and aided by co-anchor's Miami/Ball State pick, I was able to put together a successful Saturday. So in case you began to lose faith, welcome back, and feel comfortable placing bets on Mid-American Conference that you simply can't afford. We're 7-4 in our last 11 after starting 3-9 in our last 12, so I would argue that you can't NOT afford to follow our lead. That's the last time we let Jameis Winston write a sentence. Or a member of the North Carolina basketball team. Did you see that story? You should read it, some of those dudes can't read. Back to the real student-athletes. Your January 19th pick:

Bowling Green at Western Michigan (-6.5)

There's only one game Sunday, so it's important we get this right. Are you nervous? No? Then you're not betting enough. Bowling Green won last Wednesday at home against Central Michigan, but the game I'm looking at is last Saturday at home against Northern Illinois. The Falcons fell to the Huskies 45-36 in perhaps the most unwatchable game of the MAC season. How bad was this game? Three Falcons points in the final 12 minutes bad. BGSU should send out apology letters to every fan who wasted one second on that game. I focus on this loss because I believe it is more demonstrative on Falcons than the win against the Chips. The Chippewas are awful themselves, losers of four straight, and were it not for a February 19th matchup with Ball State on the schedule perhaps heading towards a winless conference season. So that victory for BG is nothing to write home about. I will grant the Falcons this, they play lockdown defense, tops in the MAC giving up 62 points a game. They held an explosive Eastern Michigan squad to 56 points on January 8th. They balance the defense out with the league's 11th ranked offense, scoring just 63 a contest. Western Michigan is going to be out for blood. After rattling off four consecutive wins, including an impressive 87-76 decision over Toledo on January 8th, the Broncos fell laughably flat at Eastern Michigan on January 14th, falling 56-37. So if a game is going to finish 37-36 this MAC season, it will be Bowling Green at Western Michigan. Instead, I expect WMU to come out and blast the Falcons. In those four wins Western Michigan averaged 85 points a game, and that was against significantly better competition than Bowling Green. Now I don't expect the Broncos to score 85, but they should have no problems dispatching BG early and cruising to an easy win. Take the Broncos, lay the points.