Pete Angelo
Arkansas at Georgia
Playing the home team in this one, as we have a pair of very similar squads taking aim at one another.
Georgia is in revenge after suffering a 22-point thumping last week to the Hogs. Though Arkansas is the more talented team, it's hard to come into Athens and steal one.
The Bulldogs are in after suffering a heart-breaking defeat, as they fell to South Carolina on the road by a 78-77 final. They'll be up to avenge that loss, and fortunately they return home, where they have earned eight of their nine victories.
1♦ GEORGIA
Chuck O'Brien
Take Georgetown and lay the big points against South Florida in Big East hoops action Wednesday.
South Florida has won three in a row (two narrow overtime wins over Providence and Seton Hall, and Saturday’s nine-point win over Pitt). And the Bulls have cashed in five straight games, the last four as an underdog. But this is an entirely different beast that the Bulls are going up against today. Georgetown is 16-4 overall and 10-1 at home. The 10th home win came on Saturday when the Hoyas dismantled eighth-ranked Duke 89-77 as a two-point home underdog – a victory that vaulted Georgetown to the No. 7 spot in this week’s national polls.
Speaking of rankings, the Hoyas’ game against Duke was their fifth versus a Top 13 opponent in their last seven contests. Those two against non-ranked foes ended in blowout fashion (85-73 over Seton Hall; 88-63 over Rutgers, both at home). Meanwhile, prior to beating Pitt on Sunday, South Florida got destroyed in its first two games against ranked opponents, losing 82-65 at then-No. 7 Syracuse and 69-50 at home to then-No. 10 West Virginia. (Also, the Pitt victory wasn’t really THAT impressive, because the Panthers have hit the skids the last two weeks … starting with an eight-point HOME loss to Georgetown on Jan. 20!).
The Hoyas went to South Florida last year and pounded the Bulls 65-40 as a 5½-point road favorite. Considering this year’s meeting is at Georgetown – and considering the Hoyas are more talented than they were a season ago – I can’t help but envision another 20-plus point win.
4♦ GEORGETOWN
Jeff Benton
I’ve hit my last two freebies, including Northwestern (6♦) blowing out Michigan last night. Let’s make it three in a row on Wednesday, as I’ll lay the points with UNLV at Wyoming.
The only way the Rebels don’t score a double-digit victory here is if they get gassed because of the altitude of Laramie, Wyoming (which is at 7,200 feet elevation). But I doubt that will happen because Lon Kruger substitutes liberally (11 players average more than 11 minutes per game, and only four guys average more than 18½ minutes). That means UNLV should be very fresh for the entire game, and if that’s the case, Wyoming doesn’t stand a chance.
While UNLV is 17-4 SU and 13-6 ATS on the season, including 8-2 SU and ATS on the road, the Cowboys are just 9-12, including 8-6 at home. And since suffering a 77-73 loss at BYU as a 7½-point underdog in their Mountain West Conference opener, the Rebels have won five of their last six games, going 3-0 SU and ATS on the road. By comparison, Wyoming is just 2-5 in Mountain West play (2-2 at home).
UNLV has won 11 of the last 13 meetings against the Cowboys going back to 2003-04, cashing in nine of those 13 contests, including five of seven in Laramie. The Rebels also come into this game having covered the spread in six straight road games (four straight as a road favorite) and they’re 6-0 ATS in their last six Wednesday contests. Throw in the fact that UNLV is better offensively, better defensively, and better from the three-point and free-throw lines, and this smells like a major blowout victory for the visitors.
4♦ UNLV