{"id":19947,"date":"2011-12-02T20:43:24","date_gmt":"2011-12-03T01:43:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=19947"},"modified":"2011-12-02T20:43:24","modified_gmt":"2011-12-03T01:43:24","slug":"college-basketball-odds-gonzaga-bulldogs-vs-illinois-fighting-illini","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/college-basketball-odds-gonzaga-bulldogs-vs-illinois-fighting-illini-19947\/","title":{"rendered":"College Basketball Odds: Gonzaga Bulldogs vs. Illinois Fighting Illini"},"content":{"rendered":"

No. 18 Gonzaga Bulldogs at Illinois Fighting Illini
\nSaturday, 12\/3\/11, 3:15 PM EST, TV:\u00a0 ESPN2
\nOpening Point Spread:\u00a0 Illinois -2.5
\nCurrent Betting Line:\u00a0 Illinois -2.5
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 134
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 134
\nOdds Courtesy of Bookmaker<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The Gonzaga Bulldogs are led offensively by Robert Sacre in the middle<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Gonzaga meets up with Illinois for the third contest in the current four-year agreement, looking for revenge from a 73-61 loss as 1.5-point underdogs on Dec. 4, 2010 last year. \u00a0 The Bulldogs have had a pretty easy time of it schedule wise, capturing their last three games by an average of 19.7 points.\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s time to get into tougher non-conference games and let\u2019s see what happens,\u201d stated Bulldogs coach Mark Few.\u00a0 The team has three players averaging in double digits led by senior center Robert Sacre, who is scoring 16.6 points a night.\u00a0 Gonzaga is 13-7 ATS on the road the last two-plus years.<\/p>\n

The Bulldogs are coming off an impressive 73-53 win over the Notre Dame Fighting Irish as 11.5-point home favorites inside the McCarthey Athletic Center.\u00a0 Four of Gonzaga\u2019s players scored in double figures.\u00a0 Gonzaga has trailed a total of 8:41 this season, coming off a 25-10 campaign of a year ago.\u00a0 Sacre is the main offensive threat, but junior forward Elias Harris is a major player in averaging 11.8 points and 8.8 rebounds per game.<\/p>\n

Illinois is 7-0 for the first time since the 2006-07 season and its current winning streak is the program\u2019s longest since winning seven-straight from Nov. 19-Dec. 12 of last year.\u00a0 The Fighting Illini will be hosting their highest ranked non-conference opponent inside Assembly Hall since 2004.\u00a0 \u201cWith some early success here, we have a chance to see what we are really about,\u201d commented Fighting Illini head coach Bruce Weber.\u00a0 Illinois tallied a 71-62 win over Maryland in its Big Ten\/ACC Challenge contest last time out as 4.5-point road favorites.\u00a0 In the past two-plus years, the program is 5-8 ATS in December.<\/p>\n

The Fighting Illini carry in a 22-game regular season non-conference winning streak at the Assembly Hall.\u00a0 Illinois has been crashing the boards for most of the season, owning a +7.7 rebounding margin, while averaging 8.2 second-chance points a contest.\u00a0 Sam Maniscalco leads the team in scoring 13.3 points per game and is shooting 55 percent from the field.\u00a0 He has managed to score in double figures in four of the last five games.\u00a0 On the defensive end, Illinois is leading Big Ten teams and rank 11th nationally in recording 6.7 blocks per game.<\/p>\n

Bettors will likely back the Fighting Illini due to their 4-1 ATS mark at home, while the Bulldogs are 3-12-1 ATS when playing on the road after three or more consecutive home games.<\/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":"

No. 18 Gonzaga Bulldogs at Illinois Fighting Illini Saturday, 12\/3\/11, 3:15 PM EST, TV:\u00a0 ESPN2 Opening Point Spread:\u00a0 Illinois -2.5 Current Betting Line:\u00a0 Illinois -2.5 Opening Total:\u00a0 134 Current Total:\u00a0 134 Odds Courtesy of Bookmaker Gonzaga meets up with Illinois for the third contest in the current four-year agreement, looking for revenge from a 73-61 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":19753,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,1444],"tags":[4011,3442,1202,697,6003,6004],"class_list":["post-19947","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-college-basketball","category-headlines","tag-assembly-hall","tag-big-ten-conference","tag-gonzaga-bulldogs","tag-illinois-fighting-illini","tag-robert-sacre","tag-sam-maniscalco"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19947","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=19947"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19947\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19948,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19947\/revisions\/19948"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19947"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19947"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19947"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}