Gross Bombs: NFL Props for Week 16
Josh Gross
The 2022-23 college basketball season is in midseason form, and we get some exciting matchups in the middle of conference play. Below is my favorite bet for Saturday’s slate.
Auburn vs. Alabama
(Line: Alabama -2.5, DraftKings Sportsbook)
Neville Arena is going to be absolute bananas as undefeated-in-SEC-play Alabama travels to Auburn. Nate Oats and his analytics-based coaching style has done an outstanding job with the Tide this season, playing at the fastest pace in the country and defending at the sixth-best efficiency nationally. You know what you get when going up against the Tide this year — they want to either shoot a ton of threes or get to the rim, completely ignoring the mid-range. Defensively they play a super-low drop coverage against the pick-and-roll, encouraging a lot of mid-range play and walling up the paint.
Auburn has been struggling a bit after their 6-1 start in the SEC, losers of four of their last five, which offers a buy-low opportunity here. The story with the Tigers is always their inconsistent guard play. Shot selection is always questionable, especially from three (345th nationally in 3pt FG%), and they tend to turn the ball over at a high rate. Matchup wise, this does seem like the spot where the Auburn guards of Wendell Green, Allen Flanigan and KD Johnson could have success as Bama’s drop coverage will allow them to work in the mid-range and make some plays, rather than leaving them in isolation taking poor quality shots from beyond the arc. Bruce Pearl is going to have no problem running with the fast-paced Tide and the Tigers do tend to play better in a more chaotic game environment. Their guards always just seem to feed off the crowd energy, which should be absolutely maxed today. Auburn is elite at defending the three-point line (fourth nationally in 3pt FG% defense) and can take away some of the things Alabama wants to do. Where Auburn struggles is in taking contested three pointers, turnovers and defensive rebounding, all of which aren’t strengths of this Alabama team. I’ve seen the students camping out on Auburn’s campus for this one, and I love the bounceback spot for the Tigers to hand Bama its first conference loss.
The Pick
Auburn +2.5
