{"id":11656,"date":"2010-12-18T11:27:37","date_gmt":"2010-12-18T16:27:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=11656"},"modified":"2010-12-18T11:27:37","modified_gmt":"2010-12-18T16:27:37","slug":"ncaa-basketball-handicapping-byu-cougars-vs-ucla-bruins-wooden-classic-picks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/ncaa-basketball-handicapping-byu-cougars-vs-ucla-bruins-wooden-classic-picks-11656\/","title":{"rendered":"NCAA Basketball Handicapping: BYU Cougars vs UCLA Bruins Wooden Classic Picks"},"content":{"rendered":"

BYU Cougars at UCLA Bruins
\nSaturday, 12\/18\/10, 5:30 PM EDT
\nOpening Point Spread: \u00a0BYU -6
\nCurrent Betting Line: \u00a0BYU -6.5
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
BYU Cougars guard Jimmer Fredette leads his team against the UCLA Bruins in the John Wooden Classic<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

BYU will be looking to beat a second straight Pac-10 opponent following an 87-65 victory over Arizona last Saturday.\u00a0 Preseason All-America candidate Jimmer Fredette scored a season-high 33 points and will now get set to play the yearly hosts of the John Wooden Classic at the Honda Center this afternoon.\u00a0 \u201cBYU is a great team,\u201d said UCLA coach Ben Howland.\u00a0 \u201cThey are very well coached.\u00a0 It will be a real challenge.\u201d\u00a0 Fredette is averaging 23.7 points, 4.1 assists and 1.8 steals per game to lead the Cougars.\u00a0 Head coach Dave Rose is 137-40 in his six seasons in Provo and is the program\u2019s all-time leader with a .774 winning percentage.\u00a0 BYU is 3-4 ATS on the season and currently a neutral court favorite on the college basketball lines page.<\/p>\n

The Cougars will be meeting the Bruins for the 23rd time this afternoon and the series is tied at 11-11.\u00a0 BYU dropped the last meeting 82-69 in Los Angeles and hold a 2-1 advantage in neutral site games in the series.\u00a0 The team is currently a perfect 10-0 on the season and aiming to match the 17-0 start that the 1987-88 squad posted.\u00a0 So far during the 2010-11 campaign, BYU has been virtually untested by posting a plus-21.8 margin of victory.\u00a0 Offensively, the team is shooting a blistering 51.7 percent from the floor over the past five games.<\/p>\n

UCLA comes in with a 5-4 overall record and unranked in both polls knowing it has quite a challenge in front of them against Saturday\u2019s opponent.\u00a0 The Bruins should play with plenty of confidence due to playing Kansas to the wire this season and demonstrate plenty of emotion in playing this event without legendary coach John Wooden\u2019s presence for the first time.\u00a0 \u201cThis will be a tough, really physical game,\u201d said BYU\u2019s Rose.\u00a0 \u201cThe biggest key is we\u2019ve got to be tough.\u201d\u00a0 This is UCLA\u2019s 14th appearance in the Classic and the program has posted a 9-4 record, including a 1-4 mark when unranked.\u00a0 The team is 3-10 ATS on a neutral floor over the past three years.<\/p>\n

The Bruins are led by top scorers and rebounders Tyler Honeycutt and Reeves Nelson, who combined to average 29.1 points and 16.7 rebounds.\u00a0 Both played a key role in the team bouncing back from a four-game losing streak in picking up victories over Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and UC Davis.\u00a0 Howland has consistently used an eight-man rotation this season, but needs to find the right combination in the back court, as the team ranks last in the Pac-10 in turnover margin.<\/p>\n

Bettors will be interested in knowing that the Cougars are 4-0 ATS versus the Pac-10, while the Bruins are 3-15 ATS following a SU win.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t miss out on the best picks anywhere and let the college basketball handicappers at Maddux Sports make you a winner all season long!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BYU Cougars at UCLA Bruins Saturday, 12\/18\/10, 5:30 PM EDT Opening Point Spread: \u00a0BYU -6 Current Betting Line: \u00a0BYU -6.5 BYU will be looking to beat a second straight Pac-10 opponent following an 87-65 victory over Arizona last Saturday.\u00a0 Preseason All-America candidate Jimmer Fredette scored a season-high 33 points and will now get set to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":9813,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,1444],"tags":[3963,434,4100,4190,4192,4191,11],"class_list":["post-11656","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-college-basketball","category-headlines","tag-ben-howland","tag-byu-cougars","tag-jimmer-fredette","tag-john-wooden-classic","tag-reeves-nelson","tag-tyler-honeycutt","tag-ucla-bruins"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11656","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=11656"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11656\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11658,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11656\/revisions\/11658"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9813"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11656"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11656"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11656"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}