I really like Northern Iowa here today. While I love Kansas to get to the finals in my brackets I feel this is the one mid major that could shock them. Norther Iowa comes with experience, good defense, good guard play and a 7 footer to boot. All key ingredients in upsetting teams. This is a team that returned all 5 starters that got to the tournament a year ago. This year they won a game and I think they'll give Kansas all they can have today.
Northern Iowa gets it done with their man to man defense which has the 2nd ranked scoring defense in the nation. It's that stat that makes this line much to high in my opinion. Northern Iowa will score enough points as they have multiple players that can score 20+. This is a team that has held opponents scoreless for long periods of time including Wichita State in the MVC Championship game.
Kansas comes off a game against Lehigh where they gave up 74 points but scored 90. They let Lehigh hang around for a good portion of that game. The total went over and Kansas lost ATS. Since 2000 when that happens in the post season and a team is the favorite by 10-13.5 points in the next game they are 7-22 ATS with a margin of victory of 6.7pts. That's a win% ATS for the opponent of 76% since 2000. Norther Iowa was the favorite their last 4 games and now playing a non-conference team as a dog 10-13.5 points fall into a 15-5-1 ATS since 2000 when a team falls into this situation after 90 days into the season. Norther Iowa only lost 4 games this year and there is a reason they are a solid team. I predict a loss for them by 5-8 points.
