{"id":14589,"date":"2011-04-02T02:39:32","date_gmt":"2011-04-02T07:39:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=14589"},"modified":"2011-04-02T09:58:13","modified_gmt":"2011-04-02T14:58:13","slug":"2011-final-four-picks-kentucky-wildcats-vs-connecticut-huskies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/2011-final-four-picks-kentucky-wildcats-vs-connecticut-huskies-14589\/","title":{"rendered":"2011 Final Four Picks: Kentucky Wildcats vs. Connecticut Huskies"},"content":{"rendered":"

2011 NCAA Tournament Final Four<\/strong>
\n#3 Connecticut Huskies vs. #4 Kentucky Wildcats, Reliant Stadium, Houston, TX<\/strong>
\nSaturday, April 2, 2011, 8:49 pm Eastern, TV: CBS<\/strong>
\nOpening Line: Kentucky -2<\/strong>
\nCurrent Line: Kentucky -2.5<\/strong>
\nOpening Total: 142<\/strong>
\nCurrent Total: 140<\/strong>
\nMoney Line: Kentucky -145 \/ UConn +125<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Connecticut
UConn's Kemba Walker is averaging almost 27 points and seven assists in the NCAA tournament.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The West Region champion Connecticut Huskies (30-9) and East Region champion Kentucky Wildcats (29-8) meet for the second time this season on Saturday in the Final Four at Houston\u2019s Reliant Stadium, with the winner expected to be favored in Monday\u2019s national championship game.\u00a0 The fourth-seeded Wildcats (-2.5) beat the top two seeds in the East in helping head coach John Calipari make it to his third Final Four with his third different team while the Huskies will be going for their third NCAA title game appearance under head coach Jim Calhoun.<\/p>\n

Calhoun\u2019s teams have gone on to win the championship two of the previous three times they have made it to the Final Four, with the exception coming two years ago when UConn lost 82-73 to Michigan State.\u00a0 The Huskies and leading scorer Kemba Walker have been an amazing story this year, starting from the point they beat Kentucky 84-67 in the title game of the Maui Invitational last November 24.\u00a0 Walker scored a game-high 29 points against the Wildcats and has helped his team go a perfect 12-0 on neutral courts this year, including an incredible five wins in five days en route to the Big East Conference tournament championship just three weeks ago.<\/p>\n

Connecticut\u2019s only real flaw this season was finishing ninth in the Big East during the regular season with a mediocre 9-9 record.\u00a0 However, the team has not lost a game outside the conference and is an impressive 16-6 against the spread away from home this year.<\/p>\n

Kentucky was not a good road team during the regular season at 4-7 but has also excelled on neutral courts.\u00a0 The Wildcats have gone 10-1 straight-up when playing at neutral sites and 7-4 against the spread.\u00a0 The lone loss came against UConn when they were 4-0 and still learning how to play together.\u00a0 Freshman point guard Brandon Knight struggled to score six points on 3 of 15 shooting from the field in that game, going 0 for 8 on his attempts from beyond the 3-point arc.<\/p>\n

Since then, Knight has excelled and become as good as any first-year player in the country.\u00a0 He was named East Region MVP after leading his team to a 76-69 win over #2 North Carolina in the Elite Eight and hit game-winning shots to knock out #1 Ohio State (62-60) and #13 Princeton (59-57).\u00a0 Knight is averaging 15.8 points, 4.3 assists and 3.8 rebounds in the NCAA tournament.<\/p>\n

Walker\u2019s numbers have been far superior at nearly 27 points and seven assists per game, but he also has been forced to carry Connecticut\u2019s offense for most of the season.\u00a0 Freshman Jeremy Lamb has stepped up to support Walker in the Big Dance though, averaging over 18 points in the first four games after scoring more than 18 just once in the previous 14 games.<\/p>\n

The Huskies have seen the UNDER cash in four of their last five games after the total went OVER in each of their previous four.\u00a0 They saw their streak of eight straight covers end with a 65-63 win over #5 Arizona in the Elite Eight, falling short of the 3.5-point spread.\u00a0 The UNDER is also 4-0-1 in Kentucky\u2019s last five games and 7-1-1 in the team\u2019s past nine.\u00a0 The Wildcats are 5-1 ATS in their last six games overall and have covered two of the last three meetings with UConn.<\/p>\n

If you are betting this Final Four college basketball game between UConn & Kentucky, make 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":"

2011 NCAA Tournament Final Four #3 Connecticut Huskies vs. #4 Kentucky Wildcats, Reliant Stadium, Houston, TX Saturday, April 2, 2011, 8:49 pm Eastern, TV: CBS Opening Line: Kentucky -2 Current Line: Kentucky -2.5 Opening Total: 142 Current Total: 140 Money Line: Kentucky -145 \/ UConn +125 The West Region champion Connecticut Huskies (30-9) and East […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":194,"featured_media":9795,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,1444],"tags":[4657,3887,2499,10,4791,4792,4316,4793,876,4661,4660,4317,4318,3,4662,4659,3285],"class_list":["post-14589","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-connecticut-huskies","tag-final-four","tag-final-four-betting","tag-final-four-picks","tag-free-college-basketball-pick","tag-kentucky-connecticut-preview","tag-kentucky-wildcats","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-uconn"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14589","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=14589"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14589\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14626,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14589\/revisions\/14626"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9795"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}