Baylor vs Norfolk State: NCAA Tournament First Round prediction and college basketball game preview.
Baylor vs Norfolk State Game Preview, NCAA Tournament First Round How To Watch
Date: Thursday, March 17
Game Time: 2:00 pm
Venue: Dickies Arena, Fort Worth, TX
How To Watch: TBS
Records: Baylor (1 seed, 26-6)
Norfolk State (16 seed, 24-6)
Region: East
– NCAA Tournament Schedule, Predictions, Game Previews
Why Norfolk State Will Win
Baylor might be a No. 1 seed, but it’s gettable.
How? Oklahoma was able to slow things down and and used its defense to win in the Big 12 Tournament. It helped to keep things moving with a ton of assists, and hitting everything inside and out helped.
The Spartans of Norfolk State might not bring the offense, but the defense is fantastic. It’s fast, aggressive, and it doesn’t go for the big play but collapses well and dominates on the glass.
How good is this D? No one has hit 40% from the field in the last six games – it’s second in the nation behind only Houston in field goal percentage defense.
But …
Why Baylor Will Win
Here’s the problem for Norfolk State as it tries to pull off the 16-over-1 thing …
The offense isn’t good enough.
The Spartan defense has dominated against the Delaware States and Coppin States of the world, but this is one massive jump in competition overall.
Norfolk State not only hasn’t played anyone close to Baylor’s level, it hasn’t played anyone from a Power Five conference this year. The closest it came was against Xavier, and it lost 88-48.
You have to be strong from three and overall from the field to get by the Bears, and Norfolk State isn’t strong enough from there on a consistent basis.
Baylor vs Norfolk State: What’s Going To Happen
This is a veteran Norfolk State team led by a strong group of seniors, and it’ll be active enough defensively and on the boards to hang around for a little while.
However, the Spartans played on Saturday, and in a good way, Baylor got knocked out of the Big 12 Tournament in a hurry. It played just that one game against Oklahoma in almost two weeks, and it’s going to come out fresh, active, and ready to run from the start after the rocky performance last weekend.
It’s statement time, and Norfolk State won’t have the offense to hold up once the avalanche starts.
Baylor vs Norfolk State: NCAA Tournament First Round Prediction, Lines
Baylor 84, Norfolk State 55
Line: Baylor -20.5, o/u: 137.5
ATS Confidence out of 5: 3
CFN Experts Pick: Baylor vs Norfolk State
5 Best Predictions Against The Spread: Thursday
Baylor vs Norfolk State Must See Rating: 2
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