{"id":21992,"date":"2012-03-06T01:15:18","date_gmt":"2012-03-06T06:15:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=21992"},"modified":"2012-03-06T01:19:03","modified_gmt":"2012-03-06T06:19:03","slug":"big-east-tourney-picks-gibbs-panthers-face-freshmen-laden-st-johns-on-tuesday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/big-east-tourney-picks-gibbs-panthers-face-freshmen-laden-st-johns-on-tuesday-21992\/","title":{"rendered":"Big East Tourney Picks: Gibbs, Panthers Face Freshmen-Laden St. John’s on Tuesday"},"content":{"rendered":"

2012 Big East Conference Tournament<\/strong>
\nOpening Round<\/strong>
\nTuesday, 3\/6\/12, 2:00 p.m. Eastern, TV: ESPN2<\/strong>
\n#12 St. John’s Red\u00a0 Storm (13-18, 6-12 Big East) vs. No. 13 Pittsburgh Panthers (16-15, 5-13)<\/strong>
\nMadison Square Garden – New York, New York<\/strong>
\nOpening Line: Pitt -4<\/strong>
\nCurrent Line: Pitt -5<\/strong>
\nOpening Total: 138<\/strong>
\nCurrent Total: 135
\nOdds Courtesy of Bookmaker<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Pittsburgh
Ashton Gibbs and the Panthers were the top seed in last year's Big East tournament.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

What a difference a year makes.\u00a0 Last season, the Pittsburgh Panthers were the top seed in the Big East Conference tournament with a 27-4 overall record and 15-3 mark in conference play.\u00a0 Pittsburgh star guard Ashton Gibbs outplayed UConn\u2019s Kemba Walker with a career-high 27 points in the quarterfinals but saw the latter hit the game-winning shot to end his team\u2019s Big East championship dreams and begin a national title run for the Huskies.<\/p>\n

Gibbs and the Panthers (-5, O\/U 135) were then bounced by Butler in the second round of the NCAA tournament as a No. 1 seed.\u00a0 While that was a shocking end to last season, nobody thought the junior\u2019s decision to stay in school would result in going 16-15 as a senior, including just 5-13 in Big East action.\u00a0 But that\u2019s the case as No. 13 seed Pitt squares off against the host St. John\u2019s Red Storm on Tuesday in the tourney\u2019s second opening-round game at Madison Square Garden.<\/p>\n

No. 12 St. John\u2019s (13-18, 6-12) can probably understand the frustrations of the Panthers to some degree, starting five freshmen on a very young team that has struggled with growing pains throughout the season.\u00a0 In fact, the Red Storm only saw six players take the floor in an 89-69 loss at Pitt last Wednesday \u2013 all freshmen.<\/p>\n

D\u2019Angelo Harrison and Phil Greene played every minute against the Panthers and combined for 39 points while God\u2019sgift Achiuwa totaled 17 on 8 of 9 shooting off the bench.\u00a0 None of those players were obviously involved in last year\u2019s controversial 65-63 win over Rutgers when the Scarlet Knights were denied a final possession despite there being time on the clock at the end.<\/p>\n

St. John\u2019s had tied a season high with a three-game winning streak prior to that loss at Pitt, including home victories against No.3 Notre Dame, UCLA and No. 16 DePaul.\u00a0 The Red Storm have exceeded the expectations of oddsmakers during this recent stretch, going 4-1 against the spread in their last five with the UNDER also cashing four times.<\/p>\n

The Panthers have won six of the last seven meetings with St. John\u2019s both straight-up and ATS, and the OVER is 4-2 in the past six games between the teams.\u00a0 However, Pitt\u2019s lone win over its last seven games overall came against the Red Storm.\u00a0 The Panthers are 2-5 ATS in losing six of seven, and the OVER has cashed in each of their past two.<\/p>\n

The winner will play No. 5 Georgetown (22-7, 12-6) on Wednesday at 2:00 p.m. (ET).<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t miss out on winning Big East tournament picks and let the college basketball handicappers<\/a> at Maddux Sports line your pockets with cash.\u00a0 March Madness picks<\/a> packages are available now!
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

2012 Big East Conference Tournament Opening Round Tuesday, 3\/6\/12, 2:00 p.m. Eastern, TV: ESPN2 #12 St. John’s Red\u00a0 Storm (13-18, 6-12 Big East) vs. No. 13 Pittsburgh Panthers (16-15, 5-13) Madison Square Garden – New York, New York Opening Line: Pitt -4 Current Line: Pitt -5 Opening Total: 138 Current Total: 135 Odds Courtesy of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":194,"featured_media":19828,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,1444],"tags":[6512,4381,6510,9528,6030,4204,4661,4660,650,615,6513,4205],"class_list":["post-21992","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-college-basketball","category-headlines","tag-big-east-betting","tag-big-east-picks","tag-big-east-tournament","tag-college-basketball","tag-college-basketball-odds","tag-college-basketball-picks","tag-march-madness-betting","tag-march-madness-picks","tag-pitt","tag-pittsburgh-panthers","tag-st-johns","tag-st-johns-red-storm"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21992","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\/194"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21992"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21992\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21998,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21992\/revisions\/21998"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19828"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21992"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21992"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21992"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}