{"id":28257,"date":"2013-03-21T10:08:30","date_gmt":"2013-03-21T15:08:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=28257"},"modified":"2013-03-21T10:08:30","modified_gmt":"2013-03-21T15:08:30","slug":"west-region-betting-preview-ncaa-basketball-1-gonzaga-bulldogs-vs-16-southern-jaguars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/west-region-betting-preview-ncaa-basketball-1-gonzaga-bulldogs-vs-16-southern-jaguars-28257\/","title":{"rendered":"West Region Betting Preview NCAA Basketball:  (1) Gonzaga Bulldogs vs. (16) Southern Jaguars"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/kevin-pangos-gonzaga-2012.jpg\" alt=\"kevin-pangos-gonzaga-2012\" width=\"495\" height=\"278\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-25943\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/kevin-pangos-gonzaga-2012.jpg 495w, https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/kevin-pangos-gonzaga-2012-300x168.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 495px) 100vw, 495px\" \/><strong>Gonzaga vs. Southern<br \/>\nTime:  4:10 PM ET, Mar 21, 2013<br \/>\nSpread:  GON -22.5<br \/>\nTotal:  128<\/p>\n<p>Betting Odds from Bookmaker<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Gonzaga is 31-2 on the season and went a perfect 16-0 in their soft WCC schedule.  Their two losses came on Dec 8, 2012 against then-No. 13 Illinois and on January 19 against then-No. 13 Butler.  Both the Fighting Illini and Butler Bulldogs are in the tournament of course, but both opponents are in the East conference.<\/p>\n<p>The Bulldogs closed the season on a 14-game win streak that featured no victories over tough opponents.  It&#8217;s not that their opponent No. 16 seeded Southern will give them much of a problem, but a potential matchup against either Pitt or Wichita State will test the Zags a lot more than this rounds quasi-bye game.<\/p>\n<p>The Zags converted a high percentage of their field goal attempts, shooting better than 50 percent and ranking No. 3 in the nation.  The hot shooting enabled them to rank No. 7 in the country in scoring, averaging 77.6 points per game.  <\/p>\n<p>They&#8217;re led by Kelly Olynyk&#8217;s 17.5 points per game, and Olynyk also ranks second on the team in rebounding with 7.2 rebounds per game.  The seven-foot junior had just four double-doubles on the season, but Gonzaga won all four games.  Olynyk was a near non-factor last year as a sophomore, when he saw just 13.5 minutes per night and averaged just over five points per game.<\/p>\n<p>Southern finished the season 23-9 with a 15-3 record in the SWAC, which they won to get into the tournament.  They closed the season with three straight wins as they won the SWAC, and the closing 45-44 victory over 15-19 Prairie View illustrates the ultimate weakness of the team.  In a game they won, they shot just 33 percent from the floor, and outside of Derick Beltran, the starters shot 7-of-23 from the floor.  <\/p>\n<p>If the Zags can control Beltran and Malcolm Miller, who combine to average 31.7 points per game, they&#8217;ll be eliminating over half of the Jaguars&#8217; offense, which should make this the easy victory predicted by college basketball oddsmakers, who set the line 22.5 points in favor of the West&#8217;s top seed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Gonzaga vs. Southern Time: 4:10 PM ET, Mar 21, 2013 Spread: GON -22.5 Total: 128 Betting Odds from Bookmaker Gonzaga is 31-2 on the season and went a perfect 16-0 in their soft WCC schedule. Their two losses came on Dec 8, 2012 against then-No. 13 Illinois and on January 19 against then-No. 13 Butler. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40250,"featured_media":25999,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,1444],"tags":[6030,7155,1202,3,7414],"class_list":["post-28257","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-college-basketball","category-headlines","tag-college-basketball-odds","tag-college-basketball-oddsmakers","tag-gonzaga-bulldogs","tag-ncaa-tournament","tag-southern-jaguars"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28257","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\/40250"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28257"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28257\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28258,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28257\/revisions\/28258"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25999"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}