{"id":22226,"date":"2012-03-14T12:29:14","date_gmt":"2012-03-14T17:29:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=22226"},"modified":"2012-03-14T12:29:14","modified_gmt":"2012-03-14T17:29:14","slug":"march-madness-2012-picks-colorado-state-rams-vs-murray-state-racers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/march-madness-2012-picks-colorado-state-rams-vs-murray-state-racers-22226\/","title":{"rendered":"March Madness 2012 Picks: Colorado State Rams vs. Murray State Racers"},"content":{"rendered":"

No. 11 Colorado State Rams vs. No. 6 Murray State Racers
\nThursday, 3\/15\/12, 12:15 PM EST, TV:\u00a0 CBS
\nOpening Point Spread:\u00a0 Murray State -1.5
\nCurrent Betting Line:\u00a0 Murray State -4.5
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 136.5
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 135.5
\nOdds Courtesy of Bookmaker<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"College<\/a>
The Murray State Racers will be playing close to home in facing the Colorado State Rams on Thursday<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Colorado State returns to the NCAA tournament for the first time since 2003 and the ninth time in program history.\u00a0 The Rams were bounced out of the Mountain West Conference tournament by the San Diego State Aztecs, but rattled off wins in five of their last seven games.\u00a0 \u201cWe were confident in our body of work this season,\u201d stated Rams forward Pierce Hornung.\u00a0 It\u2019s important to note that the program hasn\u2019t won a tournament game since beating Florida in 1989.\u00a0 Colorado State is 8-4 ATS when playing on a neutral court the last two-plus seasons.<\/p>\n

The Rams enter this matchup with a 20-11 overall record, becoming the seventh team in program history to reach the 20-win mark.\u00a0 Colorado State finished conference play in fourth place in the league standings with an 8-6 record.\u00a0 The team boasts the fourth-rated strength of schedule nationally, while also coming in with an RPI of 29.\u00a0 In order to pull off the upset, the squad will need to hit shots from the perimeter, ranking 25th nationally in shooting 47.6 percent from the floor.<\/p>\n

Murray State enters as the No. 6 seed in the West Region when opening up inside The KFC Yum! Center in Louisville, KY.\u00a0 The Racers are making their 15th appearance in the Big Dance and have a 2-14 record since their first time in the event in 1964.\u00a0 \u201cIf you really look at our body of work, you can make an argument for a two seed,\u201d stated Racers head coach Steve Prohm.\u00a0 The program won the Ohio Valley Conference regular season for the third straight campaign and was the only program in the country to go undefeated on the road.\u00a0 Murray State is 11-11 ATS as a favorite this year.<\/p>\n

The Racers and Rams have two common opponents from this season in Southern Mississippi and Jacksonville State.\u00a0 Murray State picked up victories in both of those games, while Colorado earned a split in beating Jacksonville State and losing to Southern Mississippi.\u00a0 There\u2019s no doubt that the team will be playing in front of a partisan home crowd in playing in the state of Kentucky, which should have the locker room fired up.\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019m glad we got in Louisville,\u201d commented Racers senior Jewaun Long.<\/p>\n

Bettors will likely back the Racers due to their 6-0 ATS mark as a favorite of 6.5 points or less, while the Rams are 6-7 ATS as an underdog.<\/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. 11 Colorado State Rams vs. No. 6 Murray State Racers Thursday, 3\/15\/12, 12:15 PM EST, TV:\u00a0 CBS Opening Point Spread:\u00a0 Murray State -1.5 Current Betting Line:\u00a0 Murray State -4.5 Opening Total:\u00a0 136.5 Current Total:\u00a0 135.5 Odds Courtesy of Bookmaker Colorado State returns to the NCAA tournament for the first time since 2003 and the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":4660,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,1444],"tags":[2494,5939,508,1375,3,4147,1378],"class_list":["post-22226","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-college-basketball","category-headlines","tag-colorado-state-rams","tag-kfc-yum-center","tag-mountain-west-conference","tag-murray-state-racers","tag-ncaa-tournament","tag-ohio-valley-conference","tag-west-region"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22226","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=22226"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22226\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22227,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22226\/revisions\/22227"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}