NIT Expert Pick: Jacksonville Dolphins vs Arizona State Sun Devils

Jacksonville won the regular season title in the Atlantic Sun Conference, a league that includes the likes of Belmont, Lipscomb, Florida Gulf Coast, Kennesaw State and Campbell. You get the drift. In the semis of the conference tournament they lost on Mercer's home court, but they knew they would have the NIT to fall back on. Not that it gives them any more of a chance to play longer.

Arizona State Sun Devils (22-10 SU, 12-16 ATS)
NIT Opening Round
Tuesday, March 16 - 11 PM ET

NIT Betting Spreads: ARIZONA STATE -15

Here are some of the NCAA college basketball spread trends as they relate to this matchup:

• JAX has won six of its last eight games SU
• JAX has won eight of its last 11 road games SU
• ASU has covered three of its last nine games
• ASU has won six of its last eight games SU
• ASU has played six of its last nine games UNDER the total
• ASU has covered one of its last five home games
• ASU has won five of its last six home games SU

Obviously these are not old days, when Jacksonville was a national power. Actually, that was at one relatively brief juncture in history, when Artis Gilmore led a front line that had two seven footers (the other being Pembroke Burrows III, by the way) and went all the way to the 1970 NCAA title game, where they were beaten by UCLA.

This year's Jacksonville team does not depend on size, but instead on quickness and defense. In the last eight games, no one has reached 70 points on them, and overall they have made more than eight steals a game. They want to press the ball and force Arizona State out of its controlled, deliberate pace, but they need to trap the ball in the backcourt to make that happen.

Fundamentally, this is tough. ASU only turned the ball over 12 times a game, and the Sun Devils are probably not consistent enough from the field (only 42%) to take advantage of the kind of defenses employed by Herb Sendek, who can junk up an offense. The Dolphins are a little too reliant on one principal scorer (Ben Smith, at 19.6 ppg) and need to take better care of the ball than they showed (14.5 TO's/game). This was not a team that performed particularly well against upper-level opponents, losing by 26 to Florida State, 32 to California and 18 to Florida. The Sun Devils have probably had enough time to cool out from last Thursday's 70-61 upset loss to Stanford in the Pac-10 tourney.

This is a long way for a team to travel and expect to pull off an upset. If Sendek's scheme figures a way to stymie Smith, the whole thing gets that much easier for ASU. We're betting that's going to happen. Even though Arizona State is not, by nature, explosive on offense, we're betting they can turn defense into "O" here and strange Jacksonville's attack. We will lay the points with ASU, the 15-point favorite.

JAY'S PLAY: ARIZONA STATE -15 ***

(Graded on a scale of 1-4 stars)