2011 NCAA Tournament Second Round – Southwest Region
#7 Texas A&M Aggies vs. #10 Florida State Seminoles, United Center, Chicago, IL
Friday, March 18, 2011, 4:10 pm Eastern, TV: TBS
Opening Line: Texas A&M -1
Current Line: Texas A&M -1
Opening Total: 122.5
Current Total: 122
Money Line: Texas A&M -120 / Florida State +100
The 10th-seeded Florida State Seminoles (21-10) and seventh-seeded Texas A&M Aggies (24-8) are not heading into the NCAA tournament the way they would have liked, but at least they both made the field and will get the opportunity to start over on Friday in this Southwest Region second-round matchup at the United Center in Chicago. The Seminoles have covered the spread in their last three games despite losing two of them straight-up while the Aggies (-1) lost two of three to close out the regular season.
Texas A&M at least won its first game in the Big 12 Conference tournament last Thursday, knocking out #6 seed Missouri 86-71 in the quarterfinals. The third-seeded Aggies proceeded to lose to #2 Texas 70-58 the following day, failing to beat the 6.5-point line for the first time in four games. They had dropped their last two road games during the regular season following a five-game winning streak, although none of those opponents had a winning record in the Big 12.
Florida State did not even make it as far as Texas A&M, falling to Virginia Tech 52-51 in the quarterfinals of the Atlantic Coast Conference tournament on Friday. The third-seeded Seminoles surrendered the game-winning shot to the sixth-seeded Hokies with just under five seconds remaining and had a chance to win the game themselves before time expired, but Derwin Kitchen’s fallaway jumper that found the bottom of the net did not beat the buzzer.
FSU had led 27-19 at halftime but still covered the 2-point spread. Ironically, that victory was still not enough to get Virginia Tech into the NCAA tournament and ended up sending the Hokies to the NIT for the fourth year in a row. The Seminoles had a good excuse for the loss though, as leading scorer Chris Singleton missed his sixth straight game with a fractured foot.
The team went 3-3 sans Singleton in the lineup and should have him back for the Big Dance. Florida State went 4-1-1 against the spread in those games and was 7-2 straight-up in the previous nine games with him on the court. He scored 18 points in a 66-61 upset of Duke to start that run while Kitchen had a game-high 22 to go along with 10 rebounds.
The UNDER has cashed in four of the last five games for the Seminoles and four of the past six for the Aggies. When you take into account that this game will be played on a neutral court, the numbers are even more staggering. The UNDER is 22-6-2 in Florida State’s last 30 neutral site games and 5-2-1 in Texas A&M’s past eight.
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