{"id":11347,"date":"2010-12-08T14:26:18","date_gmt":"2010-12-08T19:26:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=11347"},"modified":"2010-12-08T15:30:47","modified_gmt":"2010-12-08T20:30:47","slug":"free-ncaa-mens-basketball-picks-ohio-bobcats-at-illinois-state-redbirds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/free-ncaa-mens-basketball-picks-ohio-bobcats-at-illinois-state-redbirds-11347\/","title":{"rendered":"Free NCAA Men’s Basketball Picks: Ohio Bobcats at Illinois State Redbirds"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ohio Bobcats AT Illinois State Redbirds
\nDecember 8th, 2010 at 8:05 EST
\nOpening Line:\u00a0 Illinois State -4
\nCurrent Line:\u00a0 Illinois State -4.5
\nCurrent Total: Undefined
\nCurrent Moneyline: Undefined<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ohio enters tonight’s game with a 4-3 record, coming off an 8 point loss to Marshall.\u00a0 Illinois State is 6-2 and has won four of their last five outings.<\/p>\n

The total has gone OVER In four of Ohio’s last five games on the road.\u00a0 Illinois State has won 14 of their past 15 games at home.\u00a0 Ohio, despite having a winning record, has a negative point differential of -5.1, mainly due to the fact that they lost 98 to 41 against powerhouse Kansas.\u00a0 Illinois State has a positive point differential of +4.3.\u00a0 Illinois State is 0-5 ATS at home this year and 0-6 ATS overall.<\/p>\n

No one on Illinois State is having a particularly\u00a0 good season.\u00a0 Their leading scorer (Austin Hill) averages only 11.6 points per game, and due to the fact they go 11 deep into their bench, no one is averaging more than 22 minutes a game, either.\u00a0 6’7″ senior forward Tony Lewis is doing well in his 18 minutes a game, leading the Redbirds in rebounds with 8.1 boards a game, to go along with his 7.6 points per game.\u00a0 Ohio will have a tough time keeping him off the boards, as his per 36 stats render him with 16.2 boards a night.\u00a0 In a 9 point win against ULAR, he grabbed 13 boards in 17 minutes.<\/p>\n

Ohio is led far and away by the 5’11” sophomore point guard D.J. Cooper.\u00a0 Cooper is a bit in the mold of Rajon Rondo, he’s small, lacks a jumpshot and is an incredible athlete.\u00a0 He averages 18.4 points per contest to go along with 6.6 assists per game and 6.0 rebounds per game.\u00a0 Despite standing only 5’11”, his 6.0 rebounds per game ranks him second on the team in rebounding.\u00a0 He also leads the team in minutes played, playing 33 minutes per night.\u00a0 His field goal is poor (40.2%) and he isn’t a good three point shooter, either (26.7%), but his quickness enables him to get into the paint and find good looks for himself or for his teammates, in particular DeVaughn Washington (9.8 ppg) and Ivo Baltic (9.0 ppg).<\/p>\n

Tonight’s game will be mostly decided by the way Trey Blue chooses to play D.J. Cooper.\u00a0 If he goes under the picks and forces Cooper to take jumpshots, it will bode well for Illinois State.\u00a0 Ultimately, Illinois State’s depth is going to cause problems for Ohio, though.\u00a0 Because they go 11 deep they are able to keep fresh bodies on the floor and will seek to press Ohio as much as possible, to force turnovers and accelerate the pace of the game, which is in the Redbirds’ favor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ohio Bobcats AT Illinois State Redbirds December 8th, 2010 at 8:05 EST Opening Line:\u00a0 Illinois State -4 Current Line:\u00a0 Illinois State -4.5 Current Total: Undefined Current Moneyline: Undefined Ohio enters tonight’s game with a 4-3 record, coming off an 8 point loss to Marshall.\u00a0 Illinois State is 6-2 and has won four of their last […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40250,"featured_media":4660,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,1444],"tags":[4077,3688],"class_list":["post-11347","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-college-basketball","category-headlines","tag-illinois-state-redbirds","tag-ohio-bobcats"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11347","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\/40250"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11347"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11347\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11354,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11347\/revisions\/11354"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}