{"id":22288,"date":"2012-03-15T23:45:17","date_gmt":"2012-03-16T04:45:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=22288"},"modified":"2012-03-15T16:02:45","modified_gmt":"2012-03-15T21:02:45","slug":"march-madness-2012-predictions-virginia-cavaliers-vs-florida-gators","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/march-madness-2012-predictions-virginia-cavaliers-vs-florida-gators-22288\/","title":{"rendered":"March Madness 2012 Predictions: Virginia Cavaliers vs. Florida Gators"},"content":{"rendered":"

No. 10 Virginia Cavaliers vs. No. 7 Florida Gators
\nFriday, 3\/16\/12, 2:10 PM EST, TV:\u00a0 TNT
\nOpening Point Spread:\u00a0 Florida -2
\nCurrent Betting Line:\u00a0 Florida -3.5
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 121
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 121
\nOdds Courtesy of Bookmaker<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The Florida Gators live and die with the 3-point shot<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Virginia is seeded No. 10 in the West Region and travels to Omaha to play in the second round of the 2012 NCAA Tournament.\u00a0 The Cavaliers have an all-time record of 22-16 in this event and reached the Final Four in 1981 and 1984.\u00a0 The program has dropped three of its four games and gone \u201cover\u201d the total in three of those contests.\u00a0 Injuries have started to take a toll on the roster and will put added pressure on senior forward Mike Scott, who is averaging 18.1 points and 8.4 rebounds per game.\u00a0 Virginia is 6-0 ATS when playing with five or six days of rest the last two-plus seasons.<\/p>\n

The Cavaliers will try and reach the 70-point plateau offensively, posting a 25-2 mark when doing so under head coach Tony Bennett.\u00a0 Virginia is second nationally in allowing just 53.7 points per game, while sitting 11th in 3-point field goal percentage defense.\u00a0 Scott was named a first-team All-ACC selection and named a third team All-American.\u00a0 He will need help from sophomore guard Joe Harris, who has reached double figures in 37 career games.<\/p>\n

Florida is set to make its 15th Big Dance appearance and owns a 29-12 all-time record in the event, including two national championships and three trips to the national final.\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s always an honor to be part of the NCAA Tournament and we\u2019re excited about playing,\u201d commented Gators head coach Billy Donovan.\u00a0 The program finished its SEC schedule with a 10-6 record, which marked the 10th 10-win season in conference play over the past 14 years.\u00a0 Florida is 4-0 ATS versus ACC opponents the last two-plus years.<\/p>\n

The Gators have all five starters averaging in double figures and are led by junior guard Kenny Boynton, who is averaging 16.3 points per game.\u00a0 Florida is the nation\u2019s top 3-point shooting team in nailing 9.9 three-pointers per game.\u00a0 Donovan has led the program to a solid 19-9 record versus ACC opponents during his time in Gainesville, including wins in six straight contests.\u00a0 Offensively, the team ranks 26th nationally in scoring 76.3 points per game.<\/p>\n

Bettors will likely back the Gators due to their 7-1 ATS mark in NCAA Tournament games as a favorite of 6.5 points or less, while the Cavaliers are 1-3-1 ATS in their last five games.<\/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. 10 Virginia Cavaliers vs. No. 7 Florida Gators Friday, 3\/16\/12, 2:10 PM EST, TV:\u00a0 TNT Opening Point Spread:\u00a0 Florida -2 Current Betting Line:\u00a0 Florida -3.5 Opening Total:\u00a0 121 Current Total:\u00a0 121 Odds Courtesy of Bookmaker Virginia is seeded No. 10 in the West Region and travels to Omaha to play in the second round […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":19790,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,1444],"tags":[499,5741,6039,3,761,2977],"class_list":["post-22288","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-college-basketball","category-headlines","tag-florida-gators","tag-kenny-boynton","tag-mike-scott","tag-ncaa-tournament","tag-tony-bennett","tag-virginia-cavaliers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22288","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=22288"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22288\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22289,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22288\/revisions\/22289"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19790"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}