Missouri State vs Creighton
Tuesday, January 4th, 2011 at 8:00 PM EST
Opening Line: Missouri State -2
Current Line: Missouri State -1.5
Total: n/a
Opening Moneyline: Missouri State -135 / Creighton +115
Current Moneyline: Missouri State -125 / Creighton +105
Tonight’s matchup brings together the leading teams in the Missouri Valley conference. They are currently tied for the lead in the conference and the line set by college basketball oddsmakers indicates that this is going to be a close matchup between the conference rivals.
Creighton has won six straight (Drake, Illinois State, Samford, Western Illinois, Idaho State, and Saint Joe’s) and Missouri State has won four straight (Illinois State, Northern Iowa, Arizona State, and Saint Louis), so one of these streaks will come to an end and one of these teams will pull into first alone in their conference.
Some betting trends:
Missouri State is 4-9 ATS in their last 13 road games and have lost 12 of their last 13 on the road. The total has gone OVER In 12 of their last 18 on the road and they have dropped their last 5 to Creighton on the road, in which games they are 0-5 ATS. The total has gone OVER in 4 of the last 5 games at Creighton.
Creighton has won their last 5 at home and are 11-1-1 ATS in their last 13 games against Missouri State. They have won 8 of the last 10 meetings between the teams.
Creighton is led by 4 players who average 10 points per night or greater (Antoine Young, Doug McDermott, Kenny Lawson Jr., and Gregory Echenique). 6’0″ junior point guard Antoine Young leads the way with 14.1 points per game and he also averages 4.1 assists per night. He’s an effective three point shooter at 36.5% has already had three 20+ point games and scored 15 points on 7 of 10 shooting last game against Drake. The Bluejays have two strong interior defenders in Echenique and Darryl Ashford who both block more than 1 shot a game. They will defend the paint well against Missouri State’s guards.
Missouri State is 40th in the nation in field goal percentage, shooting 47.7%. They are led by Sonny Weems of the Raptors’ younger brother, Kyle Weems, who much like his brother is a great scorer, with 16.4 points per game in 28 minutes a night. He also leads the Bears in rebounding with 6.8 boards per game. He’s scored in double figures in every game so far except the 62-50 loss to Tulsa. He had four game streak of 20+ games against Central Arkansas, Oklahoma State, Saint Louis, and Arkansas State, with only the Central Arkansas game being a loss. He’ll go a long way towards Missouri State winning the conference, if they do, and earning a berth in the NCAA tournament.
It’s hard to believe that college basketball oddsmakers have set the spread in Missouri State’s favor given Creighton’s dominance over them at home. Nonetheless, they enter tonight’s game as narrow favorites.
