2009 Men's NCAA Tournament First Round Picks: West Region, March 20

At CBBPlace.com, we have been doing College Basketball Picks Against the Spread all season. There are five of us from CBBPlace who also write on B/R: Ryan, Mitch, Dave, Shaun, and Steve.

There is a very good chance that if you have been following college basketball this season, even just casually, you have read something by one of us.

With that in mind, we have decided to do our first ever collaboration article.

We are all going to do quick picks against the spread for the NCAA Tournament. They will be posted in a series of articles broken out by the date of the game and region of the tournament.

We have posted well over 1,000 Free Picks Against the Spread this season and have amassed more than 500,000 hits since the site went up at the end of January.

The bottom line is hopefully we know a little something about the teams involved in these games!

NCAA Tournament—West Region

Friday, March 20

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No. 3 Missouri vs. No. 14 Cornell
3:00 PM EST

	Record	Conf	ATS	PF	PA
No. 3 Missouri	28-6	12-4	14-9-1	81.1	66.5
No. 14 Cornell	21-9	11-3	13-10	74.1	66.5

	FG%	D. FG%	3P%	D. 3P%	FT%	RPG	SPG	APG	TPG	BPG
No. 3 Missouri	47.2	41.5	35.8	30.8	66.8	39.5	10.6	18.5	12.4	3.9
No. 14 Cornell	47.7	41.4	41.5	30.7	73.4	39.2	6.7	15.7	13.0	4.0

Line: Missouri- 13.5

Mitch: Missouri- 13.5. Cornell?
Dave: Missouri-13.5. Cornell was fast paced in Ivy standards, but MU has a higher gear.
Ryan: Missouri-13.5. I love the Ivy's. Don't get me wrong, but this is a different game.
Shaun: Missouri-13.5. Mizzou is on a roll after winning to Big 12, so look for them to keep it going.

No. 6 Marquette vs. No. 11 Utah State
12:30 PM EST

	Record	Conf	ATS	PF	PA
No. 6 Marquette	24-9	12-6	14-13-1	78.8	69.5
No. 11 Utah State	30-4	14-2	0-0	72.9	62.1

	FG%	D. FG%	3P%	D. 3P%	FT%	RPG	SPG	APG	TPG	BPG
No. 6 Marquette	45.6	44.9	34.9	35.0	72.0	37.9	8.1	15.5	11.7	3.0
No. 11 Utah State	49.8	42.0	39.8	36.7	73.9	37.1	4.9	16.3	11.3	2.5

Line: Marquette -5.0

Mitch: Marquette +5.0. Was it the loss of James? Looked more like a brutal closing schedule.
Dave: Utah State +5.0. I hate that these two are playing each other as they both have Elite Eight stuff.
Ryan: Marquette -5.0. The Golden Eagles had the toughest end of conference play schedule in the country. They are also looking for redemption after coming back from down 17 to lose on a last-second backdoor cut against Villanova.
Shaun: Utah State +5.0. Marquette should win this game, but Utah State will keep it dangerously close.

If you enjoyed these picks, please take a look at CBBPlace.com where we will be picking every March Madness game.

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Please take a look at our other NCAA Tournament First Round Picks:

Midwest Region, March 20
East Region, March 19
East Region, March 20
South Region, March 19
South Region, March 20
West Region, March 19