{"id":22238,"date":"2012-03-15T01:28:47","date_gmt":"2012-03-15T06:28:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=22238"},"modified":"2012-03-15T01:54:15","modified_gmt":"2012-03-15T06:54:15","slug":"east-region-round-of-64-betting-8-kansas-state-vs-9-southern-miss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/east-region-round-of-64-betting-8-kansas-state-vs-9-southern-miss-22238\/","title":{"rendered":"East Region Round of 64 Betting: #8 Kansas State vs. #9 Southern Miss"},"content":{"rendered":"

2012 NCAA Tournament<\/strong>
\nRound of 64 – East Region<\/strong>
\nThursday, 3\/15\/12, 12:40 p.m. Eastern, TV: truTV<\/strong>
\n#8 Kansas State Wildcats (21-10, 10-8 Big 12) vs. #9 Southern Miss Golden Eagles (25-8, 11-5 Conference USA)<\/strong>
\nCONSOL Energy Center – Pittsburgh, PA<\/strong>
\nOpening Line: Kansas State -7<\/strong>
\nCurrent Line: Kansas State -5<\/strong>
\nOpening Total: 134<\/strong>
\nCurrent Total: 134
\nOdds Courtesy of Bookmaker<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Kansas
Rodney McGruder and the Wildcats are down to 5-point favorites against Southern Miss on Thursday.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Despite a successful regular season, the ninth-seeded Southern Miss Golden Eagles will need to break a skid against the spread if they are going to advance past the second round of the NCAA tournament.\u00a0 The Golden Eagles (25-8, 11-5 Conference USA) have failed to cover their last seven games along with nine of their past 10 heading into Thursday\u2019s East Region matchup with the eighth-seeded Kansas State Wildcats (21-10, 10-8 Big 12).<\/p>\n

Southern Miss was upset 73-62 by Marshall in the semifinals of the Conference USA tournament as the No. 2 seed and a 2.5-point favorite last Friday.\u00a0 The Golden Eagles were outscored 44-34 in the second half after trailing by just one point at halftime.\u00a0 Senior guard Angelo Johnson scored 24 points in the loss for head coach Larry Eustachy\u2019s squad, which is making its first appearance in the Big Dance since 1991.<\/p>\n

Eustachy is the former Iowa State coach who was dismissed in 2003 after he was photographed attending college parties at multiple Big 12 schools, violating a moral clause in his contract.\u00a0 He was named AP Coach of the Year in 2000, leading the Cyclones within a game of the Final Four.\u00a0 After sitting out one year between jobs, he took over at Southern Miss and is in his eighth season there.<\/p>\n

Kansas State (-5, O\/U 134) is in the NCAA tournament for the third year in a row under head coach Frank Martin and finished fifth in the Big 12.\u00a0 The Wildcats lost to national runner-up Butler two years ago 63-56 in the West Regional Final and fell to Wisconsin 70-65 in the third round last season.\u00a0 There is a possibility that they could meet the Badgers again this year if both teams make it to the Sweet 16.<\/p>\n

An 82-74 loss to Baylor last Thursday ended Kansas State\u2019s run in the Big 12 tournament after the team had finished the regular season strong with four wins in five games.\u00a0 One of those wins came against the Bears on the road February 18 (57-56) while the Wildcats followed that up with another impressive victory away from home at Missouri three days later, 78-68.\u00a0 Kansas State is led by junior guard Rodney McGruder, who averaged 15.4 points per game and made 39 percent of his 3-point attempts, making 1.5 per contest.<\/p>\n

The OVER is 8-1 in the last nine neutral site games for the Wildcats and 10-2 in the past 12 overall for the Golden Eagles.\u00a0 The teams met in 2008 with Kansas State winning 74-55 at home and covering as a 6.5-point favorite.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t miss out on winning NCAA 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!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

2012 NCAA Tournament Round of 64 – East Region Thursday, 3\/15\/12, 12:40 p.m. Eastern, TV: truTV #8 Kansas State Wildcats (21-10, 10-8 Big 12) vs. #9 Southern Miss Golden Eagles (25-8, 11-5 Conference USA) CONSOL Energy Center – Pittsburgh, PA Opening Line: Kansas State -7 Current Line: Kansas State -5 Opening Total: 134 Current Total: […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":194,"featured_media":19181,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,1444],"tags":[6568,1379,3895,2807,9,4661,4660,3,4662,6571,6570,4659,6569,3976],"class_list":["post-22238","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-college-basketball","category-headlines","tag-big-dance","tag-east-region","tag-kansas-state","tag-kansas-state-wildcats","tag-march-madness","tag-march-madness-betting","tag-march-madness-picks","tag-ncaa-tournament","tag-ncaa-tournament-betting","tag-ncaa-tournament-lines","tag-ncaa-tournament-odds","tag-ncaa-tournament-picks","tag-southern-miss","tag-southern-miss-golden-eagles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22238","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=22238"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22238\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22240,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22238\/revisions\/22240"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19181"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}