{"id":10895,"date":"2010-11-22T10:17:15","date_gmt":"2010-11-22T15:17:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=10895"},"modified":"2010-11-22T10:17:15","modified_gmt":"2010-11-22T15:17:15","slug":"ncaa-basketball-picks-oklahoma-sooners-vs-kentucky-wildcats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/ncaa-basketball-picks-oklahoma-sooners-vs-kentucky-wildcats-10895\/","title":{"rendered":"NCAA Basketball Picks: Oklahoma Sooners vs Kentucky Wildcats"},"content":{"rendered":"

Oklahoma Sooners vs Kentucky Wildcats
\nMonday, 11\/22\/10, 5:30 PM EDT, TV:\u00a0 ESPN2
\nOpening Point Spread:\u00a0 Kentucky -15
\nCurrent Betting Line:\u00a0 Kentucky -15<\/strong><\/p>\n

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The Kentucky Wildcats are 10-4 all-time when playing in Hawaii and open up this year's Maui Invitational against the Oklahoma Sooners<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Oklahoma is making its fourth appearance in the Maui Invitational and sports a 5-4 record, including a 1-2 mark in head coach Jeff Capel\u2019s first season.\u00a0 \u201cMaui, historically, has always been a premiere event as far as teams in college basketball,\u201d Capel stated.\u00a0 \u201cThis year the field is probably as good as it has ever been.\u00a0 We are excited about the opportunity.\u201d\u00a0 The Sooners are playing their first game away from home this season after wins over Coppin State (77-57), North Carolina Central (71-63) and Texas Southern (82-52).\u00a0 Offensively, the team is shooting 45.7 percent from the field and 38.8 percent from 3-point range, while holding opponents to a respective 36.9 and 32.8 in those categories.\u00a0 Oklahoma is a double-digit underdog according to the college basketball lines page.<\/p>\n

The Sooners sport a very young team with seven of their top eight scorers being in their first or second year of Division I basketball.\u00a0 Despite the youthfulness, the team is shooting a Big 12-best 80.6 percent from the charity stripe.\u00a0 Many experts believe that the 2010-11 season will be one of rebuilding, especially after losing the last nine games last season to finish 13-18 for its first losing campaign under Capel.\u00a0 Oklahoma and Kentucky have met twice, with the Wildcats prevailing both times.\u00a0 UK won 43-33 in the 1945-46 season and 75-74 during the 1986-87 campaign, as both games were played in Lexington.<\/p>\n

Kentucky returns to the Main Invitational for the first time in four years, posting a 1-2 record in its last appearance on the island, tallying a win over DePaul and losses to UCLA and the John Calipari-coached Memphis Tigers.\u00a0 The Wildcats enter off an impressive 79-48 road win over the Portland Pilots, with Terrence Jones playing in his hometown.\u00a0 \u201cTerrence played well, but I want him to be great,\u201d said Calipari.\u00a0 \u201cHe has to be more physical.\u00a0 He can\u2019t accept that a guy is going to body him.\u201d\u00a0 Kentucky has rolled up a 54-9 record against schools comprising of the Big 12 conference.\u00a0 The team is 9-5 ATS on neutral courts.<\/p>\n

The Wildcats have posted an 8-4 all-time mark in this tournament and are 10-4 all-time in games played in Hawaii.\u00a0 Kentucky has won both of its opening games by more than 20 points thanks to its perimeter shooting, hitting 47.7 percent of its shots from 3-point range.\u00a0 The team shot 54.9 percent from the field on Friday night in the Rose Garden and improved its shooting from the charity stripe, knocking down 15-of-20 attempts after posting a 9-23 effort in the previous game.<\/p>\n

Bettors will be interested in knowing that the Sooners are 17-35-1 ATS as an underdog, while the Wildcats are 0-3-1 ATS versus the Big 12.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t let today\u2019s action pass you by and let the college basketball handicappers at Maddux Sports deliver a winning day!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Oklahoma Sooners vs Kentucky Wildcats Monday, 11\/22\/10, 5:30 PM EDT, TV:\u00a0 ESPN2 Opening Point Spread:\u00a0 Kentucky -15 Current Betting Line:\u00a0 Kentucky -15 Oklahoma is making its fourth appearance in the Maui Invitational and sports a 5-4 record, including a 1-2 mark in head coach Jeff Capel\u2019s first season.\u00a0 \u201cMaui, historically, has always been a premiere […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":9767,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,1444],"tags":[3267,769,756,876,3942,408,3897],"class_list":["post-10895","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-college-basketball","category-headlines","tag-big-12-conference","tag-jeff-capel","tag-john-calipari","tag-kentucky-wildcats","tag-maui-invitational","tag-oklahoma-sooners","tag-terrence-jones"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10895","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/181"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10895"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10895\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10896,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10895\/revisions\/10896"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9767"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}