{"id":20456,"date":"2011-12-22T10:21:20","date_gmt":"2011-12-22T15:21:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=20456"},"modified":"2011-12-22T10:21:20","modified_gmt":"2011-12-22T15:21:20","slug":"college-basketball-picks-illinois-fighting-illini-vs-missouri-tigers-braggin-rights-preview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/college-basketball-picks-illinois-fighting-illini-vs-missouri-tigers-braggin-rights-preview-20456\/","title":{"rendered":"College Basketball Picks: Illinois Fighting Illini vs. Missouri Tigers, Braggin’ Rights Preview"},"content":{"rendered":"

No. 24 Illinois Fighting Illini at No. 8 Missouri Tigers
\nThursday, 12\/22\/11, 9:00 PM EST, TV:\u00a0 ESPN2
\nOpening Point Spread:\u00a0 Missouri -6
\nCurrent Betting Line:\u00a0 Missouri -7
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 138.5
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 138
\nOdds Courtesy of Bookmaker<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The Missouri Tigers are one of six remaining unbeaten teams in college basketball<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Illinois bounced back from its first loss of the season to capture a 64-60 victory over Cornell as 16.5-point home favorites on Monday.\u00a0 The Fighting Illini will now look to snap a two-game losing streak in this particular series.\u00a0 \u201cWe\u2019re the underdog,\u201d stated Fighting Illini head coach Bruce Weber.\u00a0 \u201cWe\u2019ll see if we can keep it close.\u00a0 It\u2019s not going to be easy.\u201d\u00a0 The program still owns a 20-10 advantage in Braggin\u2019 Rights games played in St. Louis.\u00a0 Illinois is 3-13 ATS on a neutral court the last two-plus seasons.<\/p>\n

The Fighting Illini are led offensively by D.J. Richardson, who is averaging 14.4 points per game, which is an 8.4-point improvement from his scoring average of a year ago.\u00a0 Four players career a double-figure scoring average and at least 10 players average at least nine minutes on the roster.\u00a0 It\u2019s important to note that the squad\u2019s only loss came against a high-regarded UNLV team, as it will need to dictate the tempo in this particular contest.<\/p>\n

Missouri looks to improve to 12-0 in the 2011-12 season and will play inside the Scottrade Center Thursday night.\u00a0 The Tigers are one of six unbeaten teams and the first in the Big 12 Conference to reach the 11-win mark.\u00a0 First-year head coach Frank Haith is ready to experience one of the biggest rivalries in college sports.\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s going to have an NCAA tournament feel, is what I hear,\u201d Haith commented this week.\u00a0 \u201cThis is a game that will help a team.\u201d\u00a0 Offensively, the team is third nationally and first in the Big 12 in shooting 52.6 percent from the floor.\u00a0 Missouri is 3-0 ATS when playing on a neutral court this year.<\/p>\n

The Tigers lead the country in outscoring opponents by a 27.7-point margin, while sitting second in scoring 87.9 points per game.\u00a0 Three starters are averaging double-digits in scoring, with senior guard Marcus Denmon leading the way in scoring 19.6 points per game.\u00a0 Denmon and Kim English have combined to make 66 of the Tigers\u2019 94 three-point field goals.\u00a0 The duo are tied for first in the Big 12 Conference in averaging 3.0 makes from beyond the arc a contest.<\/p>\n

Bettors will likely back the Fighting Illini due to their 8-3 ATS mark as an underdog of 7 to 12.5 points, while the Tigers are 2-5 ATS when the total is 130 to 139.5.<\/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. 24 Illinois Fighting Illini at No. 8 Missouri Tigers Thursday, 12\/22\/11, 9:00 PM EST, TV:\u00a0 ESPN2 Opening Point Spread:\u00a0 Missouri -6 Current Betting Line:\u00a0 Missouri -7 Opening Total:\u00a0 138.5 Current Total:\u00a0 138 Odds Courtesy of Bookmaker Illinois bounced back from its first loss of the season to capture a 64-60 victory over Cornell as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":19769,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,1444],"tags":[3267,6216,5744,6215,5805,433,6214],"class_list":["post-20456","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-college-basketball","category-headlines","tag-big-12-conference","tag-braggin-rights","tag-cbb","tag-d-j-richardson","tag-marcus-denmon","tag-missouri-tigers","tag-scottrade-center"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20456","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=20456"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20456\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20458,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20456\/revisions\/20458"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19769"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20456"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}