Illinois State vs. Auburn
You probably wouldn’t expect to see a game like Auburn vs. Illinois State in the NIT semifinals, but here we are, as the Tigers fell short of the NCAA Tournament and the Redbirds have saved some of their best basketball for late in the year. Credit to Steven Pearl and the Tigers for going out there and flexing their talent advantage over the rest of the NIT field instead of sulking about missing the Big Dance.
This is the second of two games on ESPN in the NIT semifinals, as New Mexico vs. Tulsa will determine who the winner of this game will play for the title on Sunday at Gainbridge Fieldhouse, the home of the Pacers.
This preview focuses solely on this game, but we’ve got daily best bets from Greg Peterson, as well as his daily spread and total projections, picks six days a week from Adam Burke, and men’s and women’s college basketball projections five days a week from Tyler Shoemaker, the proprietor of the T Shoe Index.
This season, we’ve also connected with CBBAnalytics.com to access their data and I’ll be working that into my article. Use promo code VSIN30 for $30 off at CBB Analytics and find your betting edge.
Odds from DraftKings Sportsbook as of April 2, 1:00 am ET; check out our Circa Betting Splits and DraftKings Betting Splits.
NIT Semifinals: Illinois State vs. Auburn (-6.5, 149.5)
9:30 p.m. ET (ESPN)
The Tigers have won, but they’ve been playing with their food in this tournament. As a member of the SEC, Auburn’s body of work from a metrics standpoint is a little bit underwhelming, but they obviously have a much larger athletic department, a lot more money, and a lot more talent than the other teams in this field. Wins over South Alabama by 11, Seattle by 6, and Nevada by 6 all came against significantly inferior competition, but still weren’t terribly convincing at times.
To that end, the Tigers allowed 1.044, 1.169, and 1.072 points per possession to those teams. They did get what they wanted offensively, especially in the games against Seattle and Nevada, going a combined 44-of-69 on 2s, but they haven’t proven to anybody that they belonged in the NCAA Tournament. Offensively, they’ve picked up 1.216, 1.252, and 1.165 PPP, so they’ve been solid on offense.
Illinois State comes in a clear underdog here, having played just three Quadrant 1 games and one Quadrant 1-A game. In fact, two of their three Q1 games have been in this tourney with road wins at Wake Forest and Dayton. The Redbirds held Dayton to just .876 PPP in their own barn and just 3-of-25 from 3 to get to this point.
However, this game against Auburn represents a really difficult matchup on the glass for the Redbirds, a pretty undersized team who had to use a committee approach on the defensive glass. Therefore, Illinois State is not going to get out in transition much and is going to have to beat Auburn in the halfcourt. While it can be done, Auburn played 17 Quadrant 1 games, 12 Quadrant 1-A games, and a top-15 schedule up to this point. That’s not exactly the class of competition that Illinois State falls into for this one.
Thirteen of Auburn’s 16 losses came in Q1 games, so an outright loss would be a surprise. This is a really bad 3-point defense. The Redbirds shoot an above average rate of 3s and made more than your average team, but, again, the strength of schedule discrepancy between the two is pretty notable. Even with a hard schedule, Auburn took better care of the ball and fared a lot better on the glass.
Auburn vs. Illinois State Prediction
Illinois State is going to be invested and they’re going to look to make every shot difficult for the Tigers. Auburn has gotten far enough that they should care and be trying to win a tournament title, but they’ve been willing to relax their tempo a little bit here and it doesn’t seem like they’ve really gone out there and flexed all of the advantages that they should have. We’ll see if Illinois State can score enough to cover, but I do think the Under is a reasonable play.
Pick: Under 149.5
Check out picks from VSiN hosts and guests on this game and all of the college basketball games on our Pro Picks Page.
See our College Basketball Page for more previews and predictions.
