Cappers Sports Picks

This is a play on the NEW YORK KNICKS for our NBA Tuesday Enforcer. The Knicks got back to over .500 at 8-7 following a pair of wins over Utah and Denver in mid-November but has lost four of its last five games to fall to 9-11. The losses were all against teams from the Western Conference that possess winning record and with three of those ranked in the top ten in the Sagarin ratings. This is a get right game with this already being the third meeting after the Knicks won the first two by 24 and nine points and this is the first meeting on the road where they are a respectable 5-6 on the season. Those six road losses have all come against teams that are No. 11 or better in the ratings and overall, New York is 7-2 against teams ranked outside the top 16. Detroit has gotten off to an expectedly bad start at 5-17 which is the worst record in the NBA but the Pistons have been cashing for backers as they are on a 6-1-1 ATS run but that means little here except for the value that comes with it on the other side. This is the smallest line Detroit has seen over this stretch and five of those games they were getting double digits, covering all of those. Detroit has been better at home than on the road with a 3-6 record with the only notable win coming against Golden St. which is 2-9 on the highway. Here, we play against home underdogs of 3.5 to 9.5 points with a winning percentage of .250 or less having covered six or seven of their last eight games against the spread. This situation is 48-21 ATS (69.6 percent) since 1996. 10* (521) New York Knicks

This is a play on the WICHITA ST. SHOCKERS as part of our CBB Tuesday Three-Pack. Missouri is coming off a 12-21 season and head coach Cuonzo Martin was shown the door in what was expected an overhaul but not to that extent. Dennis Gates was hired was hired as the new head coach, coming over from Cleveland St. where he turned around a program going nowhere leading the Vikings Horizon League regular-season and tournament titles, and earned an NCAA tournament bid. Now things get tough as he got a team that lost 69 percent of its minutes and 67 percent of its scoring. Off to a 7-0 start, the Tigers look to be already exceeding expectations but it is not as strong of a start as it looks. All seven games have come at home with the best team they have played is probably Pennsylvania and in those games, they have been favored by at least 12 points. Out of 363 Division I teams, Missouri has played the No. 363 ranked schedule in the country so now comes the first real test and outside of Columbia. Wichita St. is 4-2 which includes a solid road win at Richmond and a close neutral court loss against a very good San Francisco team. Seven players transferred out in what was a mass exodus after the first sub-.500 conference finish in over a decade for the program but the chemistry has been there early on the defensive side of things where it is ranked No. 30 in scoring defense and No. 13 in shooting percentage defense. The offense is led by a strong backcourt duo of Craig Porter, Jr. and Jaykwon Walton who are averaging 27.0 ppg, 5.1 apg and 12.7 rpg. This is a tough place to play to begin with let alone the first time out for Missouri. 10* (624) Wichita St. Shockers

This is a play on the SOUTH FLORIDA BULLS as part of our CBB Tuesday Three-Pack. South Florida opened the season 0-5 but if there ever is a positive start with five losses, this was it. Three of those losses were by six combined points and another came at No. 15 Auburn by just eight points. The Bulls have responded with two straight wins and can carry that into this second game of a three-game homestand. With three impact transfers in Tyler Harris (Memphis) Keyshawn Bryant (South Carolina) Selton Miguel (Kansas State), early chemistry would be an issue and that was the case with the rough start but it takes time to gel and the feeling is that they are almost there. After laboring through an 8-23 season that featured 25.2 percent shooting from three-point range, worst in the country and 57.5 ppg, there has been an uptick on offense. Massachusetts is 4-1 to start the season including a solid run in winning the Myrtle Beach Invitational with victories over Colorado, Murray St. and Charlotte all by six points or less. The coaching of Frank Martin who is in his first season already looks to be paying off in crunch time but now the Minutemen hit the highway for their first true road game of the season. They have had eight days off since their last game which can hurt the momentum from their winning streak and we figure they are the false favorite. Here, we play against teams where the line is +3 to -3 after two straight wins by six points or less going up against an opponent after scoring 75 points or more in two straight games. This situation is 44-17 ATS (72.1 percent) over the last five seasons. 10* (612) South Florida Bulls

This is a play on the LOUISVILLE CARDINALS as part of our CBB Tuesday Three-Pack. Maryland and Louisville meet in one of the six ACC/Big Ten Challenge games on Tuesday and it matches two teams that have gotten off to completely opposite starts. The Louisville start has been well documented as it is 0-6 under new head coach Kenny Payne and it heads back home following a 0-3 showing in the Maui Invitational where it lost those games by a combined 77 points. Prior to the trip out to Hawaii, Louisville became the first team since 1980-81 to lose their first three games of the season by one point and the Cardinals 0-3 start at home was the first time since 1940-41 that have accomplished this dubious feat of opening the season with three consecutive home losses. We are backing the Cardinals here as they are better than this and are getting value based on not just the straight up mark but the fact they are 0-6 against the number as well. The Terrapins are off to a 6-0 start and jumped into the AP Poll at No. 23 this week and while they have a good pair of wins over St. Louis and Miami on a neutral floor, they have played no one else as they were favored by 17 or more points in those other four games. This is the first true road game for Maryland which is another reason for going against them and despite laying double digits on the road, the public will be all over a 6-0 team facing a 0-6 team. The Terrapins were not on the radar coming into the season as they were picked to finish No. 10 in the 14-team Big Ten so while the 6-0 start is nice, it is against a schedule ranked No. 298 so we are far from sold on this team just yet. 10* (604) Louisville Cardinals