NCAA Tournament: Maryland vs. Belmont fearless prediction and game preview.
Broadcast
Date: Thursday, March 21
Game Time: 3:10 ET
Venue: VyStar Veterans Memorial Aerna, Jacksonville, FL
Network: truTV
All You Really Need To Know About Maryland (22-10)
(Big Ten), NCAA NET Rank: 27. East 6-seed
The Terps didn’t show up in the Big Ten Tournament – getting knocked out by a mediocre Nebraska team – and struggled late in the year losing three of their last four games and seven of their last 13. But when things work defensively, they’ve got the ability to stun anyone in the tournament.
They have to own the boards and use their interior presence to force teams to bomb away from the outside. However, they don’t force mistakes or come up with steals, and they don’t do enough from three. They have to dominate the rebounding margin and they can’t get involved in a scoring fight.
All You Really Need To Know About Belmont (27-5)
(Ohio Valley), NCAA NET Rank: 47. East 11-seed
Winning a First Four game over Temple doesn’t exactly qualify as anything to do jumping jacks about, but it was the first tournament win for Belmont, and it was impressive.
The Bruins proved they should’ve received the at-large bid, getting a tough game inside from 6-11 Nick Muszynski, and paced throughout by senior guard Kevin McClain’s 29 points.
They’re going to be happy to make this a shootout, get on the move, and make the Terps try to keep up the pace. Since the Terps don’t do much of anything to take the ball away, McClain and the Belmont guards should go off.
What’s Going To Happen
Maryland might be aggressive on the boards and it’ll get its share of second chance points, but it’s not going to hit from the outside, it’ll make way too many errors, and it’s about to be in big, big trouble with the Bruins’ ability to move the ball around.
Belmont got out rebounded by Temple, but it also hit 53% from the field and did what it does well – it got the ball where it needed to be. The Belmont fun will keep on going with a brilliant performance against a Terp team that won’t look or be sharp enough.
Fearless Prediction & Line
Belmont 73, Maryland 69
Line: Maryland -4, o/u: 147.5
ATS Confidence: 3
5: Watching games by Vegas pool working on fruity drink No. 3
1: Watching game online while doing TPS reports in your cubicle
