{"id":11229,"date":"2010-12-03T13:02:36","date_gmt":"2010-12-03T18:02:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=11229"},"modified":"2010-12-03T13:04:19","modified_gmt":"2010-12-03T18:04:19","slug":"ncaa-basketball-handicapping-saint-josephs-hawks-at-villanova-hawks-predictions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/ncaa-basketball-handicapping-saint-josephs-hawks-at-villanova-hawks-predictions-11229\/","title":{"rendered":"NCAA Basketball Handicapping: Saint Joseph’s Hawks at Villanova Wildcats Predictions"},"content":{"rendered":"

Saint Joseph\u2019s Hawks at Villanova Wildcats
\nFriday, 12\/3\/10, 8:30 PM EDT, TV:\u00a0 ESPNU
\nOpening Point Spread:\u00a0 Villanova -19
\nCurrent Betting Line:\u00a0 Villanova -19.5
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 146
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 144.5<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The Villanova Wildcats are 19.5-point home favorites against Saint Joseph's and looking to win their 42nd straight games on campus tonight<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Saint Joseph\u2019s enters this Big 5 opener of the 2010-11 season with a 3-3 overall record and posted a 2-2 mark in the City Series last season.\u00a0 The Hawks will be looking to bounce back from a 62-50 loss to Drexel on Wednesday, getting out-rebounded by a 46-23 margin on the glass.\u00a0 \u201cFrom the first tape I watched until the pre-game talk, the number one thing was rebounding,\u201d said coach Phil Martelli.\u00a0 \u201cIf we rebounded, we\u2019d win the game.\u201d\u00a0 The defeat snapped a three-game winning streak for a team that lost its first two contests of the year to Western Kentucky and Penn State.\u00a0 The program is fielding its youngest team under Martelli with two seniors, one junior, four sophomores and five freshman.\u00a0 Saint Joseph\u2019s is 3-2 ATS as an underdog this season and the college basketball lines page has them listed as a double-digit underdog.<\/p>\n

The Hawks will be playing their first nationally-televised game of the season and went 1-2 in this situation last year.\u00a0 Saint Joseph\u2019s has won a total of 19 Big 5 titles, which is third all-time to Temple\u2019s 25 titles.\u00a0 A key component of pulling off a possible upset of this magnitude is the team\u2019s ability to knock down free throws, ranking second in the Atlantic 10 by shooting 73.2 percent.\u00a0 The squad has featured the same starting lineup in all but one game this season, which is also the youngest lineup ever as mentioned before.<\/p>\n

Villanova will play its first game after suffering a 78-68 loss to Tennessee in the Preseason NIT Championship game at Madison Square Garden.\u00a0 The Wildcats shot a season-low 34.5 percent in the contest and coach Jay Wright tried to prepare his team mentally for a physical 40 minutes of play.\u00a0 \u201cCoach told us they were going to come out and play hard and that\u2019s what they did,\u201d said guard Corey Stokes.\u00a0 \u201cHe said it would be a street fight.\u201d\u00a0 The Wildcats have a great opportunity in bouncing back due to a 21-2 record in their last 23 Big 5 games, winning tight games over tonight\u2019s opponent the last two seasons.\u00a0 Villanova is 10-3 ATS as a home favorite of 12.5 or more points.<\/p>\n

The Wildcats will be playing the first of three consecutive City Series games, battling Penn next Wednesday and ending with a trip to La Salle on Sunday.\u00a0 \u00a0 Senior guard Corey Fisher is the team\u2019s leading scorer at 15.8 points per game and is joined by the sharp-shooting Stokes in the backcourt.\u00a0 Stokes is 16-of-41 from beyond the arc this season and is 191-of-512 for his career.\u00a0 Both of those players figure to play a key part in extending Villanova\u2019s 41-game winning streak at its on-campus home tonight.<\/p>\n

Bettors will be interested in knowing that the Hawks are 5-1 ATS versus the Big East, while the Wildcats are 15-6-1 in their last 22 games against A-10 competition.<\/p>\n

The college basketball handicappers at Maddux Sports are off to a flying start and can\u2019t wait for you to join them tonight!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Saint Joseph\u2019s Hawks at Villanova Wildcats Friday, 12\/3\/10, 8:30 PM EDT, TV:\u00a0 ESPNU Opening Point Spread:\u00a0 Villanova -19 Current Betting Line:\u00a0 Villanova -19.5 Opening Total:\u00a0 146 Current Total:\u00a0 144.5 Saint Joseph\u2019s enters this Big 5 opener of the 2010-11 season with a 3-3 overall record and posted a 2-2 mark in the City Series last […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":9778,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,1444],"tags":[4047,4048,4050,4051,3964,4049,4046,752],"class_list":["post-11229","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-college-basketball","category-headlines","tag-big-5","tag-city-series","tag-corey-fisher","tag-corey-stokes","tag-jay-wright","tag-phil-martelli","tag-saint-josephs-hawks","tag-villanova-wildcats"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11229","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=11229"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11229\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11233,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11229\/revisions\/11233"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9778"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}