NCAA Tournament Picks & Predictions: UCLA vs VCU
Written March 17, 2009 by Jason Lowry
This Thursday the No.6 seeded UCLA Bruins will begin their run at a 4th straight trip to the Final Four when they take on the No.11 seeded VCU Rams in first round action out of Philadelphia. The Bruins got in with an at-large bid, while the Rams earned their way into the tournament by winning the Colonial Athletic Conference Tournament. This will be no easy out for the higher seeded Bruins, as the Rams matchup well in this one. Here is a closer look at each team, and my prediction on the game.
No.6 UCLA Bruins -7 ATS at Bookmaker.com. The Bruins have a big question mark surrounding them in this one, and that is if senior guard Darren Collison will be healthy enough to lead this team to another deep run. Collison not only leads the team scoring 14.5 points per game, but is the main distributor with nearly 5 assists per game. In the Pac 10 tournament the Bruins shot just 27% from the floor in their semifinal loss to USC, and Collison was just 1-9 with only 4 points. The Bruins can be a scary team if Collison is healthy and they are hitting the open jumper. Besides Collison the Bruins will need a strong performance from fellow senior guard Josh Shipp, who comes in right behind Collison with 14.4 points per game.
No.11 VCU Rams +7 ATS at Bookmaker.com. Its hard telling what to expect from the Rams, as they don’t have any convincing non-conference wins, but this is a conference that has had some success in the NCAA tournament, including a couple years back when they upset No.6 seeded Duke and then took No.3 seeded Pittsburgh to overtime before losing in the 2nd round. A big reason for the Ram’s success that year was Eric Maynor, who was just a sophomore. Maynor now a senior comes in averaging 22.4 points and 6.2 points per game, and is the main hope for the Rams making another upset run in the NCAA Tournament. Maynor can really score the basketball, as he scored 25 points or more 14 times this season, and when he plays good everything just seems to fall in place for this team.
My Prediction: UCLA -7. This will not be an easy win for the Bruins, but I just don’t feel that Maynor can carry this team all on his own.The Bruins have a top of the line coach in Ben Howland, and who can argue with the success this team has had the last 3 years in the tournament. I look for the game to be close in the first half, but I see the Bruins winning easily by 10 points when it is all said and done.
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2 Responses to “NCAA Tournament Picks & Predictions: UCLA vs VCU”
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Glad you picked the Bruins, but you may want to fix your article — they have been tho the last THREE Final Fours. This would be their FOURTH.
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Jack Jones Reply:
March 18th, 2009 at 8:54 am
Larry,
Thanks for the catch! We’ve made the necessary updates!
- Jack
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