{"id":11349,"date":"2010-12-08T14:54:32","date_gmt":"2010-12-08T19:54:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=11349"},"modified":"2010-12-08T15:27:43","modified_gmt":"2010-12-08T20:27:43","slug":"free-ncaa-mens-basketball-picks-notre-dame-fighting-irish-at-kentucky-wildcats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/free-ncaa-mens-basketball-picks-notre-dame-fighting-irish-at-kentucky-wildcats-11349\/","title":{"rendered":"Free NCAA Men’s Basketball Picks: Notre Dame Fighting Irish at Kentucky Wildcats"},"content":{"rendered":"

Notre Dame Fighting Irish AT Kentucky Wildcats
\nDecember 8, 2010 at 9:30 PM EST
\nOpening Line:\u00a0 Kentucky -6
\nCurrent Line:\u00a0 Kentucky -5
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 Undefined<\/strong><\/p>\n

Notre Dame comes into the game ranked 23rd in the nation vs the 17th ranked Wildcats of Kentucky.\u00a0 Notre Dame is undefeated at 8-0, while Kentucky is 5-2, having lost a close one to the Tarheels by 2 and a not so close one to Connecticut by 17.<\/p>\n

Notre Dame is winning its game in decisive fashion, with a +19.8 point differential, and Kentucky isn’t bad off either, winning by an average of 12.6 points per game.\u00a0 Notre Dame has struggled mightily on the road, however, and has won just 6 of their last 24 away from Notre Dame.\u00a0 Also in Kentucky’s favor is the fact that they have won 23 of their last 25 at home in Rupp Arena.\u00a0 Notre Dame is 3-1 ATS this year and Kentucky is 2-3 ATS.\u00a0 This is only Notre Dame’s second road game of the young season.<\/p>\n

Kentucky is led by outstanding 6’8″ freshman forward Terrence Jones who is averaging a team high 19 points per game to go along with a team high 9.8 boards per game.\u00a0 Projected to be a lottery pick this year, Jones is the dominant big man inside that has replaced DeMarcus Cousins who left last year for the NBA draft.\u00a0 He’s scored 24 or more in 3 of Kentucky’s 7 games, including a 29 point outburst against Oklahoma.\u00a0 Their other fab freshman 6’3″ guard Brandon Knight is second on the team in scoring with 17 points per game to go along with a team high 3.4 assists per contest.\u00a0 Kentucky is shooting a blistering 41.4% from three this year, with all six of their leading scorers shooting 34% or better.<\/p>\n

Notre Dame makes its living on the glass, and are #6 in the nation in boards per game.\u00a0 They have three players with an average of 7 or more boards per game, and four players who average double figure points per game, using a balanced attack to wear down their opponents.\u00a0 Ben Hansbrough and Tim Abromaitis lead the Fighting Irish in minutes per game with 33 per contest.\u00a0 Hansbrough, a 6’3″ senior guard, is shooting an insane 54.8% from behind the arc this year, having hit 23 of 42 attempts so far.\u00a0 Brandon Knight will have the job of checking Hansbrough and will be wise to force penetration rather than giving him the outside shot.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, this game will come down to how well the Fighting Irish can manage to cover Kentucky’s two freshman studs.\u00a0 Both are capable of huge games and could get off against the Irish defense.\u00a0 Look for Kentucky to dump it inside early and often to Jones who will attempt to get the Fighting Irish frontline in foul trouble.\u00a0 If he can, it will cause serious pains for the Irish as their interior game is their strength.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Notre Dame Fighting Irish AT Kentucky Wildcats December 8, 2010 at 9:30 PM EST Opening Line:\u00a0 Kentucky -6 Current Line:\u00a0 Kentucky -5 Current Total:\u00a0 Undefined Notre Dame comes into the game ranked 23rd in the nation vs the 17th ranked Wildcats of Kentucky.\u00a0 Notre Dame is undefeated at 8-0, while Kentucky is 5-2, having lost […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40250,"featured_media":9767,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,1444],"tags":[4078,1916,410,4079],"class_list":["post-11349","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-college-basketball","category-headlines","tag-fighting-irish","tag-kentucky","tag-notre-dame","tag-wildcats"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11349","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=11349"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11349\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11351,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11349\/revisions\/11351"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9767"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}