Big East Tournament Second Round
#9 UConn Huskies vs. #8 Georgetown Hoyas, Madison Square Garden, New York, NY
Wednesday, March 9, 2011, 12:00 pm Eastern, TV: ESPN
Opening Line: UConn -1.5
Current Line: UConn -2.5
Opening Total: 130
Current Total: 130
Money Line: UConn-145 / Georgetown +125
The eight-seeded Georgetown Hoyas (21-9, 10-8 Big East) will look to end a three-game losing streak on Wednesday when they face ninth-seeded Connecticut Huskies (22-9, 9-9) in the second round of the Big East tournament at Madison Square Garden. The Hoyas have not won a game since point guard Chris Wright broke his left hand in a 58-46 home loss to Cincinnati while the Huskies (-2.5) are coming off a 97-71 rout of #16 seed DePaul on Tuesday in the first round.
Georgetown ended up getting swept by the Bearcats after falling to them again 69-47 on the road in the regular-season finale on Saturday and has failed to cover the spread in five straight. Leading scorer Austin Freeman did what he could, totaling 21 points in the loss. But Freeman did not get much help, as Hollis Thompson was the only other Hoya to score in double figures with 12 points. In fact, just five players on the team scored at Cincinnati with Julian Vaughn, Jason Clark and Vee Sanford combining to miss 15 of the 16 shots they took from the field.
Connecticut also knows how it feels to slide at the end of the season, dropping four of five after beating Georgetown 78-70 on February 16. The Huskies saw leading scorer Kemba Walker tire a bit down the stretch, but that still not stop him from averaging 23 points in those games. Walker averaged 40 minutes of action in the team’s last seven games, and he scored a game-high 26 points in 36 minutes against the Blue Demons in the opening game of the Big East tournament.
Despite Walker’s high-scoring heroics, UConn saw the UNDER go 4-0-1 in its last five games of the regular season as the team did not score more than 67 points. The Huskies broke out of that offensive slump in a big way obviously against the conference’s worst team in DePaul, shooting 60 percent (33 of 55) from the field en route to a season-high point total.
The UNDER has cashed in the last four games for the Hoyas overall along with nine of their past 11. However, three of their last four meetings with Connecticut have gone OVER the total with the winner averaging 74 points. The Huskies are 9-4 against the spread in the last 13 meetings despite losing four of the past five games between the teams straight-up. The winner of this game will be play top seed Pittsburgh (27-4, 15-3) on Thursday in the quarterfinals.
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