Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Broseph's Bits And The Tuesday Gospel

I'll admit it...I spoke to the sports gods last night. I begged for a victory for my alma mater over the hated Villanova Wildcats. The prayer was short and heartfelt. Rarely do I resort to this and rarely before did it ever work. Multiple times I've prayed for the Eagles to not roll over like dogs in the NFC title game and that has never helped.

This raises many questions about the sports gods. Is there one for every sport or one in general? Does he/she/it have some sort of system as to whom they take care of? It's pretty funny how many of us have called out and made requests of the sports god. The way this NCAA Tournament bubble is right now, there will be a lot of fanbases resorting to prayer to get their team in. Heck, the state of Virginia is almost bubble central with Richmond, VCU and Virginia Tech among the many schools that will be resorting to a lot hoping their teams get in.

It's years like this that make me happy we didn't go to a 96 team tournament. There are barely enough for 68 and people wanted to add another 28 as well?! No freakin way. Don't ruin a good thing. Selection Sunday would no longer be suspenseful. There would be no need for bracketology because it's not as hard to guess which 96 teams would make it in. I think parity is a good thing. I want fresh blood in sports. I don't like the dynasties and would rather see fresh champions and new names. Butler winning it all last year would have been sublime. Then again, Duke losing to anyone in the title game would have been pretty awesome.

We used the few days off to hone our skills and come up with this winner for Tuesday.

Virginia Tech/Wake Forest Over 144.5 -- The Demon Deacons have shown that defense is important in order to win. They haven't played a lot of it and haven't won much in the process. In all 12 of their ACC conference games, Wake Forest has given up at least 70 points. In their first meeting with Virginia Tech, Wake gave up 94 points and lost 94-65. Wake has gone over 10 of their 14 games in this total point range this season. Wake Forest can score as well. They've put up 73 on Miami and 70 on Maryland along with a 76 point effort at home against Virginia. Travis McKie (12.6 ppg) leads a group of four guys who put up at least 10 points per game with Ari Stewart (9.8 ppg) on the outside looking in. The Hokies meanwhile are scoring 72 points per game. They aren't deep and rely on Malcolm Delaney (19.2 ppg), Jeff Allen (13.7 ppg) and Erick Green (11.1 ppg) to do most of their scoring. Before their 54 point effort against Virginia, VT put up 102 and 91 in their last two games. They've shown that they can score with the best of them if need be. Six of the last nine games between these two teams have gone over the total.

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