You may know I have several people who consider themselves members of the Syracuse basketball mafia (tip of cap to Bills mafia. Yeah upstate NY!). The team needs some confidence and should keep their foot down on the gas against a UAlbany team that can’t deal with size.

This opener is too low in my opinion. I took Georgetown over Albany a couple of weeks ago at a similar number. I see Syracuse having many of the same edges in this matchup. The Orange don’t shoot many threes and get most of their points from inside the arc. That’s a perfect recipe for beating Albany. The Great Danes rank 348th in two-point percentage defense and don’t have the size to deal with Syracuse in the paint. We saw Georgetown exploit this weakness by shooting 74 percent from the field. Albany also relies on getting baskets in transition but many of those come off steals. Syracuse isn’t sloppy with the basketball, ranking 23rd in turnover percentage. I would back SU up to -14.