{"id":12665,"date":"2011-01-22T01:12:10","date_gmt":"2011-01-22T06:12:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=12665"},"modified":"2011-01-22T10:59:52","modified_gmt":"2011-01-22T15:59:52","slug":"non-conference-college-basketball-picks-tennessee-at-connecticut","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/non-conference-college-basketball-picks-tennessee-at-connecticut-12665\/","title":{"rendered":"Non-Conference College Basketball Picks: Tennessee at Connecticut"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tennessee Volunteers at Connecticut Huskies, XL Center, Hartford, CT
\nSaturday, January 22, 2011, 2:00 pm Eastern, TV: CBS
\nOpening Line: UConn -7
\nCurrent Line: UConn -6
\nOpening Total: 142
\nCurrent Total: 141.5
\nMoney Line: UConn -260 \/ Tennessee +220
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Connecticut
UConn's Kemba Walker scored 24 points and hit the game-winning shot against Villanova on Monday<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Tennessee Volunteers (12-6) have already beaten two of the top teams in the Big East and will try to win their third straight game overall when they visit the eighth-ranked Connecticut Huskies (15-2) on Saturday.\u00a0 The Volunteers knocked off #5 Pittsburgh and #7 Villanova on neutral courts earlier this season and get head coach Bruce Pearl back for this non-conference battle with the Huskies (-6).<\/p>\n

Pearl was suspended for eight conference games after lying to NCAA investigators but is free to coach against non-SEC opponents, something his Volunteers thrived on during a 7-0 start.\u00a0 But they dropped three straight games against inferior competition outside their conference following an 83-76 win over the Panthers, two of which came at home.<\/p>\n

Pearl\u2019s suspension will be over in time for a visit to #12 Kentucky on February 12, but until then this game becomes key to his team\u2019s NCAA tournament chances.\u00a0 It would be hard to keep a team out of the Big Dance that beat three Top 10 opponents from the Big East.<\/p>\n

Tennessee has gone 2-2 so far in league play after its biggest non-conference win of the season, a 104-84 rout of Memphis on January 5.\u00a0 The Vols have won their last two games both straight-up and against the spread against Vanderbilt and Georgia by a combined five points with both games going UNDER the total.\u00a0 Freshman Tobia Harris and junior Scotty Hopson led the way by scoring 15 points apiece in their latest triumph, a 59-57 road victory against the Bulldogs on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Connecticut is coming off a 61-59 win over Villanova on Monday behind a team-high 24 points from leading scorer Kemba Walker, who struggled with his shooting from the field but still managed to hit the game-winning basket with 2.5 seconds left in the game.\u00a0 Walker made 6 of 18 shots overall.\u00a0 UConn failed to cover but went 4-0 against the spread in the previous four games.<\/p>\n

The Huskies play three of their next four games at home after playing four of six on the road, including visits to #5 Pitt, #10 Texas and #16 Notre Dame.\u00a0 They must hit the road again on Tuesday when they play Marquette before hosting #19 Louisville and #3 Syracuse.<\/p>\n

The Huskies have not faced Tennessee since 2000 when the Vols won 65-51 at home as 1-point underdogs.\u00a0 The total also went UNDER, a common theme for both teams recently overall.\u00a0 The UNDER has cashed in UConn\u2019s last three games and in three of the past four for Tennessee.<\/p>\n

Now that you have read this college basketball betting preview featuring Connecticut & Tennessee, check out the NCAA basketball odds on this and all the games to compare the best lines at multiple sportsbooks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tennessee Volunteers at Connecticut Huskies, XL Center, Hartford, CT Saturday, January 22, 2011, 2:00 pm Eastern, TV: CBS Opening Line: UConn -7 Current Line: UConn -6 Opening Total: 142 Current Total: 141.5 Money Line: UConn -260 \/ Tennessee +220 The Tennessee Volunteers (12-6) have already beaten two of the top teams in the Big East […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":194,"featured_media":9795,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,1444],"tags":[4319,3887,4378,4316,4317,4318,4379,469,657],"class_list":["post-12665","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-college-basketball","category-headlines","tag-big-east-basketball","tag-college-basketball-betting","tag-connecticut-tennessee-preview","tag-free-college-basketball-pick","tag-ncaa-basketball-odds","tag-ncaa-hoops-picks","tag-sec-basketball","tag-tennessee-volunteers","tag-uconn-huskies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12665","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=12665"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12665\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12681,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12665\/revisions\/12681"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9795"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12665"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12665"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12665"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}