{"id":21442,"date":"2012-02-02T16:30:17","date_gmt":"2012-02-02T21:30:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=21442"},"modified":"2012-02-02T17:09:18","modified_gmt":"2012-02-02T22:09:18","slug":"college-basketball-picks-gonzaga-bulldogs-vs-byu-cougars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/college-basketball-picks-gonzaga-bulldogs-vs-byu-cougars-21442\/","title":{"rendered":"College Basketball Picks: Gonzaga Bulldogs vs. BYU Cougars"},"content":{"rendered":"

Gonzaga Bulldogs at BYU Cougars
\nThursday, 2\/2\/12, 11:00 PM EST, TV:\u00a0 ESPN2
\nOpening Point Spread:\u00a0 BYU -2.5
\nCurrent Betting Line:\u00a0 BYU -3
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 146.5
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 147.5
\nOdds Courtesy of Bookmaker<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The BYU Cougars are slight home favorites against the Gonzaga Bulldogs Thursday night<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Gonzaga has won its last four games despite failing to cover the spread in each of those contests, as it comes off a 74-62 win over the Portland Pilots as 15-point road favorites.\u00a0 The Bulldogs have three players in their starting lineup that average double figures in scoring, with junior forward Elias Harris leading the way in scoring 13.7 points per game.\u00a0 The program begins the second half of its West Coast Conference season, as it looks to capture its 12th-straight regular-season crown.\u00a0 Gonzaga is 13-8 ATS as an underdog the last two-plus seasons.<\/p>\n

The Bulldogs have met the Cougars just once, dropping an 89-67 contest as one-point underdogs in the NCAA Tournament\u2019s third round in Denver last March.\u00a0 Gonzaga will not have to worry about matching up with Jimmer Fredette, who has gone on to the NBA, as he scored 34 points in that affair.\u00a0 Offensively, the team managed to score just 25 points in the first half against Portland last time out, which was its lowest scoring half of the 2011-12 campaign.<\/p>\n

BYU has split its last four games and will attempt to bounce back from a disappointing 80-66 loss to the Saint Mary\u2019s Gaels on Saturday.\u00a0 The Cougars have also managed to go \u201cunder\u201d the total in four of their last five games.\u00a0 Senior forward Noah Hartsock leads the team in scoring 17.5 points per game, shooting 58.2 percent from the field and 83.6 percent from the free throw line.\u00a0 He has received a lot of help offensively from junior Brandon Davies inside the paint, as the Provo, Utah, native is first in the WCC during league play in scoring 18.7 points a game.\u00a0 BYU is 18-17 ATS at home the last two-plus campaigns.<\/p>\n

The Cougars are certainly a second-tier team in the WCC this season, dropping both games to the Gaels by a combined margin of 30 points.\u00a0 It was a surprising result last time out due to the program coming off a 70-68 win over the Virginia Tech Hokies as three-point underdogs, which was its first-ever road win against an ACC opponent.<\/p>\n

Bettors will likely back the Cougars due to their 6-2 ATS mark as a home favorite of 6.5 or fewer points, while the Bulldogs are 0-5 ATS versus conference rivals.<\/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":"

Gonzaga Bulldogs at BYU Cougars Thursday, 2\/2\/12, 11:00 PM EST, TV:\u00a0 ESPN2 Opening Point Spread:\u00a0 BYU -2.5 Current Betting Line:\u00a0 BYU -3 Opening Total:\u00a0 146.5 Current Total:\u00a0 147.5 Odds Courtesy of Bookmaker Gonzaga has won its last four games despite failing to cover the spread in each of those contests, as it comes off a […]<\/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":[6408,434,1203,1202,5910,3888],"class_list":["post-21442","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-college-basketball","category-headlines","tag-brandon-davies","tag-byu-cougars","tag-elias-harris","tag-gonzaga-bulldogs","tag-noah-hartsock","tag-west-coast-conference"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21442","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=21442"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21442\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21461,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21442\/revisions\/21461"}],"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=21442"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21442"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21442"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}