{"id":11421,"date":"2010-12-10T18:31:23","date_gmt":"2010-12-10T23:31:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=11421"},"modified":"2010-12-10T18:33:09","modified_gmt":"2010-12-10T23:33:09","slug":"ncaa-basketball-saint-louis-billikens-at-duke-blue-devils-picks-predictions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/ncaa-basketball-saint-louis-billikens-at-duke-blue-devils-picks-predictions-11421\/","title":{"rendered":"NCAA Basketball: Saint Louis Billikens at Duke Blue Devils Picks & Predictions"},"content":{"rendered":"

Saint Louis Billikens at Duke Blue Devils
\nSaturday, 12\/11\/10, 12:00 PM EDT, TV:\u00a0 CBS
\nOpening Point Spread:\u00a0 Duke -25
\nCurrent Betting Line:\u00a0 Duke -25
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 133.5
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 131<\/strong><\/p>\n

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The Duke Blue Devils are large favorites this Saturday and looking to win their 20th straight game in hosting the Saint Louis Billikens on Saturday<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Saint Louis is 3-3 on the season and has posted an 0-11 mark in non-conference road games in Rick Majerus\u2019 three-plus seasons as coach.\u00a0 The Billikens are averaging 64.8 points per game this season and rank second in the Atlantic 10 in scoring defense, yielding just 57.3 points a contest.\u00a0 Part of the team\u2019s struggles can be attributed to having just nine scholarship players, as its only three wins on the season have come against Rockhurst, Tennessee State and IUPUI.\u00a0 Many find this to be the weakest squad during the Majerus-era and only one player averages more than 9.0 points a game on the roster, with Kyle Cassity scoring 11.7 a night.\u00a0 Saint Louis is 1-5 ATS in its last six games overall and the college basketball lines page has them listed as a big underdog on Saturday.<\/p>\n

The Billikens have three wins against top-ranked clubs in the program\u2019s history, with the last triumph coming on March 9, 2000, against Cincinnati in the Conference USA quarterfinals.\u00a0 Saint Louis is 4-30 against ranked teams over the past 10 years.\u00a0 The team will be looking for its first victory in this series, as the Blue Devils have captured all three meetings.\u00a0 The last meeting between the clubs occurred in 1988, with Duke claiming a 69-53 victory at Cameron Indoor Stadium.\u00a0 It\u2019s important to point out that the team is 38-5 when holding opponents under 60 points under Majerus, which is highly unlikely against a great offensive team in Duke.<\/p>\n

Duke has won 19 consecutive games entering Saturday\u2019s contest and is looking to open a season 10-0 for the 13th time under coach Mike Krzyzewski.\u00a0 The Blue Devils may have a perfect record heading into this game, but many college basketball experts are still more interested in freshman Kyrie Irving\u2019s toe injury that has him out indefinitely.\u00a0 He was averaging a team-high 17.4 points and 5.1 assists.\u00a0 \u201cIt is serious and whatever final decision is made, it\u2019s going to be based on what\u2019s in his best interests in his career,\u201d Krzyzewski commented.\u00a0 Despite the absence of its young superstar, Duke picked up an impressive 83-48 win over Bradley last time out.\u00a0 The squad is 9-4 ATS in its last 13 home games.<\/p>\n

The Blue Devils are likely to pick up their 36th straight win against a team outside of the traditional power conferences and also extend their streak to 83 consecutive wins at home over non-conference opponents.\u00a0 Saturday\u2019s game is also going to mark Coach K\u2019s 200th game while holding the No. 1 ranking in the AP poll.\u00a0 Duke has also posted a 77-27 all-time record against Atlantic 10 Conference opponents, including a 34-1 mark under Krzyzewki\u2019s direction.\u00a0 The Blue Devils have won 15 straight games against A-10 competition.<\/p>\n

Bettors will be interested in the Billikens 1-5 ATS mark versus non-conference competition, while the Blue Devils are 5-2 ATS against the Atlantic 10 Conference.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t miss out on a huge weekend and let the college basketball handicappers at Maddux Sports get you to the winner\u2019s circle.\u00a0 Become a part of a winning today!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Saint Louis Billikens at Duke Blue Devils Saturday, 12\/11\/10, 12:00 PM EDT, TV:\u00a0 CBS Opening Point Spread:\u00a0 Duke -25 Current Betting Line:\u00a0 Duke -25 Opening Total:\u00a0 133.5 Current Total:\u00a0 131 Saint Louis is 3-3 on the season and has posted an 0-11 mark in non-conference road games in Rick Majerus\u2019 three-plus seasons as coach.\u00a0 The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":9819,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,1444],"tags":[4080,4014,607,3945,1661,4097],"class_list":["post-11421","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-college-basketball","category-headlines","tag-atlantic-10","tag-cameron-indoor-stadium","tag-duke-blue-devils","tag-kyrie-irving","tag-mike-krzyzewski","tag-rick-majerus"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11421","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=11421"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11421\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11423,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11421\/revisions\/11423"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9819"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11421"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}