St, Mary's Gaels vs. Baylor Bears (-4) Point Spread Picks

In a South Region 3rd round match up on Friday night the 3rd seed Baylor Bears face the 10th seed St. Mary's Gaels. St. Mary's one of a few high seed Cinderella teams in the Sweet 16 and they are playing with a ton of confidence and beat 2nd seed Villanova in the last round. Baylor has been flying under the radar all season, but they won their first game in the Big Dance in 60 years with their opening round win and are the favorites in this game.

This season St. Mary's is 22-10 ATS and Baylor is 17-10 ATS.

In their 2nd round wins St. Mary's beat Villanova 75-68 and Baylor used a late 8-1 run to beat Old Dominion 76-68.

St. Mary's has 2 guards averaging in double figures and a dominant center in Omar Samhan (21.5 ppg 10.9 rpg). Samhan has drastically improved his NBA draft stock in this tournament, as he has been on fire in the Gaels 2 wins. In the opening win over Richmond he went for 29 points and 12 boards and in the 2nd round win over Villanova he had 32 points and 7 boards.

Baylor is led by the backcourt duo of LaceDarius Dunn (19.4 ppg) and Tweety Carter (15.1 ppg). The key for Baylor in this game may be the play, especially on defense, of F/C Ekpe Udoh (13.9 ppg 9.7 rpg) and 7' C Josh Lomers (6.7 ppg 3.7 rpg). These guys will have to team up on Samhan and now allow the 6'11 C to score easy buckets in the paint.

In the win over Villanova the Gaels played great on both ends of the court, as they shot 50% from the floor and held Nova to only 36.2% shooting.

Samhan played much of the 2nd half in their first round game in foul trouble and he has to stay out of foul trouble and stay on the court for the Gaels to win this game.

St. Mary's is not a deep team, as in their win over Villanova the reserves only scored a grand total of 4 points.

Baylor also shot well in their 2nd round win with a FG% of 51.9% and they hit on 8/20 of their 3-pointers.

Each team can drain the 3, but it may be more important for St. Mary's to hit the long ball, as if they can't hit their outside J then the Bears will pack the lane in order to contain Samhan. Guards Matthew Dellavedova and Mickey McConnell were a combined 5/11 from deep in the win over Villanova and they will have to shoot well again in this game.

St. Mary's is 5-2 ATS in their last 7 games as an underdog and has an Under record of 9-3 in their last 12 games and Baylor is 7-1 ATS in their last 8 non-conference games and has an Over record of 5-1 in their last 6 games.

Game Prediction

Take St Mary's