#861/862 ASA PLAY ON Under 149.5 Points - St Mary’s vs Alabama, Sunday at 6:10 PM ET - This total is set too high. We think this gets to the mid 40’s at best and most likely lower. We understand why it’s set high with the Crimson Tide leading the nation in scoring at 91 PPG. We don’t see them getting anywhere close to that in this game. That’s because St Mary’s will slow the heck out of this game (4th slowest team in the country) and the Gaels are also a high level defensive team (7th in the country in D efficiency). It’s much easier to slow a fast team down rather than speed up a slow team. Nobody has been able to get STM going at a high pace. While they are facing the #1 scoring team in the nation on Sunday, the Gaels have already taken on the #2 scoring team (Gonzaga) 3 times. The Zags average 87 PPG on the season and play very fast. In their games vs St Mary’s, they averaged only 61 PPG and held the Zags under 60 points twice. None of those 3 match ups topped 63 possessions. In Friday’s game, STM faced Vandy who is a very high tempo team that ranks 32nd in the country in offensive efficiency and the final score was 59-56 on only 59 possessions. This team has zero chance to win this game in a shootout and they’ll make sure it doesn’t turn into that. On the other end, we’ve talked about Bama’s offense, but their defense is very sold ranking 34th in efficiency. They defend the arc very well (26th) as does St Mary’s (44th). Both teams limit with only 26.9% of STM’s opponents points coming from deep (335th) and 27.1% of Bama’s opponents points coming from 3 (329th). If this one plays out as we expect, we just don’t see how this gets to 150 points unless both teams shoot lights out. We’re on the Under.