Something new for Sunday

Looking at 5 Sunday college games from a basketball betting perspective:

1. Ordinarily a team off such an important win as Temple's 49-41 smothering of Dayton would be a candidate for a letdown. But the Big 5 is still important in Philadelphia and if Temple can beat LaSalle they'll be the first Temple team to go 5-0 in the intra-city series since the Mark Macon-led 1987-88 squad. Since their blowout loss at Richmond , the Owls have held their four opponents combined to less than 34% from the field, with none of those teams shooting any higher than 40%.

2. UConn hosts Louisville in a game with the vibe of a postseason affair. Pointspread watchers may see the Cardinals "surge" as an illusion, as the only game that Pitino's charges have covered in their last 6 affairs was the outright upset win at Syracuse. The Cardinal are on a 3-10 pointspread run overall. Meanwhile, UConn is suddenly popular among sports bettors, as they've won and covered three in a row, including outright upsets over West Virginia and Villanova. Previously the Huskies had a potential massive outright upset thwarted by the officials in Syracuse . A win by either club here may wrap up a tourney berth.

3. If you don't have the Big 10 Network, well, no big deal. All you're missing is Indiana at Iowa at 6PM EST. Indiana has lost 9 straight and failed to cover 6 straight. Iowa has lost 8 of 9. Iowa wasted Indiana 58-43 earlier this season in Bloomington as 6-point road dogs, holding the homestanding Hoosiers without a 3-point field goal in 9 tries. Ironically, at a slow time in the sports day this game will be prominently featured on the big screens in Las Vegas sports books.

4. The earlier Big 10 game is no prize either. Northwestern is in unfriendly pointspread territory, as this is only the second time that Vegas and online sportsbooks haven't had Northwestern taking 7.5 points or more in a conference road game. The other outlier was when Northwestern lost by 13 at Iowa as a small road favorite. Previously considered to be a potential NCAA tourney team, Northwestern has managed to lose to both Iowa (2-12 in the rest of their conference games) and Penn State (1-13 in their other conference games).

5. Fortunately, despite the ugly affairs provided by a few "power conferences" there is a real beauty between a pair of underrated teams in the strong Atlantic 10 on ESPN2 this afternoon. Overlooked Xavier and underrated Richmond are two teams with potential to do some damage in the NCAA tournament. It is clearly Sunday's most attractive matchup, and you'll be a little bit better prepared for March Madness if you try to catch it.

Good luck on Sunday, and be careful.

Written by Kevin O'Neill of Real World Sports.com