{"id":19150,"date":"2011-11-06T18:30:23","date_gmt":"2011-11-06T23:30:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=19150"},"modified":"2011-11-06T18:26:21","modified_gmt":"2011-11-06T23:26:21","slug":"college-basketball-monday-preview-valparaiso-crusaders-vs-arizona-wildcats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/college-basketball-monday-preview-valparaiso-crusaders-vs-arizona-wildcats-19150\/","title":{"rendered":"College Basketball Monday Preview: Valparaiso Crusaders vs. Arizona Wildcats"},"content":{"rendered":"

Valparaiso Crusaders at Arizona Wildcats
\nMonday, 11\/7\/11, 9:00 PM EST, TV:\u00a0 ESPNU
\nOpening Point Spread:\u00a0 Arizona -12
\nCurrent Betting Line:\u00a0 Arizona -13.5
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 141
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 136.5
\nOdds Courtesy of Bookmaker<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"America<\/a>
The 2011-12 college basketball season opens up Monday night<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Valparaiso opens the Bryce Drew era on the road against Arizona and the last meeting between the two schools came on Dec. 30, 2001, dropping a 74-70 decision in the championship game of the Fiesta Bowl Classic as 12.5-point underdogs.\u00a0 Drew is the fourth head coach to run the sidelines in the last 31 years for the program, spending six seasons as a member of the coaching staff.\u00a0 The program returns two starters and will be aiming to replace three of its top four starters from the 2010-11 campaign.\u00a0 Valparaiso is 20-12 ATS as an underdog the last two seasons, while the \u2018over\u2019 is 20-9 in those contests.<\/p>\n

The Crusaders lost a ton of their production from a year ago, losing 60.5 percent of their scoring and more than 40 percent of their rebounding, assists and steals.\u00a0 Valparaiso still has eight letterwinners returning, while only nine scholarship players will be available.\u00a0 The team was picked to finish in fifth place in the Horizon League preseason poll.\u00a0 Junior Ryan Broekhoff returns as the leading scorer, averaging 10.3 points and 5.2 rebounds per game last year.<\/p>\n

Arizona is expected to play three games in its opening week of action, hosting a contest Monday night in the 2K Sports Classic benefiting Coaches vs. Cancer.\u00a0 The Wildcats will be relying on four freshmen to make immediate contributions, coming off a 30-8 campaign that saw the team reach the NCAA tournament regional finals.\u00a0 \u201cThese freshmen are going to be good – real good,\u201d commented Wildcats senior Kyle Fogg.\u00a0 \u201cThey\u2019re going to be able to contribute right away.\u201d\u00a0 The program is 8-1 all-time against schools that currently reside in the Horizon League.\u00a0 Arizona is 9-1 ATS in November the last two-plus seasons.<\/p>\n

The Wildcats have enjoyed great success in season openers, tallying an 83-21 mark, including 64-12 when playing at home.\u00a0 Since his arrival in Tucson three seasons ago, head coach Sean Miller has helped the team continue its win streak in the first game, which comes in at nine Monday night.\u00a0 Miller has also never lost a season opener in his seven-year career.\u00a0 The Wildcats have also won 19 consecutive home games at McKale Center, which is tied for the seventh longest active homecourt streak in the nation.\u00a0 In this year\u2019s preseason media poll, Arizona was picked to finish third in the Pac-12 Conference race.<\/p>\n

Bettors will likely back the Crusaders due to their 8-2 ATS mark as an underdog of 13 or more points, while the Wildcats are 0-4 ATS when favored by more than 13 points.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t miss out on a winning season and let the college basketball handicappers at Maddux Sports line your pockets with cash.\u00a0 Long term packages are available now!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Valparaiso Crusaders at Arizona Wildcats Monday, 11\/7\/11, 9:00 PM EST, TV:\u00a0 ESPNU Opening Point Spread:\u00a0 Arizona -12 Current Betting Line:\u00a0 Arizona -13.5 Opening Total:\u00a0 141 Current Total:\u00a0 136.5 Odds Courtesy of Bookmaker Valparaiso opens the Bryce Drew era on the road against Arizona and the last meeting between the two schools came on Dec. 30, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":3961,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,1444],"tags":[578,5651,5650,4102,4515],"class_list":["post-19150","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-college-basketball","category-headlines","tag-arizona-wildcats","tag-bryce-drew","tag-mckale-center","tag-sean-miller","tag-valparaiso-crusaders"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19150","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\/181"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19150"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19150\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19153,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19150\/revisions\/19153"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3961"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}