I love LSU here today as they played right with Kentucky in the SEC tournament teams which not many teams can claim having a lead on this year. LSU comes from a significantly stronger conference and Trent Johnson their head coach knows Oregon considering he coached at Stanford.
LSU has to be thirlled to be going to a post tournament conference for hte first time since 2009. They have struggled on the road, but I think their motto of defense and rebounding will result in good results. These teams are more even than many think and Vegas agreed once upon a time as well. LSU and Oregon have two common opponents. Both teams played home against Virginia and were 2.5 point under dogs. LSU was closer at winning losing by only 5. They also both played at Vanderbilt. Both had 15 and 14 point losses, but LSU was 11 point dogs to Oregon being 13.5 point dog. Vanderbilt had a hot shooting day, go figure but still lost by 14. They were -12 in turnover margin. IN the two games combined it's evident LSU to me is the better team and should be right in this game. I like the fact that they own the better defense.
Talking about defense Oregon is 185th in 2 point defense and LSU will shoot 73% of their shots from inside the arch. On the flip side LSU is 93rd in 2point defense giving them a significant edge in this game. It won't be easy scoring against an SEC team that has a strength of schedule of 53 compared to 93 of Oregon. LSU is 8-3 ATS in their last 11 non-conference games while Oregon is 0-5 ATS.
