{"id":11846,"date":"2010-12-23T16:20:38","date_gmt":"2010-12-23T21:20:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=11846"},"modified":"2010-12-23T16:20:38","modified_gmt":"2010-12-23T21:20:38","slug":"diamond-head-classic-semifinals-a-look-at-washington-st-baylor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/diamond-head-classic-semifinals-a-look-at-washington-st-baylor-11846\/","title":{"rendered":"Diamond Head Classic Semifinals: A look at Washington St-Baylor"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Diamond Head Classic, Stan Sheriff Center, Honolulu, HI<br \/>\nWashington St Cougars vs Baylor Bears<br \/>\nThursday, December 23, 2010, 6:50 pm Eastern, TV: ESPNU<br \/>\nOpening Line: Baylor -2<br \/>\nCurrent Line: Baylor -3 1\/2<br \/>\nOpening Total: 136 1\/2<br \/>\nCurrent Total: 132<br \/>\nMoney Line: Baylor -165 \/ WSU +145<\/strong><\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_9809\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-9809\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-9809\" src=\"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/lacedarius-dunn-baylor-2-300x168.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"168\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/lacedarius-dunn-baylor-2-300x168.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/lacedarius-dunn-baylor-2.jpg 495w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-9809\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">LaceDarius Dunn and the Baylor Bears are 3 1\/2 point favorites over the Washington St Cougars in the semifinals of the Diamond Head Classic. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Both of these teams have one loss on the season. Washington St is 9-1 and Baylor is 8-1. Both won there opening round games in this tournament handily. Washington St went on a 29-2 run in the second half to destroy Mississippi St 83-57. Baylor beat San Diego 83-50 to advance to the semifinals. For the season Washington St lost at Kansas St 63-58 but beat Gonzaga at home 81-59. Gonzaga gave Baylor their only loss of the season last Saturday in Dallas 68-64. Outside of the games against Kansas St\u00a0 and Gonzaga Washington St has beaten some pretty weak teams and doesn&#8217;t have another quality win on their schedule. Baylor&#8217;s schedule is even softer with a win over Arizona St their only semi-quality game. The winner of this game will take on the winner of Florida St-Butler in the championship game Christmas Day. Washington St is 9-20 ATS as an underdog the last 3 seasons. Baylor is 14-5 ATS in non-conference road games over the last 3 seasons. The two teams have played 3 times. Washington St has won 2 games in the series, but Baylor won the last meeting in 2008 58-52 in Pullman, WA.<\/p>\n<p>In Washington St&#8217;s victory over Mississippi St, guard Klay Thompson scored 28 points to lead all scorers. Thompson is averaging 22 points a game for the year. Sixth man Faisel Aden scored 20 off the bench, and also pulled down 7 rebounds and forced 3 steals. Aden is second on the team in scoring with 17 points a game. The Cougars harassed Mississippi St\u00a0 into 21 turnovers in the rout. Washington St is outscoring opponents 79-59 on the season. They are shooting 49.7% from the field and 39.5% from three point range. The Cougars struggle from the free throw line making only 64.2% of their free throws. They average 36 rebounds a game and have a rebounding margin of +0.8. Guard Marcus Capers leads the team in rebounds with 6.2 a game. The Cougars average 14.9 assists and 12.1 turnovers a game. Thompson leads the team in both categories with 4.7 assists and 3.3 turnovers. WSU averages 8.7 steals and 4 blocks a game. Thompson also leads the team in steals with 2.2 a game. Power Forward DeAngelo Castro leads the team in blocks with 2.4 a game.<\/p>\n<p>Baylor is second in the nation in scoring defense allowing only 53 points a game. They score 76 points a game themselves. Baylor overwhelmed San Diego 83-50. They never trailed in the game and were up 48-19 at halftime. Baylor forced 18 San Diego turnovers and 5 Bears scored in double figures, led by forward Anthony Jones with 16 points. Guard LaceDarius Dunn leads the team in scoring for the season averaging 20.3 points a game, but he scored only 13 against San Diego. Baylor shoots 49.3% from the field and 34.3% from three point land. They also struggle from the free throw line converting only 68.7%. Baylor averages 41.1 rebounds a game and has a rebounding margin of +12.2. Center Perry Jones leads the team in rebounding with 8.6 a game. He also scores 13.6 points a game.\u00a0 The Cougars average 14 assists and 16.4 turnovers a game. Point Guard A.J. Walton leads the team in both categories with 5.4 assists and 3.6 turnovers a game. Baylor also averages 8.6 steals and 4.9 blocks a game. Dunn and Walton are tied for the team lead in steals with 2.3 a game. Back-up Center J&#8217;mison Morgan leads the tema in blocks with 1.4 a game.<\/p>\n<p>Neither of these teams have played a demanding schedule yet and this will be a nice test for both teams. This should be a close game, but I think the rebounding edge for Baylor will be the difference.<\/p>\n<p>Our college basketball handicappers are off to a great start this season. have a nice holiday and take advantage of our winners.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Diamond Head Classic, Stan Sheriff Center, Honolulu, HI Washington St Cougars vs Baylor Bears Thursday, December 23, 2010, 6:50 pm Eastern, TV: ESPNU Opening Line: Baylor -2 Current Line: Baylor -3 1\/2 Opening Total: 136 1\/2 Current Total: 132 Money Line: Baylor -165 \/ WSU +145 Both of these teams have one loss on the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40249,"featured_media":9809,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,1444],"tags":[3288,738,3887,3631,3125,740,4056],"class_list":["post-11846","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-college-basketball","category-headlines","tag-baylor-bears","tag-big-12","tag-college-basketball-betting","tag-college-basketball-handicapping","tag-espnu","tag-pac-10","tag-washington-st-cougars"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11846","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\/40249"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11846"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11846\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11848,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11846\/revisions\/11848"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9809"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11846"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11846"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11846"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}