{"id":11781,"date":"2010-12-22T08:42:24","date_gmt":"2010-12-22T13:42:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=11781"},"modified":"2010-12-22T08:42:24","modified_gmt":"2010-12-22T13:42:24","slug":"ncaa-basketball-picks-missouri-tigers-vs-illinois-fighting-illini-braggin-rights-preview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/ncaa-basketball-picks-missouri-tigers-vs-illinois-fighting-illini-braggin-rights-preview-11781\/","title":{"rendered":"NCAA Basketball Picks: Missouri Tigers vs Illinois Fighting Illini Braggin’ Rights Preview"},"content":{"rendered":"

Missouri Tigers vs Illinois Fighting Illini
\nWednesday, 12\/22\/10, 9:00 PM EDT, TV:\u00a0 ESPN2
\nOpening Point Spread:\u00a0 Illinois -1.5
\nCurrent Betting Line:\u00a0 Illinois -1.5
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 148.5
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 148.5<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The Missouri Tigers are slight neutral court underdogs in matching up with Illinois on Wednesday night in St. Louis<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Missouri and Illinois renew their annual holiday clash on Wednesday at the Scottrade Center in downtown St. Louis.\u00a0 It will also be college basketball\u2019s first game this season that matches up a pair of 10-win clubs.\u00a0 \u201cYou can throw all the records, all the stats, the white collar stats out the window,\u201d said Tigers forward Kim English.\u00a0 \u201cThis is hard-nosed basketball and it\u2019s going to be a grind.\u201d\u00a0 The two teams will also be coming in as ranked foes for the first time since the 2002-03 season.\u00a0 Missouri is off to its best start to a season under Mike Anderson with a 10-1 record and the only loss coming against Georgetown in overtime.\u00a0 The team is 12-7 ATS when playing on a neutral court the past three years and is currently listed as an underdog on the college basketball lines page.<\/p>\n

The Tigers program will have a big decision heading into this contest of possibly reinstating point guard Michael Dixon, who was suspended indefinitely last week for undisclosed violations of team rules.\u00a0 It\u2019s especially important for tonight\u2019s contest considering his replacement, freshman Phil Pressey, is out at least two weeks with a broken right ring finger.\u00a0 Dixon returned to practice Sunday and Anderson said Tuesday night that the guard could play against Illinois.\u00a0 Wednesday\u2019s game is Missouri\u2019s 114th appearance in St. Louis, posting a 54-59 all-time mark in the Gateway City and 9-20 versus Illinois.<\/p>\n

Illinois carries a Top 25 ranking into the Braggin\u2019 Rights contest for the first time in five years and has compiled a 13-3 record in such games.\u00a0 The Fighting Illini are also 9-3 when playing against ranked Missouri teams in this series.\u00a0 The team will look to bounce back after getting upset by Illinois-Chicago on the road Saturday and tumbling nine spots in the AP rankings.\u00a0 \u201cEveryone has down games,\u201d coach Bruce Weber said.\u00a0 \u201cIf you win it, no one realizes it.\u00a0 You have to win.\u00a0 We were in the Final Four last week.\u201d\u00a0 The players took the loss hard and showed up early to practice on Sunday and prepped for Missouri\u2019s all-court pressure.\u00a0 Illinois is 0-3 ATS on neutral floors this season.<\/p>\n

The Fighting Illini have had great success in this series under the direction of Weber, winning six of seven meetings in the series, with the only loss coming last year.\u00a0 Illinois brings a dangerous offensive attack into tonight\u2019s game, especially from the three-point area, as the squad is averaging 7.4 three-pointers per game.\u00a0 The team has already hit double figures in 3-pointers four times in 12 games this year, surpassing or equaling its effort for the entire year in each of the last five seasons.\u00a0 Illinois has scored at least 70 points in all but one game and is averaging 77.5 points per game on the year.<\/p>\n

Bettors will be interested in knowing that the Fighting Illini are 11-5-1 ATS in their last 17 games versus Big 12 opponents, while the Tigers are 3-10 ATS overall.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Missouri Tigers vs Illinois Fighting Illini Wednesday, 12\/22\/10, 9:00 PM EDT, TV:\u00a0 ESPN2 Opening Point Spread:\u00a0 Illinois -1.5 Current Betting Line:\u00a0 Illinois -1.5 Opening Total:\u00a0 148.5 Current Total:\u00a0 148.5 Missouri and Illinois renew their annual holiday clash on Wednesday at the Scottrade Center in downtown St. Louis.\u00a0 It will also be college basketball\u2019s first game […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":9763,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,1444],"tags":[3908,697,4156,4010,433],"class_list":["post-11781","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-college-basketball","category-headlines","tag-bruce-weber","tag-illinois-fighting-illini","tag-michael-dixon","tag-mike-anderson","tag-missouri-tigers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11781","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=11781"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11781\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11783,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11781\/revisions\/11783"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9763"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}