#667 ASA TOP PLAY ON 10* Liberty +4.5 over Northwestern, Tuesday at 8:30 PM ET - The Flames are coming off an upset loss at home vs Southern Miss on Friday and we like them to bounce back in this neutral site game (Rivera Maya, Mexico) vs Northwestern. It was a game where Liberty came out flat and got way behind before coming back and having a chance late but losing by 4. It was a disappointing performance for a veteran team that may have been peeking ahead to their trip to Mexico. Liberty returns 7 of their top 8 players from last year’s team that won the Atlantic Sun and finished with a record of 22-11. That includes 2-time conference player of the year guard Darrius McGhee (25 PPG) who spurned Power 5 transfer offers to finish out his career with Liberty. Head coach Ritchie McCay has built a very good program @ Liberty after coming over from New Mexico back in 2008. He has led the Flames to 6 consecutive 20 win seasons. In their Hawaii tourney last year, Liberty with basically this same team, beat a very good Northern Iowa team who won the Missouri Valley, lost by 3 vs Stanford (blew a 13 point lead), and lost by 5 vs BYU who finished with a 24-11 record. This team is experience and battle tested. Northwestern steps into this game with a 4-0 record but we think they are overvalued at this point. We have them tabbed for 12th in the Big 10 this year after finishing 7-13 in league play last year. In their most recent game they held off IPFW at home winning by 8 after leading by just 1 points with just over 2:00 remaining in the game. Liberty is a solid shooting team that finished in the top 35 nationally from both inside and outside the arc last year while also making 77% of their FT’s. They’ve gotten off to a little slower start this year but still shooting well ranking 80th in eFG%. We think they’ll give NW big problems in this game and we actually have this game rated dead even. Value on Liberty Tuesday evening.