Free Pick | NCAA Basketball | Dec. 16

The BOWL season kicks off Friday – check out a BOWL 2/3 for Nelly’s as we have three picks for Friday/Saturday looking to build on a 15-7 record the past two Bowl seasons!

We also won again in college basketball last night, now 25-13 on the season with five straight winning weeks!

Free Pick Friday: #884 Marquette -3.5 over Creighton 7:30 PM CT

Marquette’s 8-3 start has only quality losses with defeats to Purdue, Mississippi State, and Wisconsin, all by five or fewer points. The Golden Eagles only have one home loss and that was the overtime defeat the Badgers in early December. Marquette has a home win over Baylor and has posted elite offensive numbers for Shaka Smart with a 61 percent field goal rate on 2-point shots. Marquette has excellent turnover numbers on both sides of the ball and should be a threat to add to the losing streak for Creighton. The Blue Jays received a lot of attention this offseason, climbing to an unreasonable ranking in the preseason polls. A 6-0 start with wins over Texas Tech and Arkansas seemed to justify the hype but the Blue Jays have not lost five straight. Competitive losses to Arizona and Texas were forgivable but Creighton has now also lost to Nebraska, BYU, and Arizona state. This will be the seventh away game for Creighton in the past eight games as the schedule has been taxing and Creighton has been playing without Ryan Kalkbrenner who normally can pose a significant matchup problem for any opponent. The bigger issue is that Arthur Kaluma and Ryan Nembhard aren’t shooting well, hitting 32 percent and 29 percent respectively from 3-point range despite being the primary shot-takers for the Blue Jays. Marquette could have some inconsistency with limited experience but the problem spots on the schedule are likely to come on the road. SO far this group has taken great care of the ball as the host could have a turnover edge in this pairing and Creighton isn’t shooting well enough from 3-point range to take advantage of the possible weakness on the perimeter defensively for Marquette.