{"id":22304,"date":"2012-03-16T00:22:18","date_gmt":"2012-03-16T05:22:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=22304"},"modified":"2012-03-16T00:26:29","modified_gmt":"2012-03-16T05:26:29","slug":"east-region-second-round-betting-seminoles-look-to-beat-nicholson-bonnies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/east-region-second-round-betting-seminoles-look-to-beat-nicholson-bonnies-22304\/","title":{"rendered":"East Region Second Round Betting: Seminoles Look to Beat Nicholson, Bonnies"},"content":{"rendered":"

2012 NCAA Tournament<\/strong>
\nRound of 64 \u2013 East Region<\/strong>
\nFriday, 3\/16\/12, 2:45 p.m. Eastern, TV: CBS<\/strong>
\n#3 Florida State Seminoles (24-9, 12-4 ACC) vs. #14 St. Bonaventure Bonnies (20-11, 10-6 Atlantic-10)<\/strong>
\nBridgestone Arena \u2013 Nashville, TN<\/strong>
\nOpening Line: Florida State -6.5<\/strong>
\nCurrent Line: Florida State -6.5<\/strong>
\nOpening Total: 132<\/strong>
\nCurrent Total: 129.5
\nOdds Courtesy of Bookmaker<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Florida
Florida State head coach Leonard Hamilton will try to contain St. Bonaventure's Andrew Nicholson on Friday.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The third-seeded Florida State Seminoles will try for an encore performance in the NCAA tournament after winning the ACC tournament title last Sunday.\u00a0 While that may be a tall order for the Seminoles (24-9, 12-4 ACC), they will begin their quest for a national championship against the 14th-seeded St. Bonaventure Bonnies (20-11, 10-6 Atlantic-10) in second-round action of the East Region on Friday.<\/p>\n

Florida State (-6.5, O\/U 129.5) is coming off an outstanding campaign in the ACC, defeating perennial powers Duke and North Carolina four times in five meetings, including a 85-82 win over the Tar Heels in the conference tourney championship game.\u00a0 The Seminoles enter the Big Dance on a five-game winning streak both straight-up and against the spread and were underdogs in three of them.\u00a0 In fact, they have been underdogs in six of their last eight games with the OVER going 7-1.\u00a0 The team has failed to cover four of the past six times as favorites.<\/p>\n

That could be the case again here against the Bonnies, who have performed well lately as well.\u00a0 They are 7-1 SU and ATS in their last eight games and coming off a 67-56 victory against Xavier in the title game of their conference tourney.\u00a0 A-10 Player of the Year Andrew Nicholson will be a tough matchup for whoever has to guard him, especially following a monster performance of 26 points, 14 rebounds and eight blocks against the Musketeers.<\/p>\n

The 6-foot-9, 240-pound Nicholson averages 18.4 points per game and is a tremendous shooter with great range, connecting on 65 percent of his attempts, including nearly 40 percent from beyond the 3-point arc.\u00a0 The NBA prospect has gotten the attention of Florida State head coach Leonard Hamilton, who has been busy preparing a game plan around how to limit the big man.<\/p>\n

St. Bonaventure has not been to the NCAA tournament though during Nicholson\u2019s standout career.\u00a0 The senior got to play in the CBI tournament last year and scored a game-high 20 points in a 69-54 opening-round loss to Central Florida.<\/p>\n

The Seminoles have a lot more experience in the Big Dance, appearing for the fourth straight season following a tough 72-71 overtime loss to VCU in last year\u2019s Sweet 16.\u00a0 They beat Texas A&M and Notre Dame before losing to the Rams during their improbable run to the Final Four.\u00a0 Florida State has held opponents to an average of less than 63 points per game on 38 percent shooting this season and will look to lock down Nicholson and end his career with a loss.<\/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 Friday, 3\/16\/12, 2:45 p.m. Eastern, TV: CBS #3 Florida State Seminoles (24-9, 12-4 ACC) vs. #14 St. Bonaventure Bonnies (20-11, 10-6 Atlantic-10) Bridgestone Arena \u2013 Nashville, TN Opening Line: Florida State -6.5 Current Line: Florida State -6.5 Opening Total: 132 Current Total: 129.5 Odds Courtesy of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":194,"featured_media":19172,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,1444],"tags":[6568,1379,1219,1112,9,4661,4660,3,4662,6571,6570,4659,6595,6555],"class_list":["post-22304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-college-basketball","category-headlines","tag-big-dance","tag-east-region","tag-florida-state","tag-florida-state-seminoles","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-st-bonaventure","tag-st-bonaventure-bonnies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22304","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=22304"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22304\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22308,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22304\/revisions\/22308"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19172"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}