{"id":20440,"date":"2011-12-21T23:30:10","date_gmt":"2011-12-22T04:30:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=20440"},"modified":"2011-12-21T21:19:22","modified_gmt":"2011-12-22T02:19:22","slug":"las-vegas-classic-saint-marys-gaels-vs-baylor-bears","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/las-vegas-classic-saint-marys-gaels-vs-baylor-bears-20440\/","title":{"rendered":"Las Vegas Classic: Saint Mary’s Gaels vs. Baylor Bears"},"content":{"rendered":"

Saint Mary\u2019s Gaels vs. No. 7 Baylor Bears
\nThursday, 12\/22\/11, 10:30 PM EST, TV:\u00a0 ESPN3
\nOpening Point Spread:\u00a0 Baylor -4
\nCurrent Betting Line:\u00a0 Baylor -4
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 136
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 136
\nOdds Courtesy of Bookmaker
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The Baylor Bears are one of six undefeated teams in Division I college basketball<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Saint Mary\u2019s returns to familiar territory Thursday night when it travels to Las Vegas and the Orleans Arena to take on the ranked Baylor Bears.\u00a0 The Gaels will be seeking to gain revenge from a dismal 72-49 loss to the Bears during the 2010 NCAA tournament.\u00a0 The program comes in riding a wave of momentum in winning eight consecutive games since dropping a 70-58 decision to the Denver Pioneers as seven-point road favorites on Nov. 23.<\/p>\n

The Gaels are led offensively by senior forward Rob Jones, who is averaging 14.6 points and 11.0 rebounds per game.\u00a0 \u201cSaint Mary\u2019s has two outstanding players,\u201d commented Eastern Washington head coach Jim Hayford after Wednesday night\u2019s game.\u00a0 \u201cJones was very hard to guard.\u201d\u00a0 The team\u2019s current eight-game win streak is just one shy of the fourth-longest in school history.\u00a0 Saint Mary\u2019s has dropped four straight and 11 of 14 versus ranked competition.<\/p>\n

Baylor needs to keep its focus against its first opponent in Sin City and avoid looking ahead to playing a future Big 12 Conference opponent in West Virginia on Friday.\u00a0 The Bears are averaging 80.0 points on 50.5 percent shooting and are just two games removed from tallying a 86-83 win over the BYU Cougars as four-point road underdogs.\u00a0 The program is one of only six undefeated Division I teams remaining and is in search of only its second 11-0 season start in school history.\u00a0 Baylor is 5-2 all-time in Sin City and makes its first trip to the desert since 1982.<\/p>\n

The Bears have tallied a 35-12 record in the month of December and are 80-22 against non-conference opponents during the Scott Drew era.\u00a0 He is tied with Kansas head man Bill Self as the second-longest tenured man on the sidelines in the Big 12 Conference, as both of them trail only Texas Longhorns head coach Rick Barnes.\u00a0 Sophomore forward Perry Jones III leads the team in scoring 16.2 points per game and is joined by three other starters in averaging double figures in points. He was recently named a candidate for the 2012 Bob Cousy Collegiate Point Guard of the Year award.<\/p>\n

Bettors will likely back the Bears due to their 4-1 ATS mark versus West Coast Conference members, while the Gaels are 2-6-1 ATS following a spread victory.<\/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":"

Saint Mary\u2019s Gaels vs. No. 7 Baylor Bears Thursday, 12\/22\/11, 10:30 PM EST, TV:\u00a0 ESPN3 Opening Point Spread:\u00a0 Baylor -4 Current Betting Line:\u00a0 Baylor -4 Opening Total:\u00a0 136 Current Total:\u00a0 136 Odds Courtesy of Bookmaker Saint Mary\u2019s returns to familiar territory Thursday night when it travels to Las Vegas and the Orleans Arena to take […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":19159,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,1444],"tags":[3288,3267,5744,6210,6209,5739,5732,1376],"class_list":["post-20440","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-college-basketball","category-headlines","tag-baylor-bears","tag-big-12-conference","tag-cbb","tag-las-vegas-classic","tag-orleans-arena","tag-perry-jones-iii","tag-rob-jones","tag-saint-marys-gaels"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20440","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=20440"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20440\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20442,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20440\/revisions\/20442"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19159"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20440"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20440"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20440"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}