SOURCE: Las Vegas Sun

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5. Sometimes replacement players are better than expected.

Pittsburgh of the Big East lost two starters to injuries, including point guard Levance Fields, but Boston suspected the drop-off in talent to their fill-ins wouldn’t be too severe especially considering Pitt plays a fundamentally sound, half-court style.

“I did not crush their (power) rating like other (handicappers) did,” Boston said.

That led him to make a bet on the Panthers as a 4 1/2-point underdog Jan. 6 against Villanova, a game Pitt lost by only 1 point.

6. Don’t follow Alan Boston or anyone else blindly. “There’s no such thing as systems,” Boston said.

“You can evaluate it game by game. If you think it works, be aware it works, but don’t go with it 100 percent of the time ... “People say it’s a 60 percent thing, it’s an 80 percent thing. No, there’s nothing like that, man. All those trends, it’s (malarkey). Find the reason it works, apply it to other situations, (and) you have something.

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