Villanova is 10-4 at home playing Marquette who is just 3-5 on the road. Both play similar styles in conference play so what separates them is their ranking which we benefit from in this situation because we are getting Nova at home with value in my opinion. Marquette will take nearly 71% of their shots from two point land and that falls into Nova's strengths where they are ranked 19th in the country in 2 point defense. Marquette on the other hand is ranked 75th in that department.
Nova's biggest weaknesses however are turnovers and three point defense. We already touched on Marquette's ability to knock down threes and how often they take them. Marquette is also -2.1 turnover margin in their road games so I think this will give Nova the edges they need to come up with a big win today.
Uconn just came off a huge win in OT vs. Cinci as a home dog. We were on that as our free play the other night and now we fade my home state. Uconn beat Depaul 99-78 in the first meeting. They surely won't be short on confidence and with Georgetown up next I see Uconn slipping up here today. Depaul in the first match up was -14 FTA and -20 rebound margin. That's hard to fathom because Uconn's biggest weakness is rebounding. There is no way they'll lose the rebounding battle by that much. In fact Uconn is -6.1 rebound margin on the road and -6 FTA on the road. Look for Depaul to hang tough in this game as Uconn looks ahead to Georgetown.
