re: NIT: LSU Men hosting North Texas in Opening Round, Tuesday at 6 PM CT, SECN/ESPN+

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Except that we beat them on a neutral court. And LSU wasn't playing especially well at the time. Stewart started, played 25 minutes, and was 0-5. Dean played 4 minutes. Trae came off the bench for 11 minutes and had 1 rebound.

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The lines are based upon impartial numeric data/metrics. That's it. The only somewhat degree of subjectivity is the amount attributed to home court advantage.

LSU would be an underdog on a neutral site. Not because oddsmakers hate LSU, or they didn't watch the first game. It's because LSU's predictive metrics simply aren't very good and NTU's are better.

NTU's adjusted efficient margin is 10.89. LSU's is 8.72. That roughly translates into a 2 point difference in favor of NTU. Factor in LSU's homecourt advantage of around 3-6 points and you get a line of LSU -2.5.

Why does LSU have such a low efficiency number? Because they aren't really "good" at anything. They are 100+ in offensive efficiency and 90+ in defensive efficiency. That puts them roughly in the bottom 3rd of all power conf. teams. NTU isn't great on offense (100+ in efficiency, like LSU) but they are a solid defensive team (37th in efficiency). Sometimes you see teams with high power/efficiency ratings because they are elite in one area, even though they are well below average in another. Alabama is an example this year. #2 in offense...#112 in defense. Wade's teams were NOTORIOUSLY unbalanced. For his part, McMahon's LSU teams have been balanced. It just that they've been horrible (last year) and below average (this year) on BOTH ends of the floor.

Assuming there is some degree of motivation for LSU tonight I would bet them to cover. I think they are the better team...at home...if they play to their capability. But they have also been a team whose record is probably a little bit better than what the objective data says it should be. South Carolina is one of those teams which is why, if you remember, a 13-12 loser of 6 of 7 LSU was only like a 6.5 underdog on the ROAD against a 21-5 South Carolina team that had won 7 of 8 coming into the game. The public hammered that line up to -9...and LOST because despite their record USC is not a great team.

Credit LSU for finding ways to remain in most games despite not being particularly, or at least consistently, good on either end of the floor. But sometimes you look at the data and think of Bull Durham......

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As per usual I’ll be in the student section

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Scratch that. Since it’s general admission I’m sitting close to LSU bench. Let’s get this W