Friday Night College Picks

You'll notice that I didn't include a sport in the header because we are teasing football and basketball tonight. First time we've ever tried it, but there is a first time for everything. Ask me at about 1am tonight, because it might be the last if the whole thing blows up like every other teaser ever.

Note: We took A LOT of points on this teaser, and the whole thing pays -110. For three games that should be locks, it's actually not too bad of a payout. The games:

#6 Texas @ #1 Kentucky, 7pm, ESPN
Standard line: Kentucky -13
Notable games for Texas: beat Iowa 71-57 and Cal 71-55 (both at MSG), won @ #24 UConn 55-54
Notable games for UK: beat #5 Kansas 72-40 (neutral site), beat Providence 58-38 at home

Kentucky is the most Great of the 'Great' teams in the Pyramid, They are just on another planet from every other team. That said, Texas got up for their spotlight MSG games and took care of business away from home against a ranked Huskies team. Don't overthink this, though. Wildcats might win 40 games this year.

Pick: Kentucky -5 (teasers are awesome)

Florida @ #11 Kansas, 9pm, ESPN
Standard line: Kansas -7.5
Notable games for Florida: lost at home against Miami 69-67, lost 66-65 in OT to Georgetown and 75-64 to UNC (both in the Battle for Atlantis)
Notable games for Kansas: lost 72-40 to Kentucky (neutral site), beat Tennessee 82-67 and Michigan State 61-56 (both neutral site)

For the love of everything holy, please ignore that Kentucky game. It was the first game the Cats had against a legit opponent, and nobody knew they were going to be this good. Kansas is going to either be in the Good or (maybe) Great sections of the Pyramid, and they are going to beat the shit out of the Gators tonight.

Pick: Kansas +0.5 (getting points? I love teasers)

#7 Arizona vs. #2 Oregon, 9pm, FOX
Pac-12 Championship Game, being played in Santa Clara, CA
Standard line: Oregon -14.5

I'm going to defer this game preview to Clay Travis from Outkick the Coverage (who I love):

"I know Todd Furhman says that Arizona is way overrated by the playoff committee and doesn't belong in the Vegas top ten, but they have beaten Oregon twice in the last year. I don't think they'll win a third time in thirteen months, but how do you not think that Rich Rod and his crew have a pretty good understanding of what Oregon does on offense? Check out the box score from the 2013 beat down, these were two pretty even teams from a total yardage perspective. Arizona's win at Oregon this year wasn't flukish either, go look at the box score, these two teams were completely even all night long. In a little over a year Arizona has gone toe-to-toe with Oregon and won twice. Neither win was built on absurdly unlikely plays. 

Vegas believes these two Arizona wins were flukes and expects the Ducks to throttle Arizona this time, but I'm putting my faith in the past two game results and rolling with the Wildcats here."

Pick: Arizona +24.5