Cashing In

Your "Bad Beat" for Sunday is on:

Mississippi State (moneyline, plus 280) vs. Kentucky.

A total consolation prize to any Temple backers as the Owls missed a free throw with .5 remaining to win by four and the number was anywhere from 4 to 4 1/2.

Now to the real "Bad Beat" of the day. If you saw how this SEC championship game finished you realized how incredible of an ending it was.

The Bulldogs lost earlier in the season in overtime to John Calipari's Wildcats. Today Miss. State needed some revenge and a victory to assure themselves of a trip to the NCAA Tournament. A good showing may have put them in as well but nothing was at all set in stone, nothing.

Miss State was the 7 point underdog yet led most of the game. With 1:04 to go it was 62-59 Bulldogs and Jarvis Varnado on the foul line. The big fella is a quality free throw shooter but missed both to keep it a one possession game. Fast forward to 4.5 seconds remaining and Eric Bledsoe on the line with his 'Cats trailing 64-61. The Kentucky freshman made the first to get within two and intentionally missed the second.

Kentucky got the rebound as John Wall fired into the lane, probably illegally according to the rule, but it wasn't called. Wall then missed a long jumper, possibly a potential game winning three but Demarcus Cousins gathered in the rebound and put in the layup with literally .1 on the clock. The refs checked the replays and by a inch or two the ball was out of the hand and we were heading to overtime.

In the extra session Kentucky looked like the better team and pulled this thing out 75-74. A few hours later Miss. State was NOT selected by the NCAA Tournament Committe and their Big Dance ticket was not punched due to a possible rule violation not called on Wall and .1 seconds overall.

Oh and one more Bad Beat nugget. Riley Benock nailed a three for State as time expired in overtime to lose by one. That "meaningless" three covered the 6 1/2 point second half line and the two point overtime line for the Bulldogs.



Your winner for Monday is on:

3* Pistons (plus 9 1/2) at Boston.

A solid winning 1-1 Sunday as the huge 5* on Georgia Tech came through in the plus 3* day!



What a great weekend of college hoops. Nothing from there today as the slate is small in this calm before the storm beginning on Thursday so I'll just make one play and one play only.

The Pistons plus the points is the way to go today. Detroit is terrible for sure but Boston is not exactly playing great ball themselves. Doc Rivers' squad has struggled this season and especially of late. They no longer look like a great team as they are starting to really look more like an aging team.

Boston just lost yesterday in Cleveland and playing on a back-to-back is never easy. Sure Pierce, Garnett, Rondo and Allen have a high ceiling and could outclass a bad Detroit team in the end but I still think that these Pistons have something in the tank and will be primed and ready to go in the Boston Garden.

Rip Hamilton can score and a few others including Tayshaun Prince are alright and have been there and done that. These guys are going to miss the playoffs and the franchise is certainly declinging quickly but in this one game spot after being off yesterday the visitors are a semi must play.

It's just too many points as I expect this game to be fairly tight in the end. Boston to me has become the professional version of Duke as they're just not that good yet because of their name are a bit overvalued.