ASA – Sports Handicapper

ASA WNBA play on Atlanta Dream -13.5 vs. Chicago Sky – 7pm ET - It’s become clear that the WNBA players/teams that have been eliminated have quit on the season. We can’t blame them with the horrible schedule they’ve just gone through. They had the long break for the FIBA games and now have to come back and finish the regular season. The players that are out of the playoffs are clearly checked out. The Sky clearly fall into that category as evidenced by their 80-110 showing against the Mystics on Thursday night. Chicago has lost 4 straight games, 3 of which were by double-digits. In the game against the Mystics the Sky shot 44% overall but just 20% from deep. A sure sign of them quitting came on the defensive end of the court as they allowed the Mystics to shoot 55% overall and 43% from beyond the arc. Washington also outrebounded them by +13. As much as this is a play against the Sky, it’s also a bet on the Dream. Atlanta is in a heated situation with the Fever as they battle for the #4 seed and home court in the first round of the playoffs. The Dream need to keep pace after Indiana won last night. Atlanta destroyed a similar team to the Sky the other night when they beat the Sun 103-59. Bee-otch Angel Reese will show no mercy against her former teammates and we expect the Dream to win by 15+ points. Atlanta has won 7 straight in the series.

#951 ASA PLAY ON Philadelphia Phillies +110 over New York Mets, Saturday at 4:15 PM ET - The Phillies lost yesterday's game 6-3 and they are on a perfect 6-0 run when they are off a loss in which they allowed 4 or more runs in 9 innings (in other words, not including extra innings). The Phillies, prior to yesterday's loss, have been hot and they were on a 21-10 run prior to the 6-3 defeat. While the Phillies are hot, the Mets had been cold with losses in 5 straight and 6 of their last 7 prior to yesterday's New York win. We like this matchup regardless of the starting pitchers here but we definitely are getting some extra line value here because even though Andrew Painter has overall unimpressive numbers on the season, the Phillies young right-hander has been in strong current form. Painter has been solid since late July when he was called back up again from AAA Lehigh Valley. Painter has been strong in 7 of his 9 starts since his return. In those 7 outings he allowed just 10 earned runs on only 23 hits in 40 and 1/3 innings of work. He faces a Mets team that has been struggling to score runs and has managed just 1.5 runs (not including extra innings runs) per game in the 6 losses they have in their last 8 games. Christian Scott starts for the Mets here and he has been a positive in an otherwise dismal year for this organization. However he does seem to be fading. He had a 6.04 ERA last month and he is coming off a start in which he allowed 2 homers and this followed his first September start seeing him allow 2 earned runs in less than 5 innings. We fully expect that Philadelphia bounces back and notches another road win here. Grab the Phillies in this one for Saturday afternoon.

English Premier League #200173/200174 ASA PLAY ON Over 3 Goals (+100) – Hull City at Newcastle United, Saturday at 10 am et - Newcastle is looking to respond off a 4-1 shellacking at Leeds United and they are back home where they have scored multiple goals in all 3 matches (2 in EPL, 1 in EFL Cup) since the new season got underway. The issue for Newcaste has been a permeable backline and Hull City has been a surprise this season and they remain unbeaten. Hull is off of a 2-2 draw at Chelsea and we expect the goals to fly again here. Newcastle United off the 4-1 loss plus they are now at home where each of their 3 matches have totaled at least 4 goals. This one should get to 4+ as well and we love the added value of the over 3 goals available with little to no juice on the OVER!

#209 ASA PLAY ON James Madison +1.5 over San Diego State, Saturday at 10 PM ET - We’re siding with the better team getting points in this one. The only downside for JMU in this game is the long travel to the west coast. If they can overcome that, we have no doubt they’ll win this game outright. They already have wins over Liberty and Wagner giving JMU a 37-8 SU record over their last 44 games. This is simply a winning program and made the College FB Playoffs last year. They did lose their head coach (Chesney) to UCLA, however the same thing happened to the Dukes a few years ago with Cignetti leaving for Indiana and they didn’t miss a beat. Chesney actually could be a key contact for James Madison this week as his team UCLA played San Diego State last week and rolled up an easy 28-10 win with a +2.1 YPP margin. He should be able to give Billy Napier (former Florida HC and now JMU head man) and staff (some of whom were on Chesney’s staff last year) a solid look on how to approach this San Diego State team. The Aztecs have a win over FCS Portland State (who is 0-3 on the season) and a loss vs UCLA. They only outgained Portland State by 20 yards but were a bit fortunate to score 53 points on only 395 total yards (SDSU had a 100 yard kickoff return). Offensively the Aztecs put up 6.2 YPP on Portland State which may look good until you see that PSU just allowed over 10 YPP in a blowout loss to FCS North Dakota last weekend. James Madison loves to run the ball and they are very good at it. They rank 9th in the country in rushing success rates thus far while San Diego State’s defense ranks 130th in defensive rush success rate. They gave up 214 yards rushing to UCLA last week and we expect the Dukes to top 200 on the ground this week. JMU QB Evans was banged up in the first game and didn’t play last week. He’s questionable but his back up Coleman is very experienced (3,500 career passing yards and 27 TD’s) and played well last week in their 83-7 win over Wagner. Since the start of the 2023 season, the Dukes are 4-1 as a dog and they are 10-5 in that role since 2010. We like them to win this game outright.

#193 ASA PLAY ON New Mexico +21.5 over Oklahoma, Saturday at 7:30 PM ET - Dangerous spot for Oklahoma vs this feisty New Mexico team. The Sooners had a huge game last week @ Michigan and lost 17-10 with only 290 yards of total offense. The Sooners have a game on deck next week with Georgia so this is the ultimate sandwich spot. We have concerns about the OU offense who struggled last week and wasn’t nearly as good as the final score indicated in week 1. They beat a bad UTEP team 51-0 but only had 400 total yards but benefitted from a number of short scoring drives and an 88 yard punt return. The CFB average is about 1 point for every 15 yards and at 400 total yards that would equate to 26 points so you can see how fortunate they were. The Sooners are not playing a pushover on Saturday at New Mexico has turned into a solid program under head coach Jason Eck. He took over a Lobo program last year and led them to a 9-4 record. This is a New Mexico program that had not had a winning season since 2016. They are 2-0 this season outscoring their first 2 opponents 108-14 and they’ve rushed for an average of 246 YPG and rank in the top 30 nationally in rushing success rate. The Lobos slow the game down with that rushing attack ranking 125th in seconds per play which eats clock. OU isn’t much faster ranking 83rd in plays per second so we don’t anticipate many possessions in this game. A low scoring game is expected with a total of 46.5 which will make it very tough for the Sooners to cover this big number unless New Mexico has absolutely zero success on offense. Eck has been great getting his teams ready for these “step up” type games. Last year they easily covered at Michigan and beat UCLA on the road. Even back to his day as the Idaho head coach he took the Vandals into Eugene in 2024 and lost by just 10. They went to Cal in 2023 and lost by 14. In 2022 Idaho went to Washington State and lost by 7 and lost at Indiana by 13 (all covers). Let’s take the big points here.

#145/146 ASA PLAY ON Under 49 Points - UTEP vs Michigan, Saturday at 3:30 PM ET - Michigan’s defense has been lights out and there is a chance that UTEP doesn’t score in this game. In fact, to open the season the Miners faced Oklahoma and were shut out 51-0. OU was lucky to get to 51 in that game as they only had 400 yards of total offense but also scored on a long punt return. If Michigan has a similar offensive output vs UTEP (400 total yards) they would score around 22 points based on their current scoring efficiency (1 point for every 18 yards). We expect the Wolverines to score more than 22 points, however their offense is clunky at best right now. They’ve scored 17 and 13 points in their 2 games thus far. They’ve been a heavy run team as their QB Underwood is not a great passer. They are top 30 nationally in percentage of rushing plays (rush rate) as is UTEP. Thus, we’ll get a lot of running the ball in this game which eats clock. Both teams are slow paced as well so we may not get many possessions (110th and 112th in seconds per play). The Michigan D has been very good allowing 12 and 10 points this year and UTEP is the worst offense they will have faced. The Miners defense allowed just 10 points last week vs Texas Southern who was averaging 28 PPG coming into that one. UTEP’s D also limited Oklahoma’s yardage despite the final score (as we mentioned above). Possible rain in the forecast in Ann Arbor on Saturday won’t help the scoring here. Michigan has a huge game on deck vs Iowa so we anticipate them building a lead and then bleed the clock. Let’s go UNDER.

#124 ASA PLAY ON Kansas State -20.5 over Tulane, Saturday at 12 PM ET - KSU should dominate in the trenches leading to a runaway win in this one. The Cats are 2-0 with 2 easy home wins over Nicholls State and Washington State by a combined score of 105-10. They’ve already rushed for over 600 yards including 295 on 7.4 YPC in last Saturday’s 34-7 win over Washington State. The Cougars were not match on the line of scrimmage for this KSU team despite playing very tough in week 1 vs Washington and allowing the Huskies only 134 yards rushing on 4.6 YPC. If they held the Huskies in check on the ground but were demolished by KSU, that gives us a good idea that the Wildcats running game is really good. Tulane has played 2 games this season (1-1 record) and allowed 250 yards rushing vs Duke and 182 yards on the ground vs South Alabama. That alone tells us they might be in big trouble here. On top of that, the Green Wave defense has been on the field for 37 & 38 minutes in those 2 games so while it’s early in the season, if KSU leans on them like we think they will, they may start wearing down in this game. Making this one even tougher for the Tulane D is Kansas State QB Johnson who is a dual threat signal caller. He has completed 67% of his passes this season and run for over 100 yards on just 12 carries. While the Wildcats have dominated their 2 opponents on the scoreboard and in the stat sheet, Tulane has not and could easily be 0-2. In their week 1 loss vs Duke, the Wave were outgained by 120 yards and outrushed by 200 yards. Last week Tulane faced South Alabama at home and needed a late TD with just over 1:00 minute remaining to get that 28-24 win. They were outgained by 100 yards in that win. Their QB transfer from Ball State (Semonza) is average at best so they rely on their RB Lucas to carry much of the offense. The problem is, the KSU defense has allowed less than 200 total yards rushing in 2 games and they’ve given up just 0 TDs this season (only TD allowed was a defensive score by Washington State). Tulane had a huge overhaul in the offseason losing most of their key players. They entered the season ranking 117th in returning production and are still trying to figure it out early in the season. KSU rolls to an easy win at home.