2011 NCAA Tournament Second Round – East Region
#1 Ohio State Buckeyes vs. #16 Texas-San Antonio Roadrunners, Quicken Loans Arena, Cleveland, Ohio
Friday, March 18, 2011, 4:40 pm Eastern, TV: TNT
Opening Line: Ohio State -21.5
Current Line: Ohio State -22
Opening Total: 139
Current Total: 140.5
Money Line: Ohio State -12500 / UTSA +5000
The top-seeded Ohio State Buckeyes (32-2) do not have much in common with the Texas-San Antonio Roadrunners except for the fact that both teams won their respective conference tournaments to earn automatic bids to the NCAA tournament. The Buckeyes (-22) and Roadrunners are also each unbeaten on neutral courts this season, but only one of them will remain that way after they square off in this East Region second-round matchup at Cleveland’s Quicken Loans Arena.
UTSA improved to 4-0 on neutral courts with its 20th victory of the season against Alabama State in Wednesday’s First Four, 70-61. The Roadrunners got a game-high 29 points from Melvin Johnson III while Jeromie Hill added 14 points and 10 rebounds. Texas-San Antonio had not played at a neutral site all year before last week’s Southland Conference Tournament in Katy, Texas.
The seventh-seeded Roadrunners won the Southland Conference tournament as an underdog, knocking out the top three seeds en route to the title. Senior Devin Gibson led them to a 97-96 win over East #2 Northwestern State with a triple double of a career-high 28 points, 10 rebounds and 10 assists. In the semifinals, UTSA upset West #1 Sam Houston State 79-70, covering the spread as a 6.5-point underdog thanks in part to another strong game from Gibson, who finished with 26 points and 11 rebounds. The team then won the championship with a 75-72 victory against East #1 McNeese State behind 25 points from Hill, who was named Southland Freshman of the Year.
Meanwhile, the Buckeyes took a much different road to the Big Dance but also did not play on a neutral court until the Big Ten Conference tournament last week in Indianapolis. Ohio State was not overly impressive against the three opponents standing in its way for a repeat tourney title, failing to cover the spread in the first two games before barely beating the 10-point line in a 71-60 win over Penn State in the championship game.
The Buckeyes had won their last four games of the regular season both straight-up and against the spread, and they will be very tough to beat if they regain that edge here. They crushed those four opponents by an average of more than 22 points while scoring nearly 87 points per game.
Ohio State has seen the OVER go 8-2-1 in its last 11 games while the OVER has also cashed in all three of UTSA’s lined games so far. The Roadrunners have scored 70 points or more in seven of their last eight games while allowing at least 70 four times during that stretch.
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