{"id":12184,"date":"2011-01-05T02:18:02","date_gmt":"2011-01-05T07:18:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=12184"},"modified":"2011-01-05T10:41:39","modified_gmt":"2011-01-05T15:41:39","slug":"louisville-tips-off-big-east-season-by-hosting-seton-hall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/louisville-tips-off-big-east-season-by-hosting-seton-hall-12184\/","title":{"rendered":"Louisville tips off Big East season by hosting Seton Hall"},"content":{"rendered":"

Seton Hall Pirates at Louisville Cardinals, KFC Yum! Center, Louisville,\u00a0 KY
\nWednesday, January 5, 2011, 7:00 pm Eastern, TV: ESPNU
\nOpening Line: Louisville -11
\nCurrent Line: Louisville -10
\nOpening Total: 138.5
\nCurrent Total: 140.5
\nMoney Line: Louisville -550 \/ Seton Hall +450<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Louisville
Seton Hall has struggled offensively this season without leading scorer Jeremy Hazell<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Seton Hall Pirates (7-7, 1-1 Big East) will try to beat the Louisville Cardinals (11-2, 0-0) for the third time in four meetings when they square off on Wednesday in a Big East clash.\u00a0\u00a0 However, the Pirates are still dealing with the loss of leading scorer Jeremy Hazell for perhaps the entire season and will continue to rely on big man Herb Pope against the Cardinals (-10).<\/p>\n

Hazell not only broke his wrist in November but was then shot in the armpit in a robbery attempt on Christmas night.\u00a0 He was leading Seton Hall in scoring at 24 points per game and shooting, but Pope (8.6 points per game, 8.4 rebounds per game) figures to play a bigger role both literally and figuratively against the Cardinals since forward Rakeem Buckles (8.2 ppg, 7.5 rpg) is out until at least February with a broken finger.<\/p>\n

Whether Pope\u2019s advantage inside will be enough to give the Pirates an edge remains to be seen though.\u00a0 Louisville figures to have an explosive offensive lineup on the floor even without Buckles, as Kyle Kuric (7.8 ppg) slides into his spot.\u00a0 The Cardinals were overmatched in a 78-63 home loss to Kentucky last Friday, as they were outrebounded by a 35-23 margin.<\/p>\n

The main problem for Seton Hall is shooting the ball without Hazell, as the team ranks dead last in the Big East at 41.3 percent, including 32.7 percent from beyond the 3-point arc.\u00a0 Take away Hazell\u2019s 11-of-17 shooting from 3-point range, and that number dips to 30.5 percent.<\/p>\n

The Pirates are coming off a 70-53 loss at Cincinnati last Friday, making just 15 of 35 shots from the field and getting outrebounded 33-23.\u00a0 Keon Lawrence led the way with 15 points on 5-of-7 shooting from the field and 4-of-5 from the free-throw line.\u00a0 Pope made only 1 of 7 shots from the field and had a season-low four rebounds as the Bearcats improved to 14-0.<\/p>\n

One thing you can count on so far with Seton Hall is low-scoring games.\u00a0 The UNDER is 8-1 in the team\u2019s lined games, and Cincinnati reached 70 points against the Pirates for just the third time this season and first time since a 104-79 victory at Massachusetts on December 11.<\/p>\n

Louisville will put those numbers to the test after averaging 109 points in two games prior to losing to the Wildcats.\u00a0 This will be the Big East opener for the Cardinals, who visit South Florida and Villanova over the next week.\u00a0 They have failed to cover the last three meetings with the Pirates along with four of the past five.<\/p>\n

Our college basketball handicappers are red hot as Big East play starts around the country. Don\u2019t miss out on any more winners this season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Seton Hall Pirates at Louisville Cardinals, KFC Yum! Center, Louisville,\u00a0 KY Wednesday, January 5, 2011, 7:00 pm Eastern, TV: ESPNU Opening Line: Louisville -11 Current Line: Louisville -10 Opening Total: 138.5 Current Total: 140.5 Money Line: Louisville -550 \/ Seton Hall +450 The Seton Hall Pirates (7-7, 1-1 Big East) will try to beat the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":194,"featured_media":9744,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,1444],"tags":[559,4319,3887,4316,556,4315,4317,4318,4300],"class_list":["post-12184","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-college-basketball","category-headlines","tag-big-east","tag-big-east-basketball","tag-college-basketball-betting","tag-free-college-basketball-pick","tag-louisville-cardinals","tag-louisville-seton-hall-preview","tag-ncaa-basketball-odds","tag-ncaa-hoops-picks","tag-seton-hall-pirates"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12184","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\/194"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12184"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12184\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12186,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12184\/revisions\/12186"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9744"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}