College Basketball Picks

NCAA Tournament Picks: Baylor vs Hartford 3/19/21 College Basketball Picks, Odds, Predictions

NCAA Tournament Picks: Baylor vs Hartford 3/19/21 College Basketball Picks, Odds, Predictions
2021-03-19 15:30:00 EDT

The Baylor Bears face the Hartford Hawks in an NCAA tournament first-round matchup in college basketball March Madness action from Lucas Oil Stadium on Friday afternoon.

The Hartford Hawks reached the tournament as the champion of the America East Conference, making the tournament for the first time in program history. The Hawks rode their defense to wins over Binghamton, Albany and Vermont before defeating UMass Lowell in the conference championship game to punch their ticket to the Big Dance. Austin Williams leads Hartford in scoring and rebounding with 13.7 PPG and 6.2 RPG while Traci Carter has 11.7 PPG and a team-high 3.4 APG to lead the Hawks in the assist department this season. Moses Flowers has 11.6 PPG with 5.7 RPG and Miroslav Stafl’s added 10.4 PPG with 5.6 RPG to cap off the group of double-digit scorers for Hartford this season. Hunter Marks also has 9.7 PPG with 5.9 RPG as well for Hartford this season. As a team, Hartford is averaging 64.2 PPG on 42.3% shooting from the field and 31.8% from three while allowing 63.3 PPG on 42.2% shooting from the field and 30.3% from three this season.

The Baylor Bears enter the tournament as the #2 overall seed ans as the top seed in the South region after finishing the year at 22-2 with their lone losses coming at Kansas and in the Big 12 tournament semi-finals to Oklahoma State. Jared Butler leads the Bears in scoring with 17.1 PPG along with 4.8 APG and a team-high 2 steals per game while MaCio Teague has 16.2 PPG with 4.2 RPG and Davion Mitchell has 14.1 PPG with a team-high 5.4 APG to lead the Bears in assists and round out the group of double-digit scorers for Baylor up to this point in the season. Mark Vital also leads the Bears on the glass with a team-high 6.8 RPG for Baylor this season. As a team, Baylor is averaging 85.3 PPG on 49.7% shooting from the field and 42.9% from three which is the best 3-point percentage in the country. Defensively, the Bears are allowing 65.6 PPG on 43.2% shooting from the field and 33.5% from three this season.

Hartford is 5-0 ATS in their last 5 games overall and 13-3 ATS in their last 16 games against a team with a winning record while the under is 15-5-1 in their last 21 games as an underdog. Baylor is 2-5 ATS in their last 7 games overall and 23-11 ATS in their last 34 games against a team with a winning record while the over is 7-0 in their last 7 games following a loss.

Well, spoiler alert, I don’t think this is a matchup where we’re going to see a 2nd all-time 16 upset a 1. Both teams play good defense but it doesn’t take a genius to see that the level of competition is on a completely different end of the spectrum from Baylor to Hartford and while both do play outstanding defense, it’s the Bears that are one of the highest-scoring and most offensively efficient teams in the country. Hate to say it, but usually there’s one 40-point blowout in these 1 vs. 16 games and I think this is it. I’ll back Baylor in a rout here.

Chris Ruffolo's Free Pick: Baylor -26

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Chris Ruffolo

Chris joined the Sports Chat Place team in August 2016 and has a proven system that combines multiple analytical and situational statistics and trends to give out thousands of winning picks over the last three years with winning records across all of the top leagues, Follow Chris Ruffolo on Twitter @ruffthepickdawg

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