The Big East tournament has already had its share of surprises.
2008-03-14
The Big East tournament has already had its share of surprises. Three of the four semifinalists have already played two games. The lone exception is Georgetown, who plays West Virginia tonight and is back by over 90% of early bettors.
It’s another full day of college basketball conference tournament action on the various networks. Be sure to stay on top of all the action with Sportsbook.com’s Live Odds, Betting Trends, and Team Statistics Pages. The Betting Trends are already revealing some interesting numbers on the favorites for today.
Has it been three years since we saw the likes of Joe Herber and Kevin Pittsnogle performing magic in the Big East Tournament? In 2005, West Virginia caught fire in New York, making an unlikely run to the conference title, beating favored Boston College and Villanova along the way in four days of thrills, before falling to talented Syracuse, as they ran out of gas. Don’t look now, but with a different cast of players and a new coach, the magic is returning, making the Mountaineers a tempting underdog for college basketball bettors.
West Virginia is not quite the Cinderella story of three years ago, being the fifth seed this year, yet beating what was considered one of the dark-horses for the NCAA tournament in Connecticut, is an eye-opener 78-72. The Mountaineers had just lost 12 days ago at UConn 79-71, thanks to free throw disparity of 22-6 in made shots from the charity stripe. This time Joe Alexander and the rest of his teammates left nothing to chance.
The 6’8 Alexander was mentioned by Bobby Knight in his ESPN debut, as one of the most important players for his particular team in the country. That is awfully strong praise and he backed it up with career high 34 points against Connecticut. The Mountaineers have won nine of 12 (7-4-1 ATS) since the beginning of February, as they have top-seeded Georgetown on deck. Coach Bob Huggins brings a squad to The Garden that is 22-12 ATS versus teams outscoring their opponents by four or more points a game.
Georgetown was dishing out a nasty recipe to Villanova, as they served up a Big East tournament record tying 17 treys, in 82-63 rout of the Wildcats. For the game, the Hoyas were 17-28, 64.2 percent from beyond the arc, moving record to 13-0 as top seed in this tournament. Georgetown’s defense can be as dominating as any in the college game, holding teams to under 37 percent from the field. Additionally, they have great success against solid defense themselves, with 16-4 ATS record versus defensive teams allowing 64 or fewer points a game after 15 or more contests in a season.
Sportsbook.com opened the Hoyas as 1.5-point favorites and they were quickly bet up to 2.5, with total coming down to 121. Before plopping money down on G-Town like many have already, a few points to consider. Teams almost never double season average of shooting three-pointers like the Hoyas, who shot 37.1 percent during the regular season. Chances are they return to this stratosphere. West Virginia is 4-1 against the spread playing one of the two top seeds in the Big East tourney and five-seeds are 8-2 ATS as underdogs when catching three or less points. Don’t forget about the total, with Georgetown 14-3 UNDER in conference tournament games.
The excitement will continue starting at 7 Eastern on ESPN in the opening semifinal game, with the ‘Teers trying to be the third Big East team to make it to the championship game in the last four years, having started on opening Wednesday.
StatFox Power Line –Georgetown by 1
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