{"id":11130,"date":"2010-11-30T20:45:20","date_gmt":"2010-12-01T01:45:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=11130"},"modified":"2010-11-30T20:51:35","modified_gmt":"2010-12-01T01:51:35","slug":"ncaa-basketball-betting-preview-duquesne-dukes-vs-pittsburgh-panthers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/ncaa-basketball-betting-preview-duquesne-dukes-vs-pittsburgh-panthers-11130\/","title":{"rendered":"NCAA Basketball Betting Preview: Duquesne Dukes vs Pittsburgh Panthers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Duquesne Dukes at Pittsburgh Panthers
\nSaturday, 12\/1\/10, 9:15 PM EDT, TV:\u00a0 ESPNU
\nOpening Point Spread:\u00a0 Pittsburgh -10.5
\nCurrent Betting Line:\u00a0 Pittsburgh -11
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 148.5
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 148.5<\/strong><\/p>\n

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The Pitt Panthers have won nine consecutive meetings with the Duquesne Dukes heading into Wednesday's contest at the Consol Energy Center<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Duquesne is coming off back-to-back 30-plus point wins at Bowling Green and UMBC and now returns to action to face No. 3 Pitt in the first game at the new CONSOL Energy Center on Wednesday night.\u00a0 The Dukes have won three of their first four games, but all came against weak competition, which has coach Ron Everhart wondering about tonight\u2019s matchup.\u00a0 \u201cI like our energy level, but I don\u2019t know if we\u2019re playing with enough of a sense of urgency yet,\u201d he stated.\u00a0 \u201cWe have a tough stretch coming up.\u201d\u00a0 The team started a freshman backcourt the last two games in November and it will be tested in a big way against Big East competition.\u00a0 Duquesne is 1-5 ATS in its last six games and the NCAA basketball lines page has them as a double-digit underdog.<\/p>\n

The Dukes will begin a stretch of playing five 2010 postseason teams in their next six games, as they averaged 21.7 wins last season.\u00a0 Duquesne\u2019s strength is balanced scoring, with six players averaging at least 10 points a game, as the team has shot 50.2 percent from the floor early on.\u00a0 The sharp-shooting from the field hasn\u2019t carried over to the free throw line, managing to shoot just 63.1 percent.\u00a0 An important statistic to pay attention to when handicapping this game is the Dukes\u2019 ability to score 70 or more points.\u00a0 The program is 63-32 under Everhart when scoring 70 points or more and 4-30 when held under that mark.<\/p>\n

Pitt enters its eighth game of the year with a perfect 7-0 record for the eighth time in the last nine seasons.\u00a0 The Panthers have already registered three quality RPI wins over Rhode Island, Maryland and Texas.\u00a0 \u201cPitt\u2019s a team that really understands their roles,\u201d said Texas coach Rick Barnes.\u00a0 \u201cThey do a lot of details.\u00a0 How many seniors they got?\u00a0 That has a lot to do with it.\u201d\u00a0 Many Big East experts have stated this is the deepest team the program has had under coach Jamie Dixon\u2019s direction.\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s beneficial for the team to be this deep,\u201d said Gilbert Brown.\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s unique and special.\u00a0 We never want to take a play off.\u201d\u00a0 The Panthers are 4-10 ATS in their last 14 neutral site games.<\/p>\n

The Panthers enter tonight\u2019s contest with a 47-31 all-time advantage in this rivalry and have won nine straight meetings.\u00a0 The two teams will meet on a neutral floor for the second consecutive season, as they played the final college basketball contest at Mellon Arena, a 67-58 Pitt win in double overtime.\u00a0 Dixon owns a 7-0 record versus the Dukes and a 91-6 mark against non-conference opponents overall.<\/p>\n

Bettors will be interested in knowing that the Dukes are 1-6 ATS versus Big East opponents, while the Panthers are 5-2 ATS in the last seven meetings.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t miss out on a huge day on the hard court and let the college basketball handicappers at Maddux Sports provide you with a winning day!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Duquesne Dukes at Pittsburgh Panthers Saturday, 12\/1\/10, 9:15 PM EDT, TV:\u00a0 ESPNU Opening Point Spread:\u00a0 Pittsburgh -10.5 Current Betting Line:\u00a0 Pittsburgh -11 Opening Total:\u00a0 148.5 Current Total:\u00a0 148.5 Duquesne is coming off back-to-back 30-plus point wins at Bowling Green and UMBC and now returns to action to face No. 3 Pitt in the first game […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":9782,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,1444],"tags":[559,4016,4015,3735,3734,615,4017],"class_list":["post-11130","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-college-basketball","category-headlines","tag-big-east","tag-consol-energy-center","tag-duquesne-dukes","tag-gilbert-brown","tag-jamie-dixon","tag-pittsburgh-panthers","tag-ron-everhart"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11130","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=11130"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11130\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11131,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11130\/revisions\/11131"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}