Selections for Saturday's Elite Eight Matchups

We had a fantastic stretch of games on Thursday and Friday was good too. Now those teams from the Thursday slate square off against each other. We have a team that went to overtime and escaped, and another that hit a huge three with around 10 seconds left in the game. What more drama can we get today?

Florida Atlantic vs. Kansas State, 6:00 ET

Florida Atlantic did cost me some money the other day, and they may very well do it again tonight in this game. I still am not convinced this is a basketball team that can contend with some of the best teams in the country. Thus far, they've proved me wrong. They took down Tennessee with a really big second half, outscoring the Vols by 12 in the final 20 minutes. Now they have to take on a Kansas State team that played a thoroughly entertaining game against the Michigan State Spartans. How much do the Wildcats have left? I hope a lot. I am very intrigued by the play of Markquis Nowell and how he will match up with a tenacious backcourt of Florida Atlantic. Often times I like to fade a team after a rather emotional win. That's exactly what you got with Kansas State taking down Michigan State in the Sweet 16. The thing is that I think that Kansas State has the two best players in this game with Nowell and Keyontae Johnson. I am not sure that Florida Atlantic will be able to stop both of them and that might be necessary to pull out the victory. More importantly, I don't know that Kansas State can stop, well, really anyone right now. They certainly aren't built on their defense. This total is higher than I typically like for a game, but I'll play over 144.5 in this one.

UConn vs. Gonzaga, 8:45 ET

If you look at the two teams, one has coasted through the tournament and one has really struggled. Based on the performance of them this season, I would've thought that Gonzaga would coast up until this point, but that simply hasn't been the case to this point. Instead of them excelling, they struggled mightily against UCLA before putting together a huge run. Then with roughly a minute left, they allowed UCLA to go on a 10:1 run in the span of about 50 seconds. What the hell is happening with Gonzaga? Where is the consistency? They didn't even look great against TCU. I will mention this though, I made money on the Zags the other night, so I'm happy with them. However, I already mentioned I don't like the idea of taking a team that comes off of a big emotional win. Gonzaga was losing, fought back, was losing, hit a dagger, won the game. That is a lot for them to go through. As far as UConn, they've been playing very good basketball. I do expect this game to be a bit closer than the ones they've played thus far. Gonzaga is a better team than their previous opponents, but UConn is also clicking. I'm not getting in their way and am taking them -2.

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