{"id":11303,"date":"2010-12-06T21:45:07","date_gmt":"2010-12-07T02:45:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=11303"},"modified":"2010-12-06T22:54:23","modified_gmt":"2010-12-07T03:54:23","slug":"college-basketball-michigan-state-spartans-vs-syracuse-orangemen-jimmy-v-classic-picks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/college-basketball-michigan-state-spartans-vs-syracuse-orangemen-jimmy-v-classic-picks-11303\/","title":{"rendered":"College Basketball: Michigan State Spartans vs Syracuse Orangemen Jimmy V Classic Picks"},"content":{"rendered":"

Michigan State Spartans vs Syracuse Orangemen
\nTuesday, 12\/7\/10, 9:00 PM EDT, TV:\u00a0 ESPN
\nOpening Point Spread:\u00a0 Michigan State -1.5
\nCurrent Betting Line:\u00a0 Michigan State -2
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 135
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 137.5<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Michigan State's Kalin Lucas was held scoreless in the Spartans last game and is fatigued in the early going<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Michigan State faces Syracuse in the program\u2019s third appearance in the Jimmy V Classic.\u00a0 The Spartans will be facing their third ranked opponent of the year, beating Washington 76-71 in the Maui Classic before dropping an 84-79 decision to Duke at Cameron Indoor Stadium.\u00a0 \u201cI might be the dumbest scheduler in America,\u201d said coach Tom Izzo.\u00a0 \u201cMy team is tired.\u201d\u00a0 One of his main concerns will be the health of guard Kalin Lucas, who was held without a point for the second time in his career Saturday, taking one shot in 15 minutes.\u00a0 He is averaging 14.9 points a game and is still recovering from a torn achilles tendon he suffered last season.\u00a0 \u201cThe poor guy, he\u2019s drained,\u201d said Izzo.\u00a0 The team does have depth on its side, with 10 different players averaging 7.4 minutes or more this season.\u00a0 Michigan State is 2-1 ATS against Big East opponents the last three years and is currently a small favorite on the NCAA basketball lines page.<\/p>\n

The Spartans are shooting a Big Ten-best 43.1 percent from 3-point range this season, which would shatter the 40.1 mark the team shot under Izzo in 2003-04.\u00a0 Michigan State ranks second in the conference with 8.25 3-pointers per game, after finishing last in the conference last season (5.1).\u00a0 In the 16 previous meetings between these two storied programs, the Spartans trail 7-9, which includes an even 1-1 mark in neutral site games. \u00a0 Michigan State suffered a 96-83 defeat in the last meeting on January 3, 2004.<\/p>\n

Syracuse has used the same starting lineup in all eight games this season and are 2-0 on a neutral court, defeating Michigan and Georgia Tech in Atlantic City in the Legends Classic.\u00a0 Coach Jim Boeheim is certainly not all smiles on the bench despite his team\u2019s perfect 8-0 record, as he\u2019s been concerned with his offense from the opening game.\u00a0 \u201cThe main problem is our offense,\u201d he commented.\u00a0 \u201cWe\u2019ve got to find a way to make some of those.\u00a0 \u2018We\u2019d have two or three losses if we were playing average defense.\u201d\u00a0 The Orange are scoring 69.9 points a game while allowing just 58.9, giving the team a double-digit scoring margin of +11 points a contest.\u00a0 Syracuse is 2-6 ATS on the year and 10-7 ATS as an underdog over the past three seasons.<\/p>\n

The Orange led the nation in field-goal percentage at 51.6 last season, but the offense has managed to shoot under 40 percent in three games and 43 percent overall thus far.\u00a0 \u201cWe are not going to make a lot of them, but we have to make some of them,\u201d Boeheim commented on the team\u2019s three-point shooting.\u00a0 Syracuse normally doesn\u2019t have a challenging schedule before Big East play, but this year has been different, which may be having an effect on the dismal shooting numbers early on.<\/p>\n

Bettors will be interested in knowing that the Spartans are 4-1 ATS versus the Big East, while the Orange are 10-1 ATS on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

The college basketball handicappers at Maddux Sports are on fire and can\u2019t wait for you to join them on Tuesday night!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Michigan State Spartans vs Syracuse Orangemen Tuesday, 12\/7\/10, 9:00 PM EDT, TV:\u00a0 ESPN Opening Point Spread:\u00a0 Michigan State -1.5 Current Betting Line:\u00a0 Michigan State -2 Opening Total:\u00a0 135 Current Total:\u00a0 137.5 Michigan State faces Syracuse in the program\u2019s third appearance in the Jimmy V Classic.\u00a0 The Spartans will be facing their third ranked opponent of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":9787,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,1444],"tags":[559,737,3983,4063,3877,500,3290,778],"class_list":["post-11303","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-college-basketball","category-headlines","tag-big-east","tag-big-ten","tag-jim-boeheim","tag-jimmy-v-classic","tag-kalin-lucas","tag-michigan-state-spartans","tag-syracuse-orangemen","tag-tom-izzo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11303","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=11303"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11303\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11305,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11303\/revisions\/11305"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9787"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}