You've Never Seen A Dumber Backdoor Cover Than Whatever The Hell TCU Just Did To Gonzaga Bettors

Matt Fitzgerald3/20/2023 1:50 PM

When you don't have a timeout to advance the ball with 0.7 seconds left on the clock, there's no way you're anticipating anything close to a quality look from 3-point range. The Gonzaga Bulldogs knew they had punched their ticket to the Sweet 16. No need to contest a meaningless shot, right?

WRONG.

This is the basketball betting epitome of criminal negligence. It's something even more sinister than that, really. You can't tell me not one of those Zags players knew the spread coming into Sunday's Round of 32 matchup. There's no fucking way.

I'm grateful to have labeled this as a stay-away game betting-wise. I know some of you commenters get butthurt about bloggers talking about their bets. Would it please you to know that my performance has declined as March Madness has worn on? What I'm getting at here is, our college basketball text group chain is blowing up right now with several of my colleagues downright grieving what just happened.

The Horned Frogs not only broke the hearts of their fans, students, alumni and anyone with any loose affiliation with TCU, but they also curb-stomped anyone who dared to bet against them covering that -4.5 point spread. Hell, even if you got the line at -3.5, you still got hosed at the end here.

I was actually looking at player props earlier today and noticed Damion Baugh was plus money (can't remember exactly what the line was, maybe +110?) to hit Over 1.5 3-pointers. Decided to stay away considering he's a 31% shooter from beyond the arc this season and was at 27% the year before.

Baugh wound up hitting three of his four attempts from deep tonight. Had he shot at his typical inefficient percentage, this backdoor cover scenario wouldn't even be a threat. Unfortunately, Gonzaga let the fairly poor-shooting Baugh get hot, and he hit probably the most impressive trey of his life at the most inopportune time for thousands of people across America. One of those being Marty of course. One second he's thanking the lord for the gift of free throws to now questioning everything he knows.

As the saying goes…good teams win, great teams cover.

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