{"id":20313,"date":"2011-12-16T20:48:37","date_gmt":"2011-12-17T01:48:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=20313"},"modified":"2011-12-16T20:49:06","modified_gmt":"2011-12-17T01:49:06","slug":"college-basketball-picks-baylor-bears-vs-byu-cougars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/college-basketball-picks-baylor-bears-vs-byu-cougars-20313\/","title":{"rendered":"College Basketball Picks: Baylor Bears vs. BYU Cougars"},"content":{"rendered":"

No. 7 Baylor Bears at BYU Cougars
\nSaturday, 12\/17\/11, 2:00 PM EST, TV:\u00a0 N\/A
\nOpening Point Spread:\u00a0 BYU -2
\nCurrent Betting Line:\u00a0 BYU -1.5
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 139
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 137
\nOdds Courtesy of Bookmaker<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The BYU Cougars enjoy quite the home court advantage in Provo, Utah<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Baylor will face its second non-conference true road game Saturday when traveling to Provo, Utah to take on the BYU Cougars inside the Marriott Center.\u00a0 The Bears are 2-5 all-time in the series, dropping the last four meetings.\u00a0 \u201cWhy are we playing BYU? because quite frankly, no one else wants to play up there because they know how tough it is,\u201d commented Bears head coach Scott Drew.\u00a0 The program has actually won 15 of its last 21 non-conference games away from home since the 2007-08 campaign.\u00a0 Baylor is 11-9 ATS on the road the last two-plus years.<\/p>\n

The Bears are one of just nine undefeated Division I teams remaining, as they\u2019ve only played two lined opponents this year.\u00a0 Baylor ranks first in field-goal percentage defense, allowing opponents to shoot just 32.9 percent from the field.\u00a0 Baylor is also a sparkling 22-3 in its last 25 December games, including a 6-3 mark away from Waco.\u00a0 Sophomore forward Perry Jones III leads the team in averaging 15.7 points per game and shoots an incredible 65.5 percent from the field.<\/p>\n

BYU is about to host a top-10 team for the fourth-straight season and will be looking to improve upon its 3-7 mark against such opponents when playing them anywhere.\u00a0 The Cougars only loss this year came against a ranked foe, dropping a 73-56 contest to the Wisconsin Badgers as 7.5-point neutral-site underdogs on Nov. 26.\u00a0 Senior forward Noah Hartsock is the main contributor offensively, leading the team in averaging 17.3 points a contest.\u00a0 He is shooting .565 from the floor and 84.1 percent from the charity stripe.\u00a0 BYU is 10-2 ATS as a home favorite of less than three points.<\/p>\n

The Cougars can definitely be a balanced offensive attack when they want to be, as four different players have scored 20-plus points this season.\u00a0 BYU is considered one of the best home teams in college basketball, registering a 48-1 record in non-conference action inside Saturday\u2019s venue.\u00a0 The team is averaging 77.0 points per game and allowing just 58.5 a contest.\u00a0 In their last contest, the Cougars tallied a 61-42 win over their hated rivals the Utah Utes in Salt Lake City.<\/p>\n

Bettors will likely back the Cougars due to their 4-1 ATS mark as a favorite, while the Bears are 2-3 ATS as a road underdog of three points or less.<\/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. 7 Baylor Bears at BYU Cougars Saturday, 12\/17\/11, 2:00 PM EST, TV:\u00a0 N\/A Opening Point Spread:\u00a0 BYU -2 Current Betting Line:\u00a0 BYU -1.5 Opening Total:\u00a0 139 Current Total:\u00a0 137 Odds Courtesy of Bookmaker Baylor will face its second non-conference true road game Saturday when traveling to Provo, Utah to take on the BYU Cougars […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":19754,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,1444],"tags":[3288,434,6159,5910,5739,4189],"class_list":["post-20313","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-college-basketball","category-headlines","tag-baylor-bears","tag-byu-cougars","tag-marriott-center","tag-noah-hartsock","tag-perry-jones-iii","tag-scott-drew"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20313","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=20313"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20313\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20315,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20313\/revisions\/20315"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19754"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}