{"id":11624,"date":"2010-12-17T21:26:02","date_gmt":"2010-12-18T02:26:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=11624"},"modified":"2010-12-17T21:26:02","modified_gmt":"2010-12-18T02:26:02","slug":"ncaa-basketball-picks-south-carolina-gamecocks-at-ohio-state-buckeyes-big-ten-sec-preview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/ncaa-basketball-picks-south-carolina-gamecocks-at-ohio-state-buckeyes-big-ten-sec-preview-11624\/","title":{"rendered":"NCAA Basketball Picks: South Carolina Gamecocks at Ohio State Buckeyes Big Ten-SEC Preview"},"content":{"rendered":"

South Carolina Gamecocks at Ohio State Buckeyes
\nSaturday, 12\/18\/10, 2:00 PM EDT, TV:\u00a0 CBS
\nOpening Point Spread:\u00a0 Ohio State -17
\nCurrent Betting Line:\u00a0 Ohio State -17.5
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 135
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 135<\/strong><\/p>\n

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The Ohio State Buckeyes are heavy favorites in hosting the South Carolina Gamecocks on Saturday afternoon<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

South Carolina has won six straight games since dropping a 82-73 contest at Michigan State and will now look to improve upon its 1-1 record on the road.\u00a0 The Gamecocks 7-1 start this season is their best win-loss tally through the first eight games since the 2008-09 season.\u00a0 \u201cWe\u2019re starting to see some growth and maturity in this team,\u201d said head coach Darrin Horn.\u00a0 \u201cThat\u2019s good.\u00a0 But the good news is we have a lot of room to keep getting better.\u201d\u00a0 The two teams are opening a home-and-home series with a game in South Carolina scheduled next year and haven\u2019t met since Ohio State\u2019s 59-46 victory in 1989.\u00a0 The only other meeting came the previous year, when the Gamecocks won 74-68 at home.\u00a0 The team is 3-0 ATS as an underdog and is currently a double-digit underdog on the college basketball lines page.<\/p>\n

The Gamecocks have a major strength in their ability to rebound the basketball and they\u00a0 currently lead the SEC by grabbing 43.2 boards a contest.\u00a0 South Carolina is also a shot-blocking team in averaging 5.4 blocked shots per game, which ranks fourth in the conference and 25th in the nation.\u00a0 The program owns a 12-20 record against current schools in the Big Ten and will look to improve upon the longest win streak in the Horn era with a victory on Saturday afternoon.\u00a0 He also owns a 6-12 overall record in his career against ranked opponents, including a 5-8 mark during his time in Columbia.<\/p>\n

Ohio State is off to a perfect 9-0 record and has surprised many by how quickly the program moved on from the loss of national player of the year Evan Turner.\u00a0 The Buckeyes have won 17 straight home games against non-conference opponents and are shooting 46.3 percent from 3-point range this month, but head coach Thad Matta doesn\u2019t want his squad to rely heavily on the perimeter.\u00a0 \u201cEventually we\u2019re going to have to put it together,\u201d Matta stated.\u00a0 \u201cThat\u2019s a thing we\u2019re still striving for.\u00a0 That\u2019s kind of how we preach to our team, that we want to be able to strike inside and outside.\u201d\u00a0 Ohio State is 9-12 ATS as a home favorite of 12.5 or more points the last three years.<\/p>\n

The Buckeyes are definitely balanced on the offensive end and have four starters averaging double-figures, led by freshman Jared Sullinger with 17.2 points per game.\u00a0 He scored a freshman school-record 40 points against IUPUI, while the team has outscored its three opponents this month by an average of 21.3 points.\u00a0 Surprisingly enough, the team has a 28-26 all-time record against Southeastern Conference opponents.<\/p>\n

Bettors will be interested in knowing that the Gamecocks are 4-0 ATS in non-conference games, while the Buckeyes are 4-1 ATS versus the SEC.<\/p>\n

The college basketball handicappers at Maddux Sports are ready for a huge Saturday and can\u2019t wait for you to be a part of it!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

South Carolina Gamecocks at Ohio State Buckeyes Saturday, 12\/18\/10, 2:00 PM EDT, TV:\u00a0 CBS Opening Point Spread:\u00a0 Ohio State -17 Current Betting Line:\u00a0 Ohio State -17.5 Opening Total:\u00a0 135 Current Total:\u00a0 135 South Carolina has won six straight games since dropping a 82-73 contest at Michigan State and will now look to improve upon its […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":9785,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,1444],"tags":[737,3873,3883,463,739,3126,4004],"class_list":["post-11624","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-college-basketball","category-headlines","tag-big-ten","tag-darrin-horn","tag-jared-sullinger","tag-ohio-state-buckeyes","tag-sec","tag-south-carolina-gamecocks","tag-thad-matta"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11624","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=11624"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11624\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11625,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11624\/revisions\/11625"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9785"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}