{"id":11529,"date":"2010-12-15T08:53:27","date_gmt":"2010-12-15T13:53:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=11529"},"modified":"2010-12-15T08:53:27","modified_gmt":"2010-12-15T13:53:27","slug":"best-college-basketball-picks-oregon-state-at-montana","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/best-college-basketball-picks-oregon-state-at-montana-11529\/","title":{"rendered":"Best College Basketball Picks: Oregon State at Montana"},"content":{"rendered":"

Oregon State Beavers AT Montana Grizzlies
\nDecember 15th, 2010 at 9:00 PM EST
\nOpening Line:\u00a0 Montana -7
\nCurrent Line:\u00a0 Montana -8
\nTotal:\u00a0 Undefined
\nMoneyline:\u00a0 Montana -335 \/ Oregon State +285<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"
Montana is favored by 8 points due to their strong play at home<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Both teams come into tonight with similar records.\u00a0 The favored Montana Grizzlies are 5-4 while the Oregon State Beavers are 4-4.\u00a0 Both teams have also won 3 of their last 5 games.\u00a0 Montana is coming off a 2 point loss to San Francisco on the road, and Oregon State last blew out Texas Pan-American by 20.\u00a0 Both teams also sport positive point differentials.\u00a0 Oregon State is +2.6, scoring 74.0 per game and giving up 71.4.\u00a0 Oregon State’s 74.0 points per game rank them 92nd overall in the nation.\u00a0 Montana is +10.1, scoring 68.7 points per game and giving up 58.6.<\/p>\n

Oregon State has lost 11 of their last 15 games on the road, and Montana is 14-2 over their past 16 at home, so it is clear to see why college basketball handicappers have set the line favoring Montana by 8.\u00a0 Oregon State is 1-1 ATS this year and 1-0 at home ATS.\u00a0 Montana is 2-4 ATS and 1-2 on the road ATS.<\/p>\n

Oregon State has a balanced scoring attack with 6 players averaging 8 or more a game, and their leading scorer 6’9″ senior forward Omari Johnson only averages 13.8 points per game.\u00a0 However, he is also their strongest interior player, pulling down 7.3 board a game and managing 2.4 steals a game.\u00a0 He already had a six steal game against Texas South, but the Beavers lost that game by 6 points, 66-60.\u00a0 Despite being a strong interior player, Omari also takes opponents outside the arc, stretching the offense.\u00a0 He is shooting 37.8% from three, 12 of 31 on the year.\u00a0 6’4″ sophomore guard Jared Cunningham is also a gunner, averagin 11.8 points per game and shooting 38.9% from three (7 of 18).\u00a0 He has scored in double figures in 5 of Oregon State’s 8 games so far.<\/p>\n

Montana is led by the trio of Will Cherry, Brian Qvale, and Derek Selvig who together score 56% of Montana’s 69 points per game.\u00a0 Their point guard 6’1″ sophomore guard Will Cherry leas the way with 15.3 points per game to go with his 3.7 assists per game.\u00a0 He is not a strong three point shooter, but shoots them anyway, and has connected only 6 of 30 for the year.\u00a0 He’s already had 3 games with 20 or more points, but scored just 8 lat game in the blowout loss to Nevada.\u00a0 He plays passing lanes very well and averages a great 4.1 steals per game.\u00a0 He will look to ignite fast breaks with his steals which could lead to some easy Montana buckets.\u00a0 6’11” senior center Brian Qvale has been a strong interior presence and is having a great year, as well.\u00a0 He is second on Montana in scoring with 13.8 a game and is also grabbing 7.2 rebounds per game in 30 minutes of action.\u00a0 He is a great shotblocker, too, averaging 3.4 blocks a game.\u00a0 He will change a lot of shots and frusterate Oregon State’s Omari Johnson who seeks to take the ball to the rim a lot.<\/p>\n

College basketball oddsmakers have set the line at Montana -8, and if they can get a lot of open threes, they could cover the spread.\u00a0 Oregon State’s poor play on the road is also a reason for the spread being what it is.\u00a0 If they can keep their composure they could make this a close game.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Oregon State Beavers AT Montana Grizzlies December 15th, 2010 at 9:00 PM EST Opening Line:\u00a0 Montana -7 Current Line:\u00a0 Montana -8 Total:\u00a0 Undefined Moneyline:\u00a0 Montana -335 \/ Oregon State +285 Both teams come into tonight with similar records.\u00a0 The favored Montana Grizzlies are 5-4 while the Oregon State Beavers are 4-4.\u00a0 Both teams have also […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40250,"featured_media":3962,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,1444],"tags":[4132,2471,471],"class_list":["post-11529","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-college-basketball","category-headlines","tag-montana","tag-oregon-state","tag-oregon-state-beavers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11529","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=11529"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11529\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11530,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11529\/revisions\/11530"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3962"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}