2009 Men's NCAA Tournament First Round Picks: South Region, Mar. 20

At CBBPlace.com, we've 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, and 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: Hopefully we know a little something about the teams involved in these games!

NCAA Tournament—South Region

Friday, Mar. 20

---

No. 3 Syracuse vs. No. 14 Stephen F. Austin
12:15 PM EST

	Record	Conf	ATS	PF	PA
No. 3 Syracuse	26-9	11-7	16-15	81.1	72.3
No. 14 Stephen F. Austin	23-7	13-3	1-2	66.2	56.0

	FG%	D. FG%	3P%	D. 3P%	FT%	RPG	SPG	APG	TPG	BPG
No. 3 Syracuse	48.8	41.3	34.8	29.4	63.9	43.5	8.0	18.3	15.3	5.2
No. 14 Stephen F. Austin	44.3	37.3	32.3	27.3	64.8	39.0	6.1	13.1	12.3	3.3

Line: Syracuse -12.5

Mitch: Syracuse -12.5—Syracuse is very confident right now.
Dave: Syracuse -12.5—On a roll and a few days of rest. No OT here.
Ryan: Syracuse -12.5—Flynn, Devendorf and Rautins will continue to dominate the backcourt, especially on a few days rest.
Shaun: Syracuse -12.5—Syracuse will be rested and ready for this one.

No. 6 Arizona State vs. No. 11 Temple
2:45 PM EST

	Record	Conf	ATS	PF	PA
No. 6 Arizona State	24-9	11-7	18-9	69.5	60.1
No. 11 Temple	22-11	11-5	18-12	69.0	63.4

	FG%	D. FG%	3P%	D. 3P%	FT%	RPG	SPG	APG	TPG	BPG
No. 6 Arizona State	48.2	40.9	36.6	31.4	74.0	33.5	5.9	15.6	11.5	2.1
No. 11 Temple	44.5	40.3	36.7	34.3	69.8	40.0	5.6	15.6	12.6	4.2

Line: Arizona State -5.0

Mitch: Temple +5.0—Could really go either way.
Dave: Temple +5.0—Lost to some of the best. Beat some of the best.
Ryan: Arizona State -5.0—Despite their slip-up at the end of February (3 losses—2 in OT), ASU is having a stellar season. Look for them to bounce back big after their PAC-10 Final loss.
Shaun: Arizona State -5.0—Temple always makes noise in the tournament, but James Harden will prove to be too much.

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

---

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
West Region, March 20