Thursday, May 17th, 2012
The Villanova Wildcats will travel in a huge Big East conference game against the Syracuse Orange on Saturday night. They tip off this college basketball game at Syracuse at 9PM Eastern Time with national television coverage by ESPN.
The LVSC college basketball odds makers opened up this line with the home team Syracuse Orange as a 6 point betting favorite with the over under coming in at 159.
The early money has come in on the side of the road underdog Villanova Wildcats, as the Syracuse Orange are currently a 5 ½ point favorite. The total has seen early movement on the side of the under, as the total is currently lined at 158.
Syracuse Orange money line bettors can lay –240 odds with the road underdog Villanova Wildcats returning +200 to pull off the upset win without the aid of getting the points.
This is the first meeting of the regular season between these clubs. They met twice last year in Big East conference play with the Villanova Wildcats pulling out the clean sweep. It was Villanova with the 102-85 home victory and that was followed up a couple of week later with an 89-86 road win at Syracuse. Villanova has shot extremely well against the Orange last season with 54.5% shooting in their home win and 52.5% at Syracuse. The Wildcats won the rebounding advantage in both games with a +9 margin in their home win and +4 at Syracuse.
Weather permitting an estimate of 40,000 fans is expected at Syracuse for this home game. Syracuse sits at 26-2 on the year and 15-2 on their home court. They are in first place in the Big East conference 1 game ahead of Villanova. This game could be for a #1 seed in the NCAA Tournament. Since dropping a 66-60 home decision to Louisville on February 14th the Orange has put together 2 straight wins. The team is coming off a 99-85 road win at Providence on Tuesday night. It was a 55.6% shooting percentage in victory over the Friars. Senior guard Andy Rautins is coming off a season high 28 points on 10 of 16 shooting in victory against Friars. Prior to that Rautins poured in 26 points in the teams victory at Georgetown.
Villanova is 23-4 straight up on the year and 6-3 straight up in true road games. The team broke their recent two game skid with a 74-49 home victory over South Florida on Wednesday night as a 13 point favorite. Prior to that it was consecutive losses at Pittsburgh and home to Connecticut. In their win at home to the Bulls it was the Wildcats with over 47% shooting from the field and they limited their opponent to just 38%. Senior guard Scottie Reynolds led Villanova with 21 points on 7 of 14 shooting in the teams’ victory over South Florida. Reynolds has averaged over 20 points in his past 6 Big East games.
Trend: Villanova Wildcats are 4-1 ATS in their past 5 meetings with the Syracuse Orange
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