{"id":11060,"date":"2010-11-28T20:01:15","date_gmt":"2010-11-29T01:01:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=11060"},"modified":"2010-11-28T20:01:15","modified_gmt":"2010-11-29T01:01:15","slug":"ncaa-basketball-picks-virginia-cavaliers-at-minnesota-gophers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/ncaa-basketball-picks-virginia-cavaliers-at-minnesota-gophers-11060\/","title":{"rendered":"NCAA Basketball Picks: Virginia Cavaliers at Minnesota Gophers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Virginia Cavaliers at Minnesota Gophers
\nMonday, 11\/29\/10, 7:00 PM EDT, TV:\u00a0 ESPN2
\nOpening Point Spread:\u00a0 Minnesota -15
\nCurrent Betting Line:\u00a0 Minnesota -15<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The Minnesota Gophers are double-digit favorites in the ACC\/Big Ten Challenge and hosting the Virginia Cavaliers<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Virginia travels to Minnesota for the first game of the 2010 ACC\/Big Ten Challenge and it will be the program\u2019s second trip to Minneapolis in three years in the event.\u00a0 The Cavaliers lead the all-time series, 4-2, but the home team has won all three meetings in the ACC\/Big Ten Challenge.\u00a0 The Cavaliers will need more than two points from their bench to remain competitive in this contest, as that was their contribution in a 70-58 loss to Wichita State in its final game in the Maui Invitational.\u00a0 \u201cWe\u2019re not a real deep team, but we\u2019ve got to keep looking to develop our rotation and getting a little more,\u201d said head coach Tony Bennett.\u00a0 \u201cI played our main five or six guys heavy minutes and they responded well, but we need to get a little more help off the bench.\u201d\u00a0 The team is a double-digit underdog on the college basketball lines page.<\/p>\n

The Cavaliers have a 5-5 all-time record in the challenge, including a 1-4 mark on the road.\u00a0 Minnesota is just the second ranked opponent Virginia has played in the challenge, dropping an 82-75 contest at Michigan State in 2002-03, also following a Virginia trip to Maui.\u00a0 This will be the program\u2019s second game against a ranked opponent this season, suffering a 106-63 blowout loss to No. 13 Washington in the first round of the Maui Invitational.\u00a0 It\u2019s important to note that the team is 14-1 when scoring at least 70 points under Bennett, while recording a 4-18 mark when scoring under that mark.<\/p>\n

Minnesota will look to continue its great start to the 2010-11 season, while also trying to improve upon its 4-7 record in the challenge, losing to Miami, 63-58, last season in Coral Gables.\u00a0 The Gophers broke into the Top 25 last week after winning the Puerto Rico Tip-Off, beating North Carolina 72-67 along the way.\u00a0 \u201cCoach has really emphasized six, seven passes and then a great shot,\u201d said Blake Hoffarber.\u00a0 \u201cI think in previous years, a couple times we didn\u2019t pass it as much.\u201d\u00a0 Head coach Tubby Smith is 1-1 all-time against the Cavaliers.\u00a0 Minnesota is 21-12 ATS at home the past three seasons.<\/p>\n

The Gophers won the Puerto Rico Classic with a 3-0 record and now have a combined record of 73-40 in in-season tournaments.\u00a0 Minnesota is 9-3 under Smith in these types of tournaments, including a 3-0 record in the NABC Classic to start the 2008-09 season.\u00a0 \u00a0 The team has posted a combined record of 36-5 under Smith in regular season non-conference games, including a perfect 12-0 record to start the 2008-09 campaign.\u00a0 The Gophers went 8-0 last season at Williams Arena during the non-conference schedule.<\/p>\n

Bettors will be interested in knowing that the Cavaliers are 4-10 ATS in their last 14 games overall, while the Gophers are 3-8 ATS in their last 11 versus the ACC.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t miss out on a huge day of action and let the college basketball handicappers at Maddux Sports go to work for you!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Virginia Cavaliers at Minnesota Gophers Monday, 11\/29\/10, 7:00 PM EDT, TV:\u00a0 ESPN2 Opening Point Spread:\u00a0 Minnesota -15 Current Betting Line:\u00a0 Minnesota -15 Virginia travels to Minnesota for the first game of the 2010 ACC\/Big Ten Challenge and it will be the program\u2019s second trip to Minneapolis in three years in the event.\u00a0 The Cavaliers lead […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":9735,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,1444],"tags":[387,737,3997,761,1384,2977,3998],"class_list":["post-11060","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-college-basketball","category-headlines","tag-acc","tag-big-ten","tag-minnesota-gophers","tag-tony-bennett","tag-tubby-smith","tag-virginia-cavaliers","tag-williams-arena"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11060","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=11060"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11060\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11061,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11060\/revisions\/11061"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9735"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11060"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11060"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11060"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}