Basketball Preview: Purdue vs. Lamar - December 4th - 6:30 pm - BTN

I'm pulling double duty tonight, so make sure you didn't miss the Xavier recap.  In it, you'll see why I expect DJ Byrd to shoot well against the Lamar Cardinals.

Meanwhile, tomorrow's game's an early one, so make sure to get home from work a little earlier.  It shouldn't be much of a contest though, so I suggest grabbing some beers or hard cider, watching the game, hanging some ornaments, and enjoying a nice cozy December evening.  If you're going to the game?  Pat Knight is the coach for Lamar, so get there early to give Bobby Knight's offspring a little extra ribbing...

Do you know how tough it is to find a picture related to Lamar that doesn't include these two fools?

Why Purdue Will Win -  Lamar has played an impressive schedule for a such an unknown school, already playing at Kansas State, Charlotte, Virginia, and Alabama.  I'm sure this has something to do with their fairly well-known coach.  Unfortunately for Lamar, the closest they came in those games was a 19-point loss to Virginia. Byrd could go 0-30 from the three point line...this one's still not going to be in doubt with 10 minutes to go.

Why Lamar Will Win - It's tough to imagine this scenario playing out, but the Cardinals do have a promising freshman in Rhon Mitchell who's leading the team in points and second on the team in rebounds.  While he doesn't take a ton of outside shots, if he can catch fire early and force the Boilers from packing the paint, Lamar might have a chance.  Their lone win was against IUPUI, who beat Utah Valley, who beat Pepperdine, who beat Washington State...so they're only 4 degrees of separation from a win against a BCS-conference school.  That's all I got.

One thing you absolutely need to know before the game -  I thought a small school from Beaumont, Texas was a strange opponent in the middle of December, but according to the Indy Star, Matt Painter and Pat Knight met when they were 9-years-old and became good friends in high school.  They've been trying to schedule a game against each other for years, so I'd have to imagine this won't be the last time you see Lamar on the schedule.

Also, Knight got kicked out of a game last week for arguing with the officials.  It might have been staged, though, as I'm pretty sure this is the only way Lamar gets into USA Today.

Our Picks - We like to think we're better than Vegas.  So throughout the season, we'll be "betting" a whole dollar amount versus the spread between $1 and $32, but we can't repeat the same value twice. Lamar is such a small team that they apparently aren't taking bets on this game.  So, we'll default to our backup plan: CBS Sportsline's Computer Projections.  I decided on this before looking at the projections and might get some grief from Kirk since they appear surprisingly close.  But I guess that's why they play the game: Purdue -11.


Erik's Bet: $31
Erik's Pick: Purdue 76 - Lamar 49

Kirk's Bet: $23
Kirk's Pick: Purdue 74 - Lamar 54

Standings
Erik +$143 (currently 8-1 against the spread on the season)
Kirk -$154 (currently 2-7 against the spread on the season)

Values already bet
Erik 6, 11, 12, 13, 14, 25, 26, 30, 31, 32
Kirk 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32

Boiler up!

Tweet