Grab Points In 5 vs. 12 Battle

UAB vs. San Diego State, 1:50 ET

After a long day of college hoops we are back at it again for Friday's slate. Is there anything better than the NCAA Tournament? We get all the games streaming all day long, you can even see the scores in the upper corner as television stations put aside a bit of competition for the sake of people bouncing between the closer games. I absolutely love it and enjoy watching games all day while working. There is nothing quite like the tournament and the first two days are some of my favorites. Today, I'm going to focus in on a game between UAB and San Diego State. 

You probably have read about how a #12 seed will beat a #5 seed every year and that teams that travel from blah blah blah. I'm here to tell you that all of this is unimportant. Just because it has happened, or hasn't happened in the past, doesn't affect today. One piece of advice is that you need to take everything on the surface level and look just at what occurred this year and with these two teams. UAB comes into this game with a record of 23-11 and as winners of five straight games, winning the American Conference. In order to win, they had to beat Wichita State, South Florida, and Temple. They won each game by at least ten points. I wouldn't call the competition that UAB has faced this season as overly impressive. They've only played two ranked teams and are 2-1 in those games. They beat Florida Atlantic at home in an overtime game. They lost to them on the road as well. The other ranked opponent was Memphis, a game they won 97-88. Outside of those games, they played Maryland, an average ACC team, and won that game. UAB has a decent enough team, and they are led by Yaxel Lendeborg, a forward who is capable of putting up a double-double in each game. Outside of him, they have three guards who are their main scorers. Only one of them is a good shooter though. 

Can the Aztecs make a deep run in the tournament like last year's team? (Photo by Rob Carr/Getty Images)

From what I'm hearing, San Diego State has no chance to win this game. Last year they were underrated, maybe this year they are overrated? They come into this one with a 24-10 record and went 11-7 in the Mountain West Conference. After beating Utah State in the first game of their conference tournament, they fell to New Mexico. For comparison's sake, San Diego State was 3-0 in their games against ranked opponents as well. They beat Utah State in the tournament and once in the regular season. They also beat Gonzaga on the road fairly early in the season. I do think that the talent is better in the Mountain West than in the American Conference. In order to win this game they will need Jaedon LeDee to be the best player on the floor. He's been a very good scorer for the team with 21.1 points per game and grabbing 8.4 rebounds. He will need to outrebound Lendeborg to keep the Aztecs ahead in the possession battle. I would describe the San Diego State backcourt similarly to UAB, they have some scoring, but I wouldn't call them all very good shooters. That doesn't mean they can't get hot, but don't expect them to torch the nets. 

I don't think that UAB wins this game, but this should be somewhat close. I feel like San Diego State is the better team, but UAB isn't a great matchup for them. It really will come down to the scoring difference between LeDee and Lendeborg if you ask me and I don't think there will be eight points of difference between the two of them. Take UAB with the points in this one. 

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