NCAA Basketball Picks: The Florida Gators continue their brutal early season schedule as they visit the Kansas Jayhawks on Friday on ESPN. The Gators began the season ranked 7th in the country but they enter this game at 3-3 with their three losses coming to Miami, Georgetown and North Carolina. They have fallen to 24th in the latest USA Today Coaches Poll. Now they have to go into Allen Fieldhouse and take on the 11th-ranked Jayhawks on Friday. They will likely be 3-4 after this one is over. Let’s look at the game and NCAA basketball picks.
Florida Gators 3-3 SU, 1-4-1 ATS
The Gators were supposed to be a really good team this season but so far they have been disappointing. The schedule hasn’t helped but Billy Donovan’s team isn’t scoring. In the recent Battle 4 Atlantis tournament, the Gators shot 35 percent from the field against Georgetown, 34 percent against UAB and 32 percent against UNC. The Gators are now averaging 38 percent shooting on the season and 29 percent from three point range.
The Gators are 3-3 for the first time since the 1996-97 season. The Gators have also been dealing with injuries as Dorian Finney-Smith and guard Eli Carter are coming back from injuries while Alex Murphy won’t be available until later this month.
Kansas Jayhawks 5-1 SU, 4-2 ATS
The Jayhawks are a good team but not a great team. They have won all of their games except the one against Kentucky and there is no shame in losing to Kentucky as they may not lose a game all season. The Jayhawks are coming off a good win last time out against Michigan State. Kansas is still struggling on offense as they are averaging just 69 points per game and their defense has been just so-so as they are allowing 63 points per contest. Some of those numbers are skewed based on the bad loss to Kentucky. The team has actually gone over the total in three of their five games that had totals posted.
Game Notes
These teams met last season and it was the Gators pulling out a tough 67-61 win as three-point favorites. The game went under the NCAA basketball betting total of 137. You then have to go back to 2006 for the previous meeting that Kansas won 82-80.
NCAA Basketball Picks
The Gators are really struggling to score right now and the Jayhawks haven’t been anything great on offense so we’ll take this Friday night contest under the total.
