10* Villanova (ASSASSIN)

As primarily a situational cappers, this one falls right into our wheel house. The Wildcats have a lot working in their favor here, and there's actually more money on Butler in fact, or there was in the early going, so that also appeals to our contrarian side. But these teams are moving in opposite directions now over the last three weeks, and the Wildcats also play with revenge here after an 88-81 OT loss at Butler as 1.5-point dogs in late January. These teams have very similar overall win/loss records, but when you look a little closer at their numbers, we find that the Wildcats also enjoy more advantages in this position. Butler is 16-10 overall, while Villanova is just 14-11. The Bulldogs though are only 3-5 straight up and 4-4 against the spread on the road. The Wildcats are 8-4 straight up at home and 7-5 against the spread, so Villanova does enjoy the home court advantage here as well. So that's two really strong factors there, the revenge factor, coupled with the documented home court advantage here where Butler has definitely struggled on the road. And then you have to look at "current form;" Butler's lost two straight, both against good teams mind you and they were both dogs in each, falling 78-72 to Marquette and 79-57 to Creighton, but Villanova has won two straight, beating Seton Hall here 80-54 before then downing the Hoyas 70-54 in Georgetown. The Wildcats looked good last time out on both ends of the floor, they were led by 14 points from TJ Bamba, but it was the defense that stole the show, going on to hold its fourth straight opponent to less than 60 points. Conversely, in their most recent loss the Bulldogs missed 14 of their final 15 shots from 3-point range. Clearly they're a well coached team under Thad Matta, but now they're going to face another red hot defense that's capable of stopping the three-point ball as well (and which plays with revenge and the home court advantage!) We expect Villanova to keep the foot on the gas from start to finish!

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