Wednesday, February 27, 2019, PL Basketball, You Pick...

Holy Cross (if I moved up by picking Colgate, and Colgate won, I would not be able to enjoy it).
Lehigh
Bucknell
Army
Boston University

Holy Cross @ Colgate (could be an upset but I'm not picking it. Crusaders do much better when I pick against them  )
Lehigh @ American 
Bucknell @ Navy 
Loyola @ Army

Boston University @ Lafayette 

HC

AMERICAN

BUCKNELL

ARMY

BU

Colgate
Lehigh
Bucknell
Army
Boston Univ

HC (for the 17th time)
Lehigh
Bucknell
Army
Lafayette (big rebound from humiliating loss)

When should we move to the "secret picks" methodology for the contenders---the next set of games??

with 19 picks left too early for 4 corners

the top 5 are 62 - 66%... about the same as just picking the home teams???

Colagte
American
Bucknell
Army
Lafayette

HC
American
Bucknell
Army
Lafayette

Colgate--- Colgate has won 6 games in a row and is 7-1 at home in PL games. Colgate won the first game at the Hart Center on the free throw line. HC has a tough chore today-HC is 3-9 when its opponents shoot better than 53.9% (eff fg pctg) and Colgate's fg pctg is 57.7% in PL games.

Lehigh-- Lehigh is 5-3 on the road in PL games and won the first game against AU by 7 points. American's defense seeks to suppress opponents three point scoring. AU's PL opponents take only 31% of the FGA from beyond the arc and they connect only 29% of the time. In the first Lehigh-AU game, Lehigh took only 14 threes but 40 twos. Contrast that game with the Lehigh HC game: against HC, Lehigh attempted 34 threes and 31 twos. Still, that strategy did not work as Lehigh won as Lehigh is an excellent two point shooting team. American U is all about the shooting as the team is 12-4 when it shoots 52%+ and 2-9 when it does not. Lehigh's defense is a hair above that 52% mark in PL games. HC is the only one of 19 teams ranked 163 or lower to beat Lehigh. AU is ranked #193.

Bucknell-- Bucknell won the forst game by 12 in PA. Sotos may be back to full strength--had a great game against Lafayette, as did all Bison. Bison 3 point shooters, moribund of late, came to life in that game. Navy has lost 4 of its last 5, beating only archrival Army. Navy's 10th best offense in PLY play faces the conference's #1 defense.

Army-- Army lost by 2 at Loyola as its shooting was off. Army is 2-13 when it shoots (eff fg pctg) is 50% or lower and 10-4 when it is better than 50%. Loyola's opponents have shot better than 50% in 24 of 29 games and 56.8% in PL games. Loyola has a chance, of course, and needs to protect against turnovers and grab offensive rebounds and keep Army off the free throw line. Army is good at forcing turnovers and is #1 in PL games at stopping opponent offensive rebounds. Loyola is 2-6 on the road in PL games and I see that going to 2-7.

Lafayette-- Hopefully the shell shock of the destruction at the hands of Bucknell has worn off the Leopards. Laf beat BU by 7 in Boston in an upset. That was Laf's 2nd best shooting game of the year and BU's 8th worst. Lafayette had won 5 in a row before the debacle versus Bucknell. In those last six games Justin Jaworski's worst offensive-rating in KenPom is a stellar 136 as he has gone 13-18 on twos and 13-25 on threes. Boston U's big star Mahoney appears to be wearing down as his O-ratings in last 6 games are 88-109-115-94-99-99, decent but not all-PL caliber. He was MVP in 6 of 10 games between dec1 thru Jan 16, but none since. Last year Mahoney shot .578 OOC but ramped it up to .625 in conference games. This year Mahoney shot an exceptional .672 OOC but has fallen to .578 in conference, including "just" .507 in those last 6 games. Although Lafayette stumbled badly against Bucknell I will bet that the Leopards still have the momentum on their side.

Colagte
Lehigh
Bucknell
Army
Lafayette

Colagte
Lehigh
Bucknell
Army
Lafayette