Georgetown Hoyas at Seton Hall Pirates, Prudential Center, Newark, NJ
Tuesday, January 18, 2011, 7:00 pm Eastern, TV: ESPN3
Opening Line: Georgetown -3.5
Current Line: Georgetown -4
Opening Total: 137.5
Current Total: 137.5
Money Line: Georgetown -175 / Seton Hall +155
The 23rd-ranked Georgetown Hoyas (13-5, 2-4 Big East) will play their second straight conference game on the road against the Seton Hall Pirates (8-10, 2-4), which might be a good thing considering they lost two in a row at home during a season-high three-game losing streak. The Hoyas (-4) ended their recent skid with a 74-65 victory at Rutgers on Saturday and hope to make it back-to-back wins before heading home for a matchup with St. John’s next Wednesday.
Like Georgetown, Seton Hall has also gotten off to a rough start in Big East play, dropping four of five since beating South Florida 64-55 in the league opener back on December 28. The only other conference win for the Pirates came against a DePaul team that has now dropped 18 straight Big East games. Leading scorer Jeremy Hazell returned to action though against the Blue Demons for the first time since suffering a broken wrist and getting shot in the armpit during an attempted robbery on Christmas Day, scoring a game-high 23 points.
Hazell is coming off his second-lowest point total of the season in a 74-53 loss at Pittsburgh on Saturday, scoring nine points on 3-of-13 shooting. Seton Hall had won the previous three games in which he played both straight-up and against the spread. He has averaged 20 points in splitting the last two meetings with the Hoyas, as the home team won each time.
Georgetown had won four straight in the series before losing 65-60 in the last meeting at Seton Hall in 2009. The Hoyas also failed to cover five straight games overall this season before routing the Scarlet Knights. Home losses to Pittsburgh and West Virginia preceded that victory, and the total has gone UNDER in three of their last four games.
Austin Freeman scored a game-high 25 points in the win over Rutgers, his best game since totaling 21 against DePaul on January 1. Freeman had scored 29 in his previous three games combined, all resulting in losses. The Big East Preseason Player of the Year is likely out of the running for the regular award due to the strong play of UConn’s Kemba Walker, but he remains the key to Georgetown’s fortunes down the stretch.
The Hoyas are 7-3 against the spread in their last 10 road games with the OVER cashing seven times. The Pirates have gone just 5-11 ATS in their last 16 home games, and the UNDER is 7-1 in their last eight overall.
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