{"id":11540,"date":"2010-12-15T11:48:56","date_gmt":"2010-12-15T16:48:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=11540"},"modified":"2010-12-15T11:49:48","modified_gmt":"2010-12-15T16:49:48","slug":"big-east-sec-basketball-preview-auburn-tigers-at-south-florida-bulls-predictions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/big-east-sec-basketball-preview-auburn-tigers-at-south-florida-bulls-predictions-11540\/","title":{"rendered":"Big East-SEC Basketball Preview: Auburn Tigers at South Florida Bulls Predictions"},"content":{"rendered":"

Auburn Tigers at South Florida Bulls
\nWednesday, 12\/15\/10, 9:00 PM EDT
\nOpening Point Spread:\u00a0 South Florida -12
\nCurrent Betting Line:\u00a0 South Florida -12
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 119
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 118<\/strong><\/p>\n

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The South Florida Bulls have dropped back-to-back games heading into tonight's contest against the Auburn Tigers<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Auburn will be playing its first true road game of the season in Tampa Bay tonight and will be meeting South Florida for the fifth time in school history.\u00a0 The Tigers have won all four of the previous meetings, but the two programs haven\u2019t faced each other in 31 years.\u00a0 The team is playing the back end of two straight against Big East opponents, suffering a 63-54 defeat in the DirecTV SEC-Big East Invitational in Pittsburgh.\u00a0 Many conference experts have applauded the squad\u2019s effort and hustle for 40 minutes in games, but expect the team to struggle against strengthened competition.\u00a0 \u201cThe issues we are having is believing that you\u2019re supposed to win the game,\u201d said coach Tony Barbee.\u00a0 \u201cIt doesn\u2019t mean that you are going to win them all, but you have to believe.\u201d\u00a0 Auburn is 18-9 ATS as an underdog the past three seasons and comes in as a large underdog on the college basketball lines page.<\/p>\n

The Tigers are an extremely young basketball team and possesses just one senior on the entire roster.\u00a0 Frustrated by early losses this season, Barbee moved into a new direction with the starting lineup, injecting even more youth and energy into the rotation. \u00a0 With Frankie Sullivan and Ty Armstrong out with injuries, only 12 percent of the club\u2019s scoring returns from last year\u2019s 15-17 team.\u00a0 Auburn has done relatively well on the boards during the early part of the year, holding a\u00a0 plus-5.0 rebounding margin, but was out-boarded 46-33 against Rutgers last time out.<\/p>\n

South Florida hopes to get back on track tonight after suffering two-straight losses on the road to Florida Atlantic and Kent State.\u00a0 The Bulls certainly possess the ability in beating almost anyone in the country and displayed this in a 60-59 overtime victory against VCU on December 1.\u00a0 \u201cNo turning back,\u201d said center Jarrid Famous.\u00a0 \u201cWe came off a rocky start.\u00a0 Now we\u2019ve just got to keep going, keep the train moving.\u201d\u00a0 The team should be eager in returning to the Sun Dome for a couple of games due to its 4-1 record at home.\u00a0 South Florida is connecting on 44.9 percent of its field goals in Tampa compared to just 36.10 on the road.\u00a0 The team is 4-4 ATS on the season and 39-30 ATS over the last three years.<\/p>\n

The Bulls have been using a team effort early in the season with seven players averaging at least 19 minutes per game.\u00a0 Through nine games, six players have been the high scorer for the club and five have been the top rebounder, making South Florida a tough team to prepare for.\u00a0 To put this in perspective, Dominque Jones was the leading scorer in 23 games last year.\u00a0 South Florida has tied or out-rebounded nine of its opponents this season, with FAU being the only team to best them on the boards, which will be an important category in tonight\u2019s matchup.<\/p>\n

Bettors will be interested in knowing that the Tigers are 4-9 ATS in non-conference games, while the Bulls are 1-4-1 ATS as a home favorite.<\/p>\n

The college basketball handicappers at Maddux Sports are starting to dial it up and can\u2019t wait for you to join them all season long!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Auburn Tigers at South Florida Bulls Wednesday, 12\/15\/10, 9:00 PM EDT Opening Point Spread:\u00a0 South Florida -12 Current Betting Line:\u00a0 South Florida -12 Opening Total:\u00a0 119 Current Total:\u00a0 118 Auburn will be playing its first true road game of the season in Tampa Bay tonight and will be meeting South Florida for the fifth time […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":9742,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,1444],"tags":[470,559,4142,739,1155,705],"class_list":["post-11540","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-college-basketball","category-headlines","tag-auburn-tigers","tag-big-east","tag-jarrid-famous","tag-sec","tag-south-florida-bulls","tag-tony-barbee"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11540","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=11540"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11540\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11542,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11540\/revisions\/11542"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9742"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}