{"id":13299,"date":"2011-02-12T01:29:26","date_gmt":"2011-02-12T06:29:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=13299"},"modified":"2011-02-20T16:56:41","modified_gmt":"2011-02-20T21:56:41","slug":"saturday-big-east-basketball-tv-picks-pittsburgh-at-villanova","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/saturday-big-east-basketball-tv-picks-pittsburgh-at-villanova-13299\/","title":{"rendered":"Saturday Big East Basketball TV Picks: Pittsburgh at Villanova"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pittsburgh Panthers at Villanova Wildcats, The Pavilion, Villanova, PA
\nSaturday, February 12, 2011, 9:00 pm Eastern, TV: ESPN
\nOpening Line: Villanova -2.5
\nCurrent Line: Villanova -2.5
\nOpening Total: 139
\nCurrent Total: 139
\nMoney Line: Villanova -145 \/ Pitt +125
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Villanova
Villanova's Corey Fisher will need to step up even more if Corey Stokes is sidelined on Saturday<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

While the fourth-ranked Pittsburgh Panthers (22-2, 10-1 Big East) are learning to play without their leading scorer, the ninth-ranked Villanova Wildcats (19-5, 7-4) are trying to figure out how they lost at Rutgers heading into Saturday\u2019s conference showdown.\u00a0 The Wildcats (-2.5) figure to have an edge in the backcourt with Pitt\u2019s Ashton Gibbs sitting out again with a knee injury but could also be without one of their top scorers.<\/p>\n

The Panthers were able to rally back without Gibbs in an impressive 71-66 road win at West Virginia on Monday.\u00a0 Brad Wanamaker ran the point in his place and finished with 11 points, nine rebounds and three assists while Nasir Robinson bullied the Mountaineers inside en route to 15 points and eight boards.<\/p>\n

Pittsburgh will likely need to use its strength in the frontcourt again here at Villanova.\u00a0 The Panthers have outrebounded 12 of their last 13 opponents since suffering an 83-76 loss to Tennessee back on December 11.\u00a0 They are the top rebounding team in the Big East and have alternated wins and losses in the last six meetings with the Wildcats.<\/p>\n

Villanova lost the last meeting 70-65 at Pitt a year ago following the biggest matchup of all-time between the two schools the previous season.\u00a0 The Wildcats advanced to the 2009 Final Four with a 78-76 win over the Panthers, which still sits in the back of Wanamaker\u2019s mind.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s something that\u2019s always going to be inside of me,\u201d Wanamaker said. \u201cIt\u2019s something I don\u2019t think I\u2019ll ever forget, unless I get the chance to play them again in the Elite Eight for another chance to go the Final Four and we come out with the win.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of course Villanova will need to try hard to forget a shocking loss to the Scarlet Knights in order to beat Pittsburgh for a seventh straight time at the Pavilion and extend its winning streak there to 47 games.\u00a0 The Wildcats surrendered a four-point play with less than a second left to lose 77-76 at Rutgers and may be without guard Corey Stokes due to a turf toe injury.<\/p>\n

Stokes played just 26 minutes against the Scarlet Knights and finished with 10 points on 4 of 7 shooting.\u00a0 He has scored less than his average of 14.6 points in the past five games and has topped that mark only once in the last eight.\u00a0 The last game was the first in the past five to go OVER the total, and the UNDER is also 7-1 in the last eight meetings with the Panthers.<\/p>\n

If you are betting this Big East college basketball game between Villanova & Pittsburgh, be sure to check out the winning basketball picks packages we offer.\u00a0 You can also get free winners on our free NCAA basketball picks page.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pittsburgh Panthers at Villanova Wildcats, The Pavilion, Villanova, PA Saturday, February 12, 2011, 9:00 pm Eastern, TV: ESPN Opening Line: Villanova -2.5 Current Line: Villanova -2.5 Opening Total: 139 Current Total: 139 Money Line: Villanova -145 \/ Pitt +125 While the fourth-ranked Pittsburgh Panthers (22-2, 10-1 Big East) are learning to play without their leading […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":194,"featured_media":9778,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,1444],"tags":[4319,4381,3887,4316,4317,4318,606,4481,752],"class_list":["post-13299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-college-basketball","category-headlines","tag-big-east-basketball","tag-big-east-picks","tag-college-basketball-betting","tag-free-college-basketball-pick","tag-ncaa-basketball-odds","tag-ncaa-hoops-picks","tag-pitt-panthers","tag-villanova-pittsburgh-preview","tag-villanova-wildcats"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13299","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=13299"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13299\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13523,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13299\/revisions\/13523"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9778"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}