USC vs. Washington St. - Easy Side and Total?

[llabb]

We all know that after it's east first two gimmes, USC has actually struggled more than people expected. Still a fantastic team obviously, just not blowing others away, as expected. But the line is still being set quite high.

Last 4 games:
Only won by 10 against an easy Arizona State team
Only won by 21 against a very easy Arizona team
Barely won by 3 in a crazy Notre Dame game
Finally won by 27 against a really, really easy Washington team

This week, they face Washington St, who is much better than Washington or Arizona. 2 more wins than either of those teams, and very tight games against UCLA, Stanford, and Cal.

The spread? A whopping -30 for USC. I am very much thinking about taking +30 for Washington here. SC has not covered that in their last 5 games, even against easier opponents.

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Now, for the total. SC's totals record: 80, 87, 58, 66, 63, 65, 75.
Wash St.'s totals record: 64, 76, 55, 77, 45, 85, 80

The total is high at 70.5, but with neither team playing defense, I still like the Over.

[llabb]

Hmm, after writing that out and thinking about playing these separately, I started looking at a teaser for more confidence in a win.

Normally teasers are -EV, as many posts have discussed, but same game teasers can occasionally be +EV, due to the correlation of the outcomes.

I feel that this is the case here. If Wash St. covers, it will likely be due to both teams scoring a lot, thus SC not able to completely blow them out. Hence, the Over should correlate with Wash St.

A 6 pt teaser on Pinnacle offers Wash St. +36 and Over 64.5 at +105. At those lines, I would estimate Wash St to cover 80% and the Over at 75%, which yields a win 60% of the time. Obviously +EV. In fact, it is +EV all the way down to 70% by 70%, which should be very easy targets at these pointspreads. You can buy more pts on the teaser up to 7.5 pts at -120, but I feel that is quite -EV.

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Do you feel that it's a better play to take them separately, or take the teaser?

[eggzz]

Here are my preliminary thoughts on this game and line.

First off, I don't think it would be smart to consider teasing a game with such a high point spread. I mean, there is a real big difference between +2 and +8, but come on, to me there is a very negligible difference between 30 and 36 points if you are comparing the two. If anything, I would tease the over on this game, but not the side.

As far as the line of +30 I would be careful of the "underachieving" Trojans --strictly in the sense of ATS--

Not only have they been playing flat in many of their games, they just got jumped in the BCS standings. I think this goes a LONG way in providing them with much needed incentive to finally kick someone's ass by 40+ points, and you may just get that this week. Finally people may be seeing that they just can't blow teams out and cover a big number, they fall to number 2 in the BCS and they are two time National Champs! Wow, seems like I would be a little pissed if I were a Trojan and would be looking to whip some ass this week.

In fact, I may just bet on it happening! Good luck.

[MyTurn2Raise]

If i had to pick this game, I'd agree with Washington St +30...teaser usually does not add much for spreads this big.

My fear, and the reason I'm not really pushing this, is when will the Cougs quit on the year? They've had many tough breaks, some self-inflicted. They've had demoralizing loses. I don't like their mental standpoint going into this one.

[llabb]

If you're worried about another Washington St. meltdown, what about a first half line of Wash St +17?

They were up 30-16 on Oregon St. at halftime.
They were tied 7-7 with Stanford at halftime.
They were up 28-14 on UCLA at halftime.
They were down 10-28 to Cal at halftime (up 32-28 in the 3rd).

Most of Wash St.'s problems have been in the 4th quarter. Meanwhile, USC's first half issues are as follows:

They were down 10-13 against Oregon at halftime.
They were down 3-21 against Arizona St. at halftime.
They were up 14-7 against Arizona at halftime.
They were down 14-21 against Notre Dame at halftime.
They were up 37-17 against Washington at halftime.

Hmm...Wash St. 1st half play is starting to look even better than the +30 full game play to me. Any thoughts?

[MyTurn2Raise]

I like this more....I'm not necessarily against the other pick...I just think very little is easy in this racket.