{"id":22448,"date":"2012-03-22T10:04:32","date_gmt":"2012-03-22T15:04:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=22448"},"modified":"2012-03-22T10:04:32","modified_gmt":"2012-03-22T15:04:32","slug":"sweet-16-2012-predictions-florida-gators-vs-marquette-golden-eagles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/sweet-16-2012-predictions-florida-gators-vs-marquette-golden-eagles-22448\/","title":{"rendered":"Sweet 16 2012 Predictions: Florida Gators vs. Marquette Golden Eagles"},"content":{"rendered":"

No. 7 Florida Gators vs. No. 3 Marquette Golden Eagles
\nThursday, 3\/22\/12, 10:17 PM EST, TV:\u00a0 TBS
\nOpening Point Spread:\u00a0 Marquette -2
\nCurrent Betting Line:\u00a0 Marquette -2
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 146
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 148
\nOdds Courtesy of Bookmaker<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Florida Gators guard Kenny Boynton will look to improve the program's record to 6-1 in Sweet 16 games<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Florida has certainly been one of the more impressive teams in the 2012 NCAA tournament and has won its first two games by a combined 60 points.\u00a0 The Gators earned an impressive 84-50 win over Norfolk State as 14-point favorites in the Round of 32.\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019m proud of this group,\u201d stated Gators head coach Billy Donovan.\u00a0 The program is participating in the Big Dance for the 12th time under his direction, posting a 27-9 mark in tournament games.\u00a0 Donovan comes into this matchup with a 5-1 record in Sweet 16 action.\u00a0 Florida is 11-5 ATS in tournament games the last two-plus years and the \u201cover\u201d is 11-4 in that situation.<\/p>\n

The Gators became the first team in NCAA Tournament history to score 70-plus points and allow 50 or fewer in their first two tournament games.\u00a0 Florida is led by a balanced offensive attack that has all five starters averaging in double figures, with junior guard Kenny Boynton leading the way in scoring 16.1 points per game.\u00a0 The entire group led the nation in hitting 9.8 three-point shots per game during the entire season.\u00a0 Since the 2005-06 season, Florida has tallied a solid 7-3 mark versus Big East Conference opponents.<\/p>\n

Marquette has covered both of its victories in this event heading into this contest, including a 62-53 win over the Murray State Racers as five-point favorite.\u00a0 The Golden Eagles have gone \u201cover\u201d the total in seven of their last 10 games, as both teams in this matchup average over 75 points a game on the season.\u00a0 The program is 38-30 all-time in the NCAA tournament and will lean heavily on Big East Player of the Year Jae Crowder, who is averaging 17.6 points and 8.4 rebounds.\u00a0 Marquette is 12-10 ATS when playing on a neutral floor the last two-plus campaigns.<\/p>\n

The Golden Eagles have won both meetings with the Gators, but the last contest between these two games came on Dec. 10, 1977.\u00a0 Marquette got after it on the defensive end in the first two games of the tournament, holding BYU and Murray State to just 34.4 percent shooting combined, including a 27.5 percent mark from beyond the arc.\u00a0 Crowder has been dominating opponents over the last 10 games, averaging 21.4 points, 10.7 rebounds and 3.1 steals per game.<\/p>\n

Bettors will likely play the total due to the \u201cover\u201d being 8-2 in the Gators last 10 NCAA tournament games, while the Golden Eagles have gone \u201cover\u201d in eight of their last nien games as a favorite of 6.5 points or less.<\/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. 7 Florida Gators vs. No. 3 Marquette Golden Eagles Thursday, 3\/22\/12, 10:17 PM EST, TV:\u00a0 TBS Opening Point Spread:\u00a0 Marquette -2 Current Betting Line:\u00a0 Marquette -2 Opening Total:\u00a0 146 Current Total:\u00a0 148 Odds Courtesy of Bookmaker Florida has certainly been one of the more impressive teams in the 2012 NCAA tournament and has won […]<\/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":[6602,2497,3881,499,6600,5741,3943,4743],"class_list":["post-22448","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-billy-donovan","tag-florida-gators","tag-jae-crowder","tag-kenny-boynton","tag-marquette-golden-eagles","tag-sweet-16"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22448","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=22448"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22448\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22449,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22448\/revisions\/22449"}],"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=22448"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22448"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22448"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}