Free Pick | NCAA | Thursday | March 19

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#716 Georgia -2 over Saint Louis 8:45 PM CT

Making sense of the large cluster of similarly rated teams in the SEC can be a challenge but Georgia deserves a lot of credit for a solid 10-8 SEC season that featuring several notable wins, even with a path that required being one of three teams that had to play Florida twice. Georgia did suffer a tough SEC Tournament loss to Ole Miss but won five of six to close the regular season including wins over Kentucky, Texas, and Alabama. The Bulldogs have elite offensive potential with impressive interior scoring while playing at fast pace. Georgia is a strong free throw shooting team that takes good care of the ball and was also one of the better offensive rebounding teams in the SEC. Georgia didn’t play a great non-conference schedule overall but went 3-1 S/U in top 100 non-conference games with the only loss coming in overtime. Saint Louis has been a great story but there are only three top 50 wins on the 28-5 resume, two of which came in conference play vs. VCU. Saint Louis lost the only power conference game it faced this season with a November loss to Stanford, while the best non-conference win over Santa Clara came by one point. This is a veteran team that stuck together for year two under Josh Schertz but the great shooting numbers on both sides of the ball may not translate to a neutral site setting in Buffalo vs. major conference talent. Turnovers could be a major problem area for Saint Louis in this matchup and Georgia will be very comfortable playing up-tempo with the Billikens. This is the first NCAA Tournament appearance for Schertz and most of the players on this team and the Billikens departed early in the A-10 Tournament both seasons under Schertz who also couldn’t win the MVC Tournament with a great 2023-24 team at Indiana State. Mike White has won in the Round of 64 in four of his five NCAA Tournament appearances and this should be a motivated group after an ugly loss in an 8-9 game last season against a severely under seeded Gonzaga team.