Posted at 10:00 AM EST. Odds are subject to change.

Florida A&M +7½ -110 over Kansas City

12:00 PM EST. Florida A&M lost to a division 2 team and their stock is low; it couldn't be lower; they are 0-3 straight up and 0-2 against the spread. That is exactly when you buy. The Rattlers lost 75-70 at home to Fort Valley State, got run 113-69 by Florida State and 92-64 at UAB, and the market has priced them like a team that should be paying rent to share the floor. But look at who is laying the points. Kansas City allows 82.7 points a game, which means this is a shootout waiting for a second shooter, and Florida A&M has two real ones: Jaden Kempson is averaging 24 a game and just hung 24 on UAB, and Daisean Williford is at 17.3. Against a defence that guards like a rumour, those two do not need help from the rest of the roster to keep a game inside a touchdown. The venue helps too, because St. Petersburg is a bus ride from Tallahassee, so the noon crowd in that little gym leans Rattler, and sleepy lunchtime starts in empty buildings are where favourites go to sleepwalk.

Kansas City has its own problems, starting with the fact that it scored 61 points at Jacksonville on Monday and trailed 36-20 at halftime before anybody woke up. The Roos hung 100 on Southern Illinois, sure, but that offence disappears for whole halves, and this is a sandwich spot: George Mason is waiting at this same event tomorrow afternoon, the bigger name on the trip, and a 1-2 team with one eye on tomorrow is not a team you trust to win by margin today. Charlie Ward's group was second in the SWAC last season at 16-16, so this is a real program having a nightmare week, not a program that forgot how to play, and nightmare weeks eventually produce one desperate, angry effort. This is the spot for it, against a defensively hopeless favourite, close to home, with the number fattened by three losses that are already in the price twice over.

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