{"id":13656,"date":"2011-02-24T20:00:39","date_gmt":"2011-02-25T01:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=13656"},"modified":"2011-02-24T20:00:39","modified_gmt":"2011-02-25T01:00:39","slug":"big-sky-showdown-montana-grizzlies-at-portland-state-vikings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/big-sky-showdown-montana-grizzlies-at-portland-state-vikings-13656\/","title":{"rendered":"Big Sky Showdown: Montana Grizzlies at Portland State Vikings"},"content":{"rendered":"

Montana Grizzlies AT Portland State Vikings
\nFeb 24, 2011 at 10:05 PM EST
\nOpening Line:\u00a0 Montana -6
\nCurrent Line:\u00a0 Montana -6
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 134
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 135
\nOpening Moneyline:\u00a0 Montana -260 \/ Port St +220
\nCurrent Moneyline:\u00a0 Montana -260 \/ Port St +220<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"St.
Montana is favored by 6 tonight<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Tonight’s game pits two Big Sky opponents against one another.\u00a0 Montana is currently first in the Big Sky Conference with an 11-3 conference record and they are 19-8 overall.\u00a0 Portland State is 4-9 in Conference play and ranks 7th overall in the Big Sky Conference.<\/p>\n

Montana has an excellent record but has yet to face a single ranked team, so it’s tough to gauge how good they may or may not be.\u00a0 They have lost to underwhelming teams, however, so they cannot be that good.\u00a0 They have went 3-3 over their last 6 games with losses to Long Beach State, Northern Arizona, and Weber State, and victories over Idaho State, Northern Colorado, and Sacramento State.<\/p>\n

Portland State has played poorly over their last 11 games, winning only 3 of them (Weber State, Sacramento State, and Loyola Marymount).\u00a0 They last beat Loyola Marymount, in a high scoring game, an 84-75 victory.\u00a0 Their 72.4 points per game rank them 87th in the nation in scoring, but they do give up more than that at 74.3, for a -1.9 differential.<\/p>\n

Some betting trends:<\/p>\n

Montana is 2-5 SU in their last 7 road games against Portland State.\u00a0 The total has gone OVER In 4 of Montana’s last 5 games on the road against Portland State.<\/p>\n

Portland State is 1-4 SU in their last 5 games and 12-4 SU In their last 16 home games.\u00a0 Portland State is 1-4 SU In their last 5 games against Montana and the total has gone OVER In 6 of their last 7 games against Montana.\u00a0 Portland State is 5-2 SU in their last 7 games against Montana and the total has gone OVER in 4 of Portland State’s last 5 home games against the Grizzlies.<\/p>\n

Montana is led by the duo of Brian Qvale and Will Cherry.\u00a0 Qvale, a 6’11” senior center, leads the team in scoring with 15.1 points per game.\u00a0 He also leads the way in rebounding with 8.8 boards.\u00a0 His long frame also enables him to block 3 shots a game.\u00a0 He is a decent prospect for the NBA.
\n6’1″ sophomore point guard Will Cherry is second in scoring with 14.2 points per game and leads the Grizzlies in assists with 4.2 a game.\u00a0 He is also an excellent defender, playing passing lanes well to average 2.6 steals per game.\u00a0 He has had at least one steal in all but three Montana games, but two of the three games have been recent, both Montana wins, anyway.<\/p>\n

Portland State receives strong contributions from all five starters, who nearly all average in double figures (Phillip Thomas is at 9.8 ppg).\u00a0 They are led by Charles Odum a 6’0″ junior point guard, who averages 14.4 points per game, 2.6 assists, 3.5 rebounds, while shooting a blistering 43.1% from three (28 of 65).\u00a0 Though a junior, this is the first season Odum has actually played so technically he is more of a “third year freshman.”\u00a0 He has scored in double figures in all but 4 games, and of those 4 games, Portland State has lost 3 of them.\u00a0 One of those games was against Weber State last week, when the Vikings lost by 22, and Odum shot only 7 field goal attempts.\u00a0 If Portland State is to have any chance of hanging with Montana, they are going to have to make sure Odum gets some shots up.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Montana Grizzlies AT Portland State Vikings Feb 24, 2011 at 10:05 PM EST Opening Line:\u00a0 Montana -6 Current Line:\u00a0 Montana -6 Opening Total:\u00a0 134 Current Total:\u00a0 135 Opening Moneyline:\u00a0 Montana -260 \/ Port St +220 Current Moneyline:\u00a0 Montana -260 \/ Port St +220 Tonight’s game pits two Big Sky opponents against one another.\u00a0 Montana is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40250,"featured_media":4660,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,1444],"tags":[4543,4544],"class_list":["post-13656","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-college-basketball","category-headlines","tag-montana-grizzlies","tag-portland-state-vikings"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13656","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=13656"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13656\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13658,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13656\/revisions\/13658"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13656"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13656"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13656"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}