Utah State at Washington

This is the other match up where I like the 12 seed over the 5 seed in this year's bracket. Utah St. shoots the fourth best percentage from the floor (almost 50% for the team) in the entire nation. That is a wonderful stat to have and it doesn't hurt that they shoot over 40% as a team from 3-point range  Washington will try to move the ball up and down the floor quickly, as they score over 80ppg, and Utah St. will try to keep this game lower scoring. The edge here goes to Utah St., and this game will stay lower scoring. A major reason for this is how many times Utah St. passes the ball, they look for a great shot and force the clock to run; they average over 17 assists per game and only turn the ball over about 13 times per game. The rebounding edge will go to Washington but they have a freshman running their point and he may have weak knees in this nationally televised game. Look for the freshman (J. Dentmon) to turn the ball over a few times more than usual and Utah St.'s senior point guard (D. Pak) to take advantage of this. Utah St. has a great chance to win this game straight up, so we surely like them getting 6.5 points. Three stars on Utah State.