{"id":20063,"date":"2011-12-06T21:59:37","date_gmt":"2011-12-07T02:59:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=20063"},"modified":"2011-12-06T21:59:38","modified_gmt":"2011-12-07T02:59:38","slug":"xavier-vs-butler-former-conference-rivals-face-off-inside-hinkle-fieldhouse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/xavier-vs-butler-former-conference-rivals-face-off-inside-hinkle-fieldhouse-20063\/","title":{"rendered":"Xavier vs. Butler: Former Conference Rivals Face Off Inside Hinkle Fieldhouse"},"content":{"rendered":"

No. 8 Xavier Musketeers at Butler Bulldogs
\nWednesday, 12\/7\/11, 9:00 PM EST, TV:\u00a0 ESPN
\nOpening Point Spread:\u00a0 Xavier -6
\nCurrent Betting Line:\u00a0 Xavier -6
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 127
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 127
\nOdds Courtesy of Bookmaker<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Xavier Muskeeters guard Tu Holloway is one of the best players in the nation<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Xavier comes in with a perfect 6-0 record and off a 66-63 come-from-behind win over the Purdue Boilermakers as 3.5-point home favorites.\u00a0 The Musketeers trailed by 19 points with just under 10 minutes remaining in the contest, which is when senior guard Tu Holloway decided to take things over in leading the largest comeback in Cintas Center history.\u00a0 \u201cYou\u2019ve watched me do that for two years,\u201d commented Holloway about scoring 13 points over the final five minutes.\u00a0 His exploits made him the ESPN.com National Player of the Week, averaging 22.5 points in two games.\u00a0 Xavier is 5-1 ATS as a road favorite of 3.5 to 6 points the last two-plus years.<\/p>\n

The Musketeers lead the all-time series, 29-16, including a 51-49 win over Butler last season at Centas Center as two-point favorites.\u00a0 The last two games in the series have been decided by a total of three points.\u00a0 Two of Xavier\u2019s players are from Indianapolis, which should make this a special treat, as junior Jeff Robinson and freshman Justin Martin are coming home.\u00a0 Xavier has one of the best backcourts in the country with Holloway and junior Mark Lyons, who is averaging 17.3 points per game.<\/p>\n

Butler is set to face its second top-10 opponent inside Hinkle Fieldhouse, coming in off a 77-71 loss to the Valparaiso Crusaders as 5.5-point home favorites.\u00a0 The Bulldogs shot a season-low 34.3 percent and didn\u2019t make head coach Brad Stevens happy in missing 10 layups.\u00a0 \u201cThe layups are really disappointing,\u201d commented Stevens after the game.\u00a0 The program is 3-5 against teams ranked in the top 10 under his direction.\u00a0 Butler is 0-4 ATS in non-conference action this year, but 22-15 ATS in this situation since the 2009-10 campaign.<\/p>\n

The Bulldogs have created a great homecourt advantage during Stevens\u2019 time on campus, posting a 60-7 record in Wednesday night\u2019s venue.\u00a0 For the third consecutive year, Butler was picked as the preseason favorite in the Horizon League, picking up 468 total votes, which was just ahead of the Detroit Titans (453).\u00a0 Senior guard Ronald Nored will have to control the game to give his team a chance, averaging 5.4 assists and 2.9 steals per game.\u00a0 He also managed to score a career-high 17 points against the Crusaders.<\/p>\n

Bettors will likely back the Musketeers due to their 6-0 ATS mark on the road, while the Bulldogs are 1-4 ATS after a straight-up loss.<\/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. 8 Xavier Musketeers at Butler Bulldogs Wednesday, 12\/7\/11, 9:00 PM EST, TV:\u00a0 ESPN Opening Point Spread:\u00a0 Xavier -6 Current Betting Line:\u00a0 Xavier -6 Opening Total:\u00a0 127 Current Total:\u00a0 127 Odds Courtesy of Bookmaker Xavier comes in with a perfect 6-0 record and off a 66-63 come-from-behind win over the Purdue Boilermakers as 3.5-point home […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":19748,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,1444],"tags":[1394,695,5789,5942,5919,5944,1369],"class_list":["post-20063","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-college-basketball","category-headlines","tag-brad-stevens","tag-butler-bulldogs","tag-hinkle-fieldhouse","tag-mark-lyons","tag-ronald-nored","tag-tu-holloway","tag-xavier-musketeers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20063","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=20063"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20063\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20065,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20063\/revisions\/20065"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19748"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}