Mountaineers pay visit to 20th-ranked Fighting Irish
NCAA Basketball Betting Lines
02/22/2012 - South Bend, IN (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Matching their longest win streak in Big East Conference play ever, the 20th-ranked Notre Dame Fighting Irish try to extend their run of good fortune tonight as they host the West Virginia Mountaineers at the Joyce Center in South Bend.
Not only have the Fighting Irish won eight straight games in conference play, the team has accomplished the feat by defeating half of their opponents on the road and three of the eight squads were nationally ranked, so it is not as though Notre Dame is picking on the weaker programs in the league.
Over the weekend the team was pitted against Villanova at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia and it appeared as though the team's run through the Big East was about to come to an end, but somehow the Irish pushed the game to overtime and ended up securing the 74-70 triumph. According to the school's media relation's office, the 20-point deficit that the Irish faced in the first half and subsequently erased in the second half and overtime was the largest comeback in program history.
Notre Dame, which is now tied for second in the conference standings with Marquette at 11-3, has been doing all this damage while missing Tim Abromaitis who went down with a knee injury almost right away in November.
As for the Mountaineers, they've been out of action since last Thursday when they took care of Pittsburgh at the Petersen Events Center, 66-48. The victory snapped a two-game slide for a WVU program which has won just twice in the last seven outings and is now stuck in the middle of the pack in the conference standings at 7-7.
As far as the all-time series is concerned, the Irish own a 26-12 edge over WVU thanks in part to a 55-51 win in Morgantown just two weeks ago. When it comes to games played in South Bend, Notre Dame has taken all but two of 18 encounters versus the Mountaineers.
Ahead by just a single point at the break last week in Pittsburgh, the Mountaineers put together strong efforts at both ends of the floor in the second half and rolled to the 18-point win against their long-time foe. Kevin Jones registered another double-double with 16 points and 13 rebounds and Truck Bryant showed signs of life with 15 points off the bench for the visitors. Deniz Kilicli tacked on 14 points and Gary Browne another 12 as the team survived just 2-of-11 shooting behind the three-point line. Over the course of 27 games this season, Jones has proven himself to be one of the top performers in the conference, averaging 20.4 points and 11.3 rebounds per contest, leading the Mountaineers in both departments. Bryant brings another 16.7 ppg to the table, but his 31.3 percent shooting behind the three-point line is nothing to get excited about. In fact, the team as a whole is shooting a mere 31.4 percent on the perimeter overall and only 29.7 percent in conference games.
Jack Cooley generated his fourth straight double-double with 18 points and a game-high 13 rebounds on Saturday at Villanova as the Fighting Irish never lost hope and eventually picked up the four-point overtime win in Philadelphia. Cooley, who was named the Big East Player of the Week for the first time in his career last week, is the first Notre Dame player to have four straight double-doubles since Luke Harangody turned the trick in late March 2009. Pat Connaughton knocked down 7-of-12 shots from three-point range against the Wildcats as he finished with a team-best 21 points, followed by Eric Atkins and Jerian Grant with 17 and 10 points, respectively, the latter also handing out nine assists. Just taking into account conference games, Cooley is averaging a double-double for the program with his 14.4 points and 10.7 rebounds per contest, shooting 61.4 percent from the field and also logging 23 blocked shots as he stays close to the rim at both ends of the floor. Grant (13.0 ppg) checks in with a total of 74 assists over 14 league bouts, making his mere 34.2 percent shooting from the floor and bit more tolerable.
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<< Aggies seek upset of fourth-ranked Jayhawks
College Station, TX (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - In one of the more lopsided series in
the Big 12 Conference, the fourth-ranked Kansas Jayhawks will try to continue
their dominance over the Texas A&M Aggies when the two square off tonight at
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Chester, PA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Philadelphia Union announced on Wednesday
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and has gone
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The Sixers look to end their
San Diego, CA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Losers of three in a row, the 24th-ranked San Diego State Aztecs try to regain their footing tonight as they clash with the Wyoming Cowboys in Mountain West Conference action at Viejas Arena. The Aztecs, who
Spartans and Gophers mix it up in Big Ten action >>
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Gophers.
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Indiana steps out of conference to entertain NC Central >>
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Big East brawl pits Bulls against Orange >>
Syracuse, NY (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The South Florida Bulls will take their four-
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The Bulls and Syracuse
Big 12 Conference betting odds
Work left to do: Texas Tech, Oklahoma State, Kansas State
Texas joins Texas A&M and Kansas as locks after getting league win No. 11. Texas Tech greatly helped its own hopes and crippled OK State's with the two-point win Saturday. Is K-State the last reasonable hopeful? Could be an elimination match in Stillwater on Tuesday, at least for the Cowboys.
Work left to do:
Texas Tech [18-11 (7-7), RPI: 44, SOS: 12] A critical two-point win over OK State leaves the Red Raiders with Baylor and at Iowa State left. Get both and the Red Raiders likely are good to go. Get one and there could be some interesting comparisons with a K-State team that could finish two or three games "ahead" of them in the standings but doesn't have any of the quality wins Texas Tech has. Not a lot in nonconference play (against Arkansas in Little Rock being the best win, by far) to lean on.
Oklahoma State [18-9 (5-8), RPI: 50, SOS: 35] Still without a road win, the Cowboys now need to win two on the road just to get to .500 in conference play. It's hard to recall a team (OK, other than Clemson) falling so precipitously from lock status to almost certainly out of the NCAAs at this point. There are wins to be had in the last three, including a very big home game against K-State on Tuesday, but this team is reeling. Can you tell the pressure to win is getting to them with the way the final possession played out at Texas Tech? There are some good nonconference performances to lean on, specifically beating Missouri State and Syracuse on neutral floors and Pitt in OK City, but if the Pokes don't right this very, very soon, that won't be enough.
Kansas State [20-9 (9-5), RPI: 56, SOS: 96] It pays to be in the Big 12 North. The nine league wins are Colorado (twice), Missouri (twice), Iowa State (twice), Baylor, Nebraska and (a good one against) Texas. That helps explain the middling computer profile. The win over USC is nice, but the nonconference leaves a lot to be desired. The game at OK State in Stillwater on Tuesday is huge, as it could KO the Cowboys and leave K-State with a home date against Oklahoma with which to work.
2007 online football betting Preview
My fellow Americans, as tempting as it may be to don the coat and HD-ready tie in order to deliver this State of the Game address before the cameras, I know better. As Brad Paisley sings on his latest album, "I'm so much cooler online."
The ideas for this annual essay to kick off the MySportsbook.com college football betting preview flowed like frat-house beer, which is to say they were cheap and spilled all over the floor. The 2007 season will be better than 2007, if only because there will be more of it. A year ago, the NCAA Football Rules Committee made two rule changes in the interest of speeding up the game. These changes went over like Kobe burgers at a vegan banquet.
To its credit, the rules committee rectified its mistakes. This season the clock once again will start when a kickoff is received, rather than when it is kicked, and the clock will not start so quickly on a change of possession.
However, kickoffs have been moved back five yards, to the 30, which will force more returns. (Thus forcing the clock to run. Clever, huh?) Special teams might decide a lot of games, because coaching strategy will come straight out of another new Paisley lyric (almost), I'd like to check you for kicks.
Paisley sings with a twang, which is why he's appropriate for this college football season. The sun coming up over the 2007 college football betting lines season rises from the south. It's a Southern football world. As the Southeastern Conference begins its 75th year, the power shift is noticeable.
Eight-figure budgets, glamorous settings -- and that's just for the head coaches. The SEC has four coaches who have won national championships -- the greatest aggregation of coaching know-how since Eddie Robinson dined alone.
Steve Spurrier, Phil Fulmer, Nick Saban and Urban Meyer have given lie to the idea that a conference championship game is too daunting a hurdle on the road to No. 1. In six of the past 10 seasons, the national champions played and won a conference championship game -- three of the six (Tennessee, 1998; LSU, 2003; Florida, 2007) from the SEC.
2007 College Football Betting Preview
There will be more of the same this season, if the preseason prognostications are correct. Six SEC teams are in the preseason coaches' poll, more than from any other conference. Only one conference has talent so deep that a team with 15 returning starters, including the best quarterback in the league, from an eight-win season is considered an afterthought. That may speak more to Kentucky's losing legacy than to the wisdom of the predictions, but there you have it. And seriously, keep an eye on Wildcats QB Andre' Woodson.
The reach of the South extends all the way to No. 1. Take a look at the team that is a consensus pick to win the national championship. The quarterback is from Shreveport. The best wide receiver is from Nashville. The top recruit is from New Orleans.
So what's the campus doing in Los Angeles? Hey, it is the University of Southern California.
USC lost two Pacific-10 Conference games a year ago, the first time that had happened in five seasons, and university officials withstood the urge to form blue-ribbon panels to unearth the cause of such a disaster. Instead, the Trojans gathered themselves and routed Michigan, 32-18, in the Rose Bowl.
USC's losses at Oregon State and at UCLA last year should have given pause to those who question the Pac-10's football prowess (such as, without naming names, L.M. from Baton Rouge). The league only got deeper this season; Dennis Erickson is taking over an Arizona State team that never quite got out of its own way under his predecessor, Dirk Koetter.
Erickson will resume his quest to become the first coach to win a national championship at two schools. Both he and Spurrier, now in his third season at South Carolina, returned to college football at schools with lower profiles than where they won their titles.
That isn't the case for the third coach looking for the national championship double. You may have missed this, but NASA reported the astronauts on the space shuttle last spring made contact with what can only be described as beings from another galaxy.
The leader of the aliens said, "We come in peace," followed by, "So how do you think Nick Saban will do at Alabama?"
The public is reacting to the new Crimson Tide coach as if he is the Barry Bonds of college football -- beloved at home for what his fans believe he is going to do, hated on the road for his intimidating attitude and for what his detractors believe he did (bend NCAA recruiting rules). I made this comparison from the dais at a charity dinner in Mobile, Ala., last month, and the chill that washed over me didn't come from the air conditioning.
Saban will attempt to prove that he can remake in Tuscaloosa what he built in Baton Rouge, much like another member of the national championship fraternity. Bobby Bowden is attempting to remake at Florida State what he built at, um, Florida State. Bowden rebuilt his offensive staff, bringing in four new coaches led by Saban's former offensive coordinator, Jimbo Fisher, to jump-start an offense that has been dead for a couple of years.
Las Vegas Sports Lines
The Atlantic Coast Conference is expected to show new signs of life, too. That is said with no disrespect toward last season's champion, Wake Forest, which provided one of the best story lines of 2007. The Demon Deacons begin this season in their customary position, overshadowed by the Virginia Techs, Miamis and Florida States.
It's not that Wake will find it difficult to duplicate its success in 2007 as much as the feeling that success engendered. Surprising success is the narcotic of sport. It never feels quite so euphoric the next time. Big East commissioner Mike Tranghese has figured this out. He refers to 2007, when a league looked down upon by fans and foes alike took three undefeated teams into November, as "Cinderella."
The fairy tale may be over, but the Big East has four genuine Heisman Trophy candidates in Louisville quarterback Brian Brohm, West Virginia tailback Steve Slaton and quarterback Pat White, and Rutgers tailback Ray Rice. Rutgers, as did Wake Forest and, of course, Boise State, proved last season that the have-nots in college football occasionally have quite a lot.
The Broncos' rousing 43-42 overtime victory over Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl has raised the profile of all schools in conferences that don't get automatic BCS bids. This season, TCU and Hawaii are the preseason favorites to burst through the BCS doors and earn an at-large bid. The Warriors return 14 starters from an 11-3 team, including quarterback Colt Brennan.
Brennan not only broke the single-season record with 58 touchdown passes in 2007, but he also led Division I-A in passing efficiency (186.0). The senior is expected to contend for the Heisman Trophy, and neither his success nor the rise of his team should come as any surprise in the 2007 season.
After all, Hawaii is the southernmost team in the country.
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