{"id":22446,"date":"2012-03-22T09:29:16","date_gmt":"2012-03-22T14:29:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=22446"},"modified":"2012-03-22T09:29:16","modified_gmt":"2012-03-22T14:29:16","slug":"march-madness-2012-louisville-cardinals-vs-michigan-state-spartans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/march-madness-2012-louisville-cardinals-vs-michigan-state-spartans-22446\/","title":{"rendered":"March Madness 2012: Louisville Cardinals vs. Michigan State Spartans"},"content":{"rendered":"

No. 4 Louisville Cardinals vs. No. 1 Michigan State Spartans
\nThursday, 3\/22\/12, 7:47 PM EST, TV:\u00a0 TBS
\nOpening Point Spread:\u00a0 Michigan State -4.5
\nCurrent Betting Line:\u00a0 Michigan State -5
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 124
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 125.5
\nOdds Courtesy of Bookmaker<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Louisville Cardinals head coach Rick Pitino is 9-0 SU all-time in the Sweet 16<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Louisville is certainly one of the hotter teams in the 2012 NCAA tournament after capturing the Big East Conference tournament and winning its first two games in the Big Dance.\u00a0 The Cardinals covered both of their wins over the Davidson Wildcats and New Mexico Lobos as six and two-point favorites respectively.\u00a0 Cardinals head coach Rick Pitino will put his perfect 9-0 record in this round to the test, while hie teams are a dominating 107-39 overall in the month of March.\u00a0 \u201cHe\u2019s a Hall of Fame coach,\u201d commented Cardinals point guard Peyton Siva.\u00a0 Louisville is 6-0 ATS on a neutral court this year and the \u201cunder\u201d is 1-5 in that situation.<\/p>\n

The Cardinals have really defended the three-point area during the postseason, as they allowed the Lobos to connect on just 5-of-23 shots from beyond the arc in the Round of 32.\u00a0 Louisville has held its other five opponents since the Big East tournament to 12 to 21 percent in that category.\u00a0 Siva is certainly the team\u2019s catalyst offensively despite averaging just 9.2 points per game, as his 191 assists are second all-time in the school record book.\u00a0 Pitino enters this affair with a tremendous 40-15 record in the NCAA tournament.<\/p>\n

Michigan State is making its 10th trip to the Sweet 16 in the last 15 seasons under head coach Tom Izzo, as Big Ten Player of the Year Draymond Green looks to lead the program to the Elite 8.\u00a0 He comes in averaging 16.3 points and 10.5 rebounds per game, while combining to score 40 points and grab 25 rebounds in the first two games of the tournament.\u00a0 Izzo will rely on his big guy on both ends and hopes to push his Sweet 16 record to 8-2 with a victory inside the US Airways Center in Phoenix.\u00a0 Michigan State is 1-5 ATS as a neutral court favorite of 3.5 to 6 points.<\/p>\n

The Spartans are 3-4 all-time against the Cardinals, with Izzo posting a 2-1 mark in the series.\u00a0 Michigan State is a No. 1 seed for the fifth time in school history and has advanced to the Final Four in four opportunities under its current leader on the sidelines.\u00a0 The Big Ten Conference has enjoyed quite a tournament up to this point and has four schools still alive.\u00a0 Michigan State is shooting 57.0 percent from the field, which leads all NCAA tournament teams through two games.<\/p>\n

Bettors will likely back the Cardinals due to their 8-3 ATS mark as an underdog, while the Spartans are 3-8 ATS as a neutral site favorite.<\/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. 4 Louisville Cardinals vs. No. 1 Michigan State Spartans Thursday, 3\/22\/12, 7:47 PM EST, TV:\u00a0 TBS Opening Point Spread:\u00a0 Michigan State -4.5 Current Betting Line:\u00a0 Michigan State -5 Opening Total:\u00a0 124 Current Total:\u00a0 125.5 Odds Courtesy of Bookmaker Louisville is certainly one of the hotter teams in the 2012 NCAA tournament after capturing the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":19833,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,1444],"tags":[6602,2497,3442,5832,556,500,5762,755,4743,778],"class_list":["post-22446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-college-basketball","category-headlines","tag-2012-ncaa-tournament","tag-big-east-conference","tag-big-ten-conference","tag-draymond-green","tag-louisville-cardinals","tag-michigan-state-spartans","tag-peyton-siva","tag-rick-pitino","tag-sweet-16","tag-tom-izzo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22446","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=22446"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22446\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22447,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22446\/revisions\/22447"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19833"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}