{"id":13739,"date":"2011-03-01T03:39:38","date_gmt":"2011-03-01T08:39:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=13739"},"modified":"2011-03-01T11:07:21","modified_gmt":"2011-03-01T16:07:21","slug":"horizon-league-college-basketball-tournament-picks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/horizon-league-college-basketball-tournament-picks-13739\/","title":{"rendered":"Horizon League College Basketball Tournament Picks"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Horizon League College Basketball Tournament starts on Tuesday with four games. View updated college basketball odds.<\/p>\n

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Shelvin Mack and Butler are the #2 seed in this year's Horizon League tournament.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Butler Bulldogs (21-9, 13-5 Horizon) did not have much competition a year ago when they rolled through the Horizon League bracket en route to the tournament championship.\u00a0 This year will be much different for the Bulldogs, who saw their storybook season end three weeks later in the NCAA championship game with a 61-59 loss to Duke.<\/p>\n

While many believed Butler would need to win the Horizon League tournament to get back to the Big Dance a month ago, a seven-game winning streak in February has likely made that unnecessary.\u00a0 Of course the Bulldogs would like to erase all doubts by landing the conference\u2019s automatic bid with another tournament title, although this year they will need to do it as the #2 seed.<\/p>\n

Wisconsin-Milwaukee (18-12, 13-5) earned the top seed in the Horizon League tournament over Butler and #3 Cleveland State (24-7, 13-5) by virtue of a tiebreaker.\u00a0 The Panthers will meet the winner of Friday\u2019s quarterfinals on Saturday while Butler gets the other winner in that round.\u00a0 Cleveland State (-15) must host #10 UIC (7-23, 2-16) on Tuesday and then play the winner of #7 Wisconsin-Green Bay (14-17, 8-10) and #6 Wright State (18-13, 10-8) on Friday if the Vikings advance. Wright State (-5.5) is favored in that matchup while other Tuesday games include #9 Youngstown State (9-20, 2-16) at #4 Valparaiso (21-10, 12-6) and #8 Loyola (16-14, 7-11) at #5 Detroit (16-15, 10-8). The higher seeds Valparaiso (-13.5) and Detroit (-5) are favored.<\/p>\n

Cleveland State and Wisconsin-Milwaukee obviously have the most to gain from this tournament since neither are locks to make the NCAA tournament as at-large teams.\u00a0 If either of them could knock out the Bulldogs en route to the title, two teams could very well find themselves with invitations to the Big Dance from the Horizon League.<\/p>\n

Barring multiple major upsets along the way, at least one of the top three seeds should represent the Horizon League in the NCAA tournament.\u00a0 Butler definitely has history on its side as one of two six-time winners of the league tournament.\u00a0 The Bulldogs went 20-0 against conference opponents last year including tourney games, and reigning tournament MVP Matt Howard is back for one more run at the title.\u00a0 The 6-foot-8 senior is averaging 16.8 points and 7.9 rebounds this year to lead the team in both categories.<\/p>\n

However, Cleveland State\u2019s Norris Cole became the first player in league history to win Horizon League Player of the Year and Defensive Player of the Year in the same season and wants to finish his career by playing in the NCAA tournament.\u00a0 Cole averaged 21.6 points and 5.5 assists per game and has the tough task of trying to lead his team to four wins in eight days.\u00a0 If he leads the Vikings to wins in their first two games, they would meet Howard\u2019s Butler team in the semifinals on Saturday.<\/p>\n

If you are betting the Horizon League college basketball tournament, 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":"

The Horizon League College Basketball Tournament starts on Tuesday with four games. View updated college basketball odds. The Butler Bulldogs (21-9, 13-5 Horizon) did not have much competition a year ago when they rolled through the Horizon League bracket en route to the tournament championship.\u00a0 This year will be much different for the Bulldogs, who […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":194,"featured_media":9796,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,1444],"tags":[3887,4316,4560,4561,4559,4317,4318],"class_list":["post-13739","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-college-basketball","category-headlines","tag-college-basketball-betting","tag-free-college-basketball-pick","tag-horizon-league-basketball","tag-horizon-league-picks","tag-horizon-league-tournament-preview","tag-ncaa-basketball-odds","tag-ncaa-hoops-picks"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13739","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=13739"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13739\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13744,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13739\/revisions\/13744"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9796"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13739"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13739"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13739"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}