Alan Huss landed in Carolina last spring with a loaded Creighton résumé, from playing for the Blue Jays to being a Jays assistant coach when High Point brass came calling, and he has vowed to replicate Creighton’s success.
Residing among the nation’s top 20 programs against the spread has been a fine way to start, and ESPN has already deigned him a national coach of the week. Huss might be deserving of coach-of-the-year honors.
We’ve been waiting to properly highlight this dynamo of a program in the Piedmont Triad region of North Carolina.
This is that day.
High Point welcomes Longwood tonight in a Big South matchup. Tip-off is scheduled for 7 p.m. ET on ESPNU.
Longwood vs. High Point odds: Point spread, moneyline, total
Here are the latest college basketball betting odds for Longwood vs. High Point:
Longwood betting news: Lancers stuck in a rut
Longwood (14-8 SU, 10-10 ATS) is in a bit of a tailspin, having dropped its past five games against the line, six of its past seven and seven of its past nine.
Plus, 10 of its past 14 lined games have finished UNDER their totals. As a rule, if they tally 72 points or fewer, they’ve lost.
It is rare when a Lancer tallies 20 points, which might be sixth-year coach Griff Aldrich’s biggest issue.
It is decent defending beyond the 3-point arc (33.4%) and 2-pointers (48.3%), but it’s the other end that fails as Longwood is bad at 2-pointers (48.6%, 244th), poor beyond the arc (31%, 281st) and atrocious at the line (67.6%, 310th).
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High Point betting news: Panthers among nation's best ATS
High Point (18-4 SU, 13-5-2 ATS) has been operating with high octane all season, and its winning streak is 10 games. It has averaged 83 points during this run, and seven of the Panthers’ past eight have gone Over their totals.
There is a temptation to take OVER here, but we don’t trust Longwood to live up to its end of that bargain.
The dynamic Panther had been De’Marquiese “Duke” Miles, a 6-foot-3 guard from Montgomery, Ala., who played his first three seasons at Troy.
For Huss, Miles had team-high averages with 31.3 minutes, 19.4 points, 3.8 assists and 1.4 steals. However, he has disappeared over the past 10 days, not playing in his team’s past three games.
An East Coast source believes Miles sustained some sort of injury, but there’s zero corroborating evidence for any details.
Kezza Giffa (pronounced G-fuh) has made Miles a moot subject on Big South Conference-leading High Point.
A 6-2 junior from France who played at Texas-El Paso last season, he is the son of former EuroLeague star Sacha Giffa, who played with Tony Parker for a stretch and even assisted coaching a New York Knicks summer league squad.
Kezza, a lefty guard, has been astounding over the past month. In a stretch of four games off the bench, he tallied 88 points.
Inserted into the starting lineup, in Miles’s absence, Giffa has exploded with 89 points in his past three games. He shot 18-for 34 inside the arc, 6-for-21 outside it and excelled at the line, making 35 of 41 free throws.
Giffa yanked down 13 rebounds, dished out 11 assists and had seven turnovers. Plus, he played 116 of a possible 120 minutes.
His big complement is 6-7 sophomore forward Kimani Hamilton, who played at Mississippi State as a rookie. He had four 20-point games, then broke out four games ago for an 88-point run, with 32 boards.
Trae Benham, a 6-4 junior, is the marksman, having drilled at least three 3-point shots in eight games, and sinking seven in an 11-point home triumph over NC Greensboro on Dec. 19.
Expect to see Giffa attract an abundance of national attention over the next several weeks.
Get prepared: March Madness betting sites and promos
Longwood vs. High Point prediction
The Panthers stay unbeaten in the Big South, and the win streak moves to 11.
Pick: High Point
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