Southern Illinois at Kansas

This game looks like a complete mismatch anyway you look at it, except when you look at it the right way. Southern Illinois is a modern day Princeton, with a good coach, better talent and loads of experience. Princeton never matched-up well with anyone in this tournament, but nobody was ready for the style they played. S. Illinois plays a deliberate, cerebral game, much like Princeton, but with better athletes. Kansas has been a scoring machine, but when they have been faced with teams that shorten the game, by going deep into the shot clock and playing tough defense, they revealed an Achillies heel. Kansas has scored under 70 points this season 10 times and over the last 22 games they have been under 70 points as a 6+ favorite. While playing against a team coming off of a SU and ATS win, Kansas is 0-22 ATS! Yes, you read that right. So we know this is the exact type of game that makes Kansas struggle. S. Illinois has allowed 70+ in just one game all year, and the average number of shots taken over their last 19 games was only 88. A typical Kansas game sees 125-140+ shots. When they have played in games where the shots were down and the tempo controlled, here is what happened:Kansas State 100 shots, won by six points, Oklahoma 109 shots won by two, against Texas A&M 111, lost by three, Texas Tech 111, lost by five, Iowa State 124 shots in OT, won by four, DePaul 98 lost by seven points. Kansas has a history of playing a stinker in the NCAA tourney. They are 3-10 ATS as a No. 1 seed, and have lost to Bradley as a -7, Bucknell as a -14, and URI as a -12, so don't count out S. Illinois. Southern Illinois is a very difficult team to adapt to, and this will frustrate Kansas. Here are some first-half scores when they played top teams on the road this season: Arkansas +2, Virginia Tech +5 (in season), Indiana +1, Butler +5, V Tech +8 (NCAA), Oklahoma State +7. We like this Kansas team a lot but not in this spot, the play is on S. Illinois.