The Picks

What do you know?

I talk about needing to get over that .500 record for the season and my Thursday picks come through with a bang!

Illinois got destroyed by Ralph Sampson III and Gonzaga managed to injure St. Mary's best player without even touching him!

Enough gloating, season record: 6-5

There are 15 games of Top 25 teams on Saturday. There are 17 teams playing.

Sunday features 4 games, but all ranked teams should win.

The biggest games of the day are: Notre Dame @ Pitt, and Georgetown @ Marquette

Both games feature Top 25 matchups, but both also feature teams (ND and G'Town) who are reeling and desperately need a win to keep up the pace. Georgetown is not even in the top 10 teams in the Big East now and both teams have lost 4 in a row. Both teams will be out of the Top 25 rankings next week if they don't get a win.

That said, both Notre Dame and G'Town are on the road against Top 10 opponents. In any conference it is extremely important to hold home court. Good teams hold their home court and snag W's on the road. Both Pittsburgh and Marquette are good teams and will hold home court. It doesn't look good for Irish or Hoya fans.

Other games that could be interesting:
-West Virginia travels to #7 Louisville, but the Pitino generic mascots get a win.
-Oklahoma visits Ames, Iowa for a good matchup with Blake Griffin and Craig Brackens, but OU has no trouble dispatching the Cyclones.
-Providence (6-2 in League play) visits #2 UConn (8-1 in League play). When the Huskies win, they will be the new #1 team in the nation. Atleast for one week anyway.
- North Carolina travels to play the Wolfpack of NC State, but walks out with an easy win.
- And my upset special of the week is Washington traveling to #14 Arizona State and walking away with a big Pac10 win.

7 games. The rest of the games over the weekend should be pieces of cake for the ranked teams and I don't think too many upsets happen this weekend. But that's why they play the games right?



Now, what you have all been waiting for. My final analysis and picks for Sunday's NFL game.

I gave you a breakdown of the games that both teams shared in common, and here's a summary:

Arizona had offense, NO defense, won the games that mattered and gave up tons of passing yards and not much rushing in their wins.
Pittsburgh's defense was awesome, they had NO offense, turnover margin was critical and just seemed to win a lot.

So what does that all mean?

Trends, people! Trends!

My pick to win Sunday's NFL game is the Arizona Cardinals. No, I'm not just talking about covering the 7 point spread that has held up over the last two weeks, I'm talking about winning the whole darn thing.

Everything in my soul is telling me that picking the Cardinals is appaling and absurd. I mean, John McCain is a Cardinals fan and that alone should make me think that Arizona will just give up sometime in the second half, allowing Kurt Warner to give a speech conceding defeat! Plus, the Cardinals owner looks so lifeless (the guy on the right) you wonder how this guy owns an NFL franchise.

The reason I am picking the Cardinals is the trends.

Pittsburgh has had no offensein the playoffs. Against Baltimore they scored a touchdown off of Joe Flacco's third interception and a touchdown off a pass the Big Ben hucked in the air as a prayer. Against, San Diego Willie Parker had a huge day and the offense did something good.

Arizona has won their playoff games by having a good offense (and by good offense I mean Larry Fitzgerald and Kurt Warner), winning the turnover battle with defense (+2 vs. Philly and Atlanta and +5 against Carolina) and holding all three good rushing teams to less than 100 yards rushing.

The trends that carried over from common opponents into the playoffs:
Pittsburgh had no offense and they just seemed to win.
Arizona had offense, won the games they needed to, and they didn't give up rushing yards.

The turnover battle will be key. Both teams had trends of winning the turnover battle in games they won.
I think that because Kurt Warner has been around long enough to realize that, he doesn't turn it over.
And because Roethlisberger has been banged up, Arizona will make him throw the ball (no running for fast Willie) and will get a turnover or two to capitalize on.

I will say 31-27 with the Steelers getting the ball back late and having a chance to drive for the win and not succeeding.



Before I finish this post I want everyone to know that if all of the things I just told you are actually correct, I will gloat for probably the rest of my entire life.

If not, there's still College basketball!

DDSF