Yale Bulldogs at Cornell Big Red Betting Preview

Opening Line: Yale +21 / Cornell -21 O/U 137.5

Time: 7 PM EST Friday February 5, 2010

Tonight in an Ivy League match up the 25th ranked Cornell Big Red host the Yale Bulldogs. When you think of the Ivy League you generally do not think of hoops and when was the last time a conference school was ranked in the top 25? Well, Cornell looks to change that, as they are ranked and are a solid team that may do some damage in the Big Dance in March.

This season Cornell is 7-1 at home and 13-3 ATS and Yale is only 2-6 on the road and 7-4 ATS.

In their last games Yale lost to Princeton 58-45 on Saturday while Cornell crushed Harvard 86-50 also on Saturday.

Cornell has been on fire, as they are not only undefeated in Ivy League play, but they have won 6 games in a row. The Big Red only have 3 losses this season and they were all to big name teams in St. John's, Seton Hall, and Kansas. Speaking of Kansas the Jayhawks have been beating their opponents by an average of around 22 points per game, but when they played Cornell the Big Red played them tough, as they only lost by 5 points and that game was in Kansas.

After a horrible start to the season Yale is starting to come around, as even though they lost their last game they have won 4 of their last 6 games.

Cornell has a well-balanced offense with leading scorer F Ryan Wittman (17.5 ppg), C Jeff Foote 12.4 ppg), and G Louis Dale (10.7 ppg).

Yale will have to win this game with their defense, which is giving up an average of 69.1 ppg, as they only have 2 players that are averaging in double figures in G Alex Zampier (17.8 ppg) and F Michael Sands (10.6 ppg).

Since Yale does not have a great offense they will have a hard time scoring on a Cornell team that is solid on defense only allowing an average of 63.5 ppg.

Yale's C Paul Nelson (6.1 ppg 5.4 rpg) has a tough task in this game trying to keep 7 foot Cornell C Jeff Foote (8.4 rpg) off the boards in this game. Nelson gives up 2 inches and 15 pounds to Foote so he may need some help inside.

There is a huge spread for this game and with good reason, as Cornell is better on both sides of the court and Yale will have to play stellar defense and shoot well to pull off the big upset.

Yale is 5-0 ATS in their last 5 games following an ATS loss and has an under record of 3-0-1 in their last 4 games.

Cornell is 4-0 ATS in their last 4 games as a favorite and has an under record of 4-0 in their last 4 home games.

Yale is 0-5 ATS in their last 5 games when playing at Cornell.

Our Selection : Cornell is easily the best in this match-up, but you won't see me laying 22 points any time soon. The value in this game is on the total. Cornell has be allowing only 47.8 points a game in conference play while tallying 77. Yale while only 8-13 on the season has played reasonable on the defensive side holding opponents to 69 points on the season. Both these teams have been like money in the bank for under players and we don't see anything changing tonight. Take the under 135.5