{"id":14435,"date":"2011-03-25T01:59:00","date_gmt":"2011-03-25T06:59:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=14435"},"modified":"2011-03-25T02:02:56","modified_gmt":"2011-03-25T07:02:56","slug":"southwest-region-sweet-16-tourney-picks-florida-state-vs-vcu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/southwest-region-sweet-16-tourney-picks-florida-state-vs-vcu-14435\/","title":{"rendered":"Southwest Region Sweet 16 Tourney Picks: Florida State vs. VCU"},"content":{"rendered":"

2011 NCAA Tournament Sweet 16 – Southwest Region<\/strong>
\n#10 Florida State Seminoles vs. #11 VCU Rams, Alamodome, San Antonio, TX<\/strong>
\nFriday, March 25, 2011, 9:57 pm Eastern, TV: TBS<\/strong>
\nOpening Line: Florida State -3.5<\/strong>
\nCurrent Line: Florida State -4<\/strong>
\nOpening Total: 133<\/strong>
\nCurrent Total: 130.5<\/strong>
\nMoney Line: Florida State -190 \/ VCU +160<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Florida
Florida State's Chris Singleton is coming off his best week of practice after returning from a broken foot.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The 11th-seeded VCU Rams (26-11) have already won three games in the NCAA tournament, scoring more points in each as the Big Dance has progressed.\u00a0 The Rams might have trouble keeping that pace up when they meet the 10th-seeded Florida State Seminoles (23-10) in this Southwest Region Sweet 16 matchup on Friday at the Alamodome in San Antonio.<\/p>\n

The Seminoles (-4) are the best defensive team in the country, allowing opponents to shoot just 36 percent from the field. \u00a0They have been especially impressive in their first two tourney games, holding both #7 Texas A&M and #2 Notre Dame to 31 percent shooting.\u00a0 Those performances were put also together without Atlantic Coast Conference Defensive Player of the Year Chris Singleton playing at his best after returning from foot surgery he underwent back in February.<\/p>\n

Singleton is Florida State\u2019s leading scorer and rebounder and has been a shell of himself in his first two games back.\u00a0 He played just 10 minutes in a 71-57 win over the Fighting Irish last Sunday in the third round, going scoreless with two rebounds and three fouls.\u00a0 In the second round, he totaled five points and two boards in 16 minutes of action.\u00a0 However, FSU head coach Leonard Hamilton believes his star player is almost healthy enough to make a positive impact.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s getting closer to kind of looking like his old self,\u201d Hamilton said. \u00a0\u201cI think it\u2019s just taking him a week or so just to gain his confidence back, starting and stopping and changing direction, things of that nature. \u00a0So I want him being a little bit more involved in this game than he was the other games because I think he\u2019s feeling more comfortable.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Seminoles have covered the spread in their last five games with the UNDER cashing in each of the past four.\u00a0 Five of their last six opponents have scored 62 points or less, and their past three have averaged just 53 per game.<\/p>\n

VCU has proven it can play at any tempo in its first three games but has preferred to run in the last two after given the opportunity.\u00a0 The team jumped out to a 35-24 halftime lead on #6 Georgetown in the second round en route to a 74-56 victory and then pounced early again on #3 Purdue last Sunday in a 94-76 third-round win.<\/p>\n

The Rams have won five of their last six games overall, including four as underdogs.\u00a0 The only loss during that stretch came against Old Dominion in the Colonial Athletic Association tournament championship game, 70-65.\u00a0 They have seen a lot of low-scoring games recently as well, with the UNDER going 7-3 in their past 10.<\/p>\n

Now that you have read this NCAA tournament college basketball betting preview featuring Florida State & VCU, 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":"

2011 NCAA Tournament Sweet 16 – Southwest Region #10 Florida State Seminoles vs. #11 VCU Rams, Alamodome, San Antonio, TX Friday, March 25, 2011, 9:57 pm Eastern, TV: TBS Opening Line: Florida State -3.5 Current Line: Florida State -4 Opening Total: 133 Current Total: 130.5 Money Line: Florida State -190 \/ VCU +160 The 11th-seeded […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":194,"featured_media":9794,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,1444],"tags":[4657,3887,1112,4754,4316,4661,4660,4317,4318,3,4662,4659,4669,4743,4750,4751,4503,4670],"class_list":["post-14435","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-college-basketball","category-headlines","tag-2011-ncaa-tournament","tag-college-basketball-betting","tag-florida-state-seminoles","tag-florida-state-vcu-preview","tag-free-college-basketball-pick","tag-march-madness-betting","tag-march-madness-picks","tag-ncaa-basketball-odds","tag-ncaa-hoops-picks","tag-ncaa-tournament","tag-ncaa-tournament-betting","tag-ncaa-tournament-picks","tag-southwest-region","tag-sweet-16","tag-sweet-16-betting","tag-sweet-16-picks","tag-vcu-rams","tag-virginia-commonwealth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14435","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=14435"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14435\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14439,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14435\/revisions\/14439"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9794"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}