{"id":22203,"date":"2012-03-13T12:07:33","date_gmt":"2012-03-13T17:07:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=22203"},"modified":"2012-03-13T12:07:33","modified_gmt":"2012-03-13T17:07:33","slug":"ncaa-tournament-2012-byu-cougars-vs-iona-gaels","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/ncaa-tournament-2012-byu-cougars-vs-iona-gaels-22203\/","title":{"rendered":"NCAA Tournament 2012: BYU Cougars vs. Iona Gaels"},"content":{"rendered":"

No. 14 Iona Gaels vs. No. 14 BYU Cougars
\nTuesday, 3\/13\/12, 9:10 PM EST, TV:\u00a0 Tru TV
\nOpening Point Spread:\u00a0 BYU -1
\nCurrent Betting Line:\u00a0 BYU -2
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 162
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 162.5
\nOdds Courtesy of Bookmaker<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The BYU Cougars are slight favorites against the Iona Gaels Tuesday night in the first round of the 2012 NCAA Tournament<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Iona will get its chance to make some noise in the NCAA Tournament when it takes on the BYU Cougars in the first round inside UD Arena in Dayton, Ohio.\u00a0 The Gaels are winless in seven trips to the tournament and don\u2019t have a player taller than 6-foot-7 in their starting lineup.\u00a0 Many pundits around the country were puzzled when this squad landed a spot in the field of 68, as it failed to deliver as the No. 1 seed in the MAAC tournament.\u00a0 Iona is 4-2 ATS on a neutral court and the \u201cover\u201d is 4-2 in that situation.<\/p>\n

The Gaels will be led by the play of senior point guard Scott Machado, who was named to the Naismith Men\u2019s Basketball Player of the Year Award watch list.\u00a0 Iona was bounced out of its conference tournament by the Fairfield Stags, dropping an 85-75 decision as 4.5-point neutral-site favorites.\u00a0 It was a disappointing result when considering the team had won six straight games before that loss.\u00a0 Total players will find that the Gaels have gone \u201cover\u201d the total in eight of their last 10 games.<\/p>\n

BYU extended its streak of receiving tournament bids to six seasons and became one of three West Coast Conference teams to land in the dance.\u00a0 The Cougars were a No. 3 seed in last year\u2019s tournament, but will now have a tougher road to the Final Four in playing this opening-round contest as a No. 14 seed.\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s a big difference this year,\u201d commented Cougars forward Noah Hartsock.\u00a0 \u201cI remember last year – a lot of expectations not only to win the first game, but to advance deep into the tournament.\u201d\u00a0 BYU is 8-14 ATS on a neutral floor the last two-plus seasons.<\/p>\n

The Cougars have tallied a 14-29 record in the NCAA Tournament, as they will play in this event for the ninth time in 12 seasons.\u00a0 BYU is 9-17 in opening round games in NCAA Tournament play.\u00a0 Current head coach Dave Rose has led the program to a 3-5 mark in the tournament.\u00a0 Hartsock is certainly the player to watch offensively, averaging 16.7 points per game and shooting 56.5 percent from the field and 83.9 from the free throw line.<\/p>\n

Bettors will likely back the Cougars due to their 4-1 ATS mark as a favorite on a neutral court, while the Gaels are 0-4 ATS versus winning teams.<\/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. 14 Iona Gaels vs. No. 14 BYU Cougars Tuesday, 3\/13\/12, 9:10 PM EST, TV:\u00a0 Tru TV Opening Point Spread:\u00a0 BYU -1 Current Betting Line:\u00a0 BYU -2 Opening Total:\u00a0 162 Current Total:\u00a0 162.5 Odds Courtesy of Bookmaker Iona will get its chance to make some noise in the NCAA Tournament when it takes on the […]<\/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":[434,4759,3,6559,6560],"class_list":["post-22203","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-college-basketball","category-headlines","tag-byu-cougars","tag-iona-gaels","tag-ncaa-tournament","tag-noah-hartsock-scott-machado","tag-ud-arena"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22203","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=22203"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22203\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22205,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22203\/revisions\/22205"}],"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=22203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}