Purdue hosts Michigan in West Lafayette on Tuesday in a battle between two of the top seven teams in the country.
The total is sitting at 157 and Michigan is favored by 2.5 points.
I've fired up my player projections, and I've found solid value on one of the Wolverines' star players.
Michigan vs Purdue Player Prop
Yaxel Lendeborg Over 2.5 Assists (+105)
Michigan's implied team total of 80 points based on current NCAA Basketball odds means they'll need to make plenty of buckets tonight against a Purdue team that doesn't put opponents on the free-throw line very often.
The Boilermakers boast the eighth-lowest free-throw rate allowed, which means I'm projecting Michigan to score around 15 points from the charity stripe, leaving 65 points elsewhere should they hit their implied total.
That equates to about 28-28.5 field goals based off expected two-to-three-point ratios.
Lendeborg projects to be on the court north of 30 minutes and score around five field goals himself, leaving about 23 elsewhere.
At 30 minutes (I'm projecting 33), that would mean he's on the court for around 21 made buckets. Subtract his five and he could potentially assist on 16. At a 17.5% assist rate (his season-long average), that's 2.8 assists.
However, I've been slightly conservative on all those estimates for a few reasons.
First, Purdue allows assists at a 5.7% relative rate higher than the national average. Multiply his 17.5% assist rate by 1.057 and we get more like an 18.5% assist rate expected.
Next, I used 30 minutes in the example above, not 33 (my projection).
And finally, I rounded to the worst-case scenario for all of these numbers. Lendeborg projects for slightly less than five buckets — I used 28 made team field goals instead of 28.4 (my actual projection).
All those slight adjustments add up, and my true projection for his assists is 3.4 showing clear value to the over 2.5 at +105 odds. That's good enough to ladder this to 5+ at bet365 as well at +600 odds for a sprinkle.
Our NCAAB PRO Projections have him clearing 2.5 assists at a 66% rate, giving this bet a 17.2% edge.
Pick: Yaxel Lendeborg Over 2.5 Assists (+105), Ladder 5+ Assists (+600)
