#790 ASA PLAY ON Xavier -1.5 over UConn, Saturday at 8 PM ET - Xavier has been playing really well as they try to get themselves back into NCAA tourney consideration (12-8 overall record). They have won 3 of their last 4 games, including upsetting Marquette on the road. Their 1 loss during that stretch was in OT on Wednesday @ St Johns, who is in first place in the Big East with an 8-1 record, and XU held a 16 point 2nd half lead in that game. The Musketeers led that game by 10 at half and St Johns led for a grand total of 30 seconds in the 2nd half before the game went to OT. Xavier ranks 91st nationally in Haslam’s Momentum metric since January 1st while UConn ranks 305th. The Huskies simply aren’t playing well right now. They are 6-2 in Big East play but they’ve faced one of the easiest schedules in the conference (9th SOS out of 11 – Xavier has played the #1 SOS in Big East play) yet only 1 of their wins has come by more than 8 points. Their last 2 games were both at home where they lost to Creighton and squeaked by Butler 80-78 in OT. UConn’s defense has not been good this year (ranked 132nd in efficiency) and their 3 point defense has been really poor, ranking 341st in the country. That’s not a good match up for this Xavier team that hits over 38% of their triples which is good for 23rd best in the nation. These 2 met already this season in December and XU took the Huskies to OT on the road before losing 94-89. The Musketeers took Connecticut to the wire on the road in that game despite missing leading scorer & rebounder Zack Freemantle (17 PPG & 7 RPG) and he is back in the line up and has been playing very well. We expect XU to have a solid edge from the 3 point line again as they make almost 42% of their triples. We also look for them to have a plus margin at the FT line as UConn fouls a lot (opponents scoring 25% of their points from the FT line in Big East play which is dead last for the Huskies defense) and XU makes 78% of their freebies. This revenger sets up nicely and we’ll lay this small number.