{"id":13465,"date":"2011-02-18T17:44:30","date_gmt":"2011-02-18T22:44:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=13465"},"modified":"2011-02-18T17:44:30","modified_gmt":"2011-02-18T22:44:30","slug":"ivy-league-battle-dartmouth-big-green-at-columbia-lions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/ivy-league-battle-dartmouth-big-green-at-columbia-lions-13465\/","title":{"rendered":"Ivy League Battle: Dartmouth Big Green at Columbia Lions"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dartmouth AT Columbia
\nFeb 18, 2011 at 7 PM EST
\nOpening Line:\u00a0 Columbia -12
\nCurrent Line:\u00a0 Columbia -11.5
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 131.5
\nCurrent Total: 131
\nOpening Moneyline:\u00a0 Col -725 \/ Dar +575
\nCurrent Moneyline:\u00a0 Col -800 \/ Dar +600<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"
Columbia is a double digit favorite over the Dartmouth Big Green <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Tonight’s game brings together the struggling Dartmouth Big Green (5-17) against the Columbia Lions (13-9).\u00a0 Dartmouth has dropped their last 5 games, by an average of 17 points per game.\u00a0 Those losses include Yale, Brown, Princeton, Pennsylvania, and Columbia (all conference opponents), which has rendered them with a 1-7 Ivy League record, which leaves them alone at the cellar of Ivy League standings.\u00a0 Columbia has a 4-4 record in the Ivy league, sure to improve to 5-4 tonight against the woeful Big Green.\u00a0 Columbia is currently 4th in the Ivy League conference standings.<\/p>\n

Dartmouth hasn’t been close in most of their games and they have a double digit negative point differential of -10.5.\u00a0 They only score 57.6 a game, and give up 68.1.\u00a0 Columbia, despite being 4 games above .500, is only at a +0.5 differential, with most of their games having been closely contested.\u00a0 They rank 99th in the nation in scoring with 72.1 points per game.<\/p>\n

Some betting trends:<\/p>\n

Dartmouth is 0-5 SU in their last 5 road games and 2-5 SU in their last 7 road games against Columbia.\u00a0 The total has gone UNDER in 4 of Dartmouth’s last 6 games on the road at Columbia.<\/p>\n

Columbia is 10-5 SU in their last 15 games and 2-4 SU in their last 6.\u00a0 They are 8-2 SU in their last 10 home games and 6-3 SU in their last 9 games against Dartmouth.\u00a0 The total has gone UNDER in 5 of the last 5 games against the Big Green and Columbia is 5-2 SU in their last 7 home games against Dartmouth.\u00a0 The total has gone UNDER in 4 of Columbia’s last 6 home games against Dartmouth.<\/p>\n

As one would expect from a team that only averages 57.6 points per game, there are no standout scorers on Dartmouth’s roster.\u00a0 They have a 9 man rotation which features 5 players averaging between 6.5 points per game and 8.7 (Kirk Crecco, 6.5; Ronnie Dixon, 7.0; R.J. Griffin, 8.5; Jabari Trotter, 8.5; David Rufful, 8.7).\u00a0 David Rifful is arguably the best player on Dartmouth, as he averages a team high 8.7 points per game and 5.2 rebounds per game, as well as 1.5 steals.\u00a0 The sad truth, however, is that Rifful would probably not even start on most teams, Columbia included.\u00a0 He has scored in double figures ten times this year, and in those 10 games, Dartmouth has won 4 of them.\u00a0 So it would be safe to say that Rifful is a key to Dartmouth having any chance to win.\u00a0 If he could get off and have one of his better games of the year, Dartmouth could at least cover the spread.<\/p>\n

Columbia is led by the backcourt duo of Noruwa Agho and Brian Barbour.\u00a0 The two each play 34 minutes a game and combine for 29.1 points per game (40% of Columbia’s total output).\u00a0 Agho, a 6’3″ junior guard, is leading the way scoring 16.0 points per game and is dishing out 4.5 assists per game in a potent Columbia lineup.\u00a0 He shoots 38.4% from distance (33 of 86) and has scored in double figures in 16 of Columbia’s 22 games.\u00a0 He’s also had 7 games with 20 or more points and hit six threes in a win against Union College.\u00a0 His backcourt mate 6’1″ sophomore Brian Barbour averages 13.1 points per game, 3.1 assists per game and 1.4 steals per game.\u00a0 Columbia is 2-3 in the 5 games in which Barbour has failed to score in double figures and they are 11-6 when he scores in double figures.<\/p>\n

Tonight’s game probably won’t be very close, as indicated by college basketball oddsmakers setting the line in double digits in Columbia’s favor.\u00a0 If Rifful could have a big game and bolster Dartmouth’s offensive output, they could cover the spread.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dartmouth AT Columbia Feb 18, 2011 at 7 PM EST Opening Line:\u00a0 Columbia -12 Current Line:\u00a0 Columbia -11.5 Opening Total:\u00a0 131.5 Current Total: 131 Opening Moneyline:\u00a0 Col -725 \/ Dar +575 Current Moneyline:\u00a0 Col -800 \/ Dar +600 Tonight’s game brings together the struggling Dartmouth Big Green (5-17) against the Columbia Lions (13-9).\u00a0 Dartmouth has […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40250,"featured_media":5702,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,1444],"tags":[9528,4411,4412],"class_list":["post-13465","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-college-basketball","category-headlines","tag-college-basketball","tag-columbia-lions","tag-dartmouth-big-green"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13465","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\/40250"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13465"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13465\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13467,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13465\/revisions\/13467"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5702"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}