{"id":22268,"date":"2012-03-15T03:00:43","date_gmt":"2012-03-15T08:00:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=22268"},"modified":"2012-03-15T03:00:43","modified_gmt":"2012-03-15T08:00:43","slug":"ncaa-tournament-east-region-picks-7-gonzaga-vs-10-west-virginia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/ncaa-tournament-east-region-picks-7-gonzaga-vs-10-west-virginia-22268\/","title":{"rendered":"NCAA Tournament East Region Picks: #7 Gonzaga vs. #10 West Virginia"},"content":{"rendered":"

2012 NCAA Tournament<\/strong>
\nRound of 64 \u2013 East Region<\/strong>
\nThursday, 3\/15\/12, 7:20 p.m. Eastern, TV: TNT<\/strong>
\n#7 Gonzaga Bulldogs (25-6, 13-3 West Coast) vs. #10 West Virginia Mountaineers (19-13, 8-8 Big East)<\/strong>
\nCONSOL Energy Center \u2013 Pittsburgh, PA<\/strong>
\nOpening Line: Gonzaga Pick’em<\/strong>
\nCurrent Line: Gonzaga -1<\/strong>
\nOpening Total: 131<\/strong>
\nCurrent Total: 132.5
\nOdds Courtesy of Bookmaker<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Gonzaga
Robert Sacre and the Bulldogs are small favorites against West Virginia on Thursday.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The seventh-seeded Gonzaga Bulldogs will count on a freshman guard who is their leading scorer to bounce back in Thursday\u2019s East Region matchup with the 10th-seeded West Virginia Mountaineers.\u00a0 The Bulldogs (25-6, 13-3 West Coast) are hoping Kevin Pangos can forget his last performance when he faces the experienced Mountaineers (19-13, 8-8) in his first NCAA tournament game.<\/p>\n

Pangos scored 30 points against BYU in the West Coast Conference tournament semifinals and led Gonzaga (-1, O\/U 132.5) with 13.8 points per game during the season.\u00a0 But he totaled just seven in the WCC title game against St. Mary\u2019s on March 5, missing 15 of 18 shots from the field in a 78-74 overtime loss.\u00a0 The Ontario native made only 1 of 10 shots he took from 3-point range while junior forward Elias Harris picked up the slack with 22 points and senior center Robert Sacre added 17.<\/p>\n

Harris and Sacre will be appearing in their third straight Big Dance and have enjoyed some success in their previous two trips.\u00a0 The Bulldogs have won their first game in each of the past two years, with both players stepping up at times. \u00a0The duo combined for 35 points in an 89-67 loss to BYU in the third round last year after they beat St. John\u2019s 86-71 in the second.<\/p>\n

West Virginia is coming off a 71-67 overtime loss to defending national champion UConn in the second round of Big East tournament last Wednesday.\u00a0 The Mountaineers won the Big East tourney two years earlier when they also made a run to the Final Four, where they lost 78-57 to eventual national champ Duke.<\/p>\n

Two seniors who contributed to that squad are leading the way again this season.\u00a0 Top scorer Kevin Jones (20.1 ppg) and point guard Darryl \u201cTruck\u201d Bryant are two of five upperclassmen for West Virginia, and the only seniors.\u00a0 This year\u2019s tourney is extra special for Bryant, who broke his foot before the 2010 Final Four, missing the team\u2019s last three games.\u00a0 Last year, the Mountaineers were bounced by Kentucky 71-63 in the third round, as Jones was limited to just eight points and Bryant fouled out.<\/p>\n

Both teams that will take the court in Albuquerque have struggled against the spread lately.\u00a0 West Virginia is 4-9 ATS in its last 13 games compared to Gonzaga\u2019s 4-10-1 mark in it past 15.\u00a0 There are a couple positive trends favoring a high-scoring game though.\u00a0 The OVER is 11-1-1 in the last 13 neutral site games for the Mountaineers and 19-6 in the past 25 NCAA tournament games for the Bulldogs.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t miss out on winning NCAA tournament picks<\/a> 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 \u2013 East Region Thursday, 3\/15\/12, 7:20 p.m. Eastern, TV: TNT #7 Gonzaga Bulldogs (25-6, 13-3 West Coast) vs. #10 West Virginia Mountaineers (19-13, 8-8 Big East) CONSOL Energy Center \u2013 Pittsburgh, PA Opening Line: Gonzaga Pick’em Current Line: Gonzaga -1 Opening Total: 131 Current Total: 132.5 Odds Courtesy of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":194,"featured_media":19753,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,1444],"tags":[6568,1379,6587,1202,9,4661,4660,3,4662,6571,6570,4659,407,449],"class_list":["post-22268","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-college-basketball","category-headlines","tag-big-dance","tag-east-region","tag-gonzaga","tag-gonzaga-bulldogs","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-west-virginia","tag-west-virginia-mountaineers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22268","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=22268"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22268\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22270,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22268\/revisions\/22270"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}