Notre Dame Fighting Irish at Villanova Wildcats Betting Preview

Opening Line: Fighting Irish +11 / Wildcats -11 O/U 165.5

Time: 7 PM EST Wednesday January 27, 2010 on ESPN

Tonight in a Big East match up the 3rd ranked Villanova Wildcats host the Notre Dame Fighting Irish. With a win tonight the Wildcats can match the best start in school history with a 10th straight win. The Fighting Irish have not began conference play the way they wanted to as they are only 1 game over .500 in Big East play and they have lost 3 of their last 6 games. Notre Dame is 1-2 this season against teams ranked in the top 10 in the nation.

This season Villanova is 9-0 at home and 14-4 ATS and Notre Dame is 1-2 on the road and 7-6-1 ATS.

This game is at the Wachovia Center where the Wildcats are 1-0 this season.

In their last games Villanova beat St. Johns 81-71 on Sunday and Notre Dame beat DePaul 87-77 also on Sunday.

The Wildcats have one of the better backcourts in the nation with Big East player of the year candidate Scottie Reynolds (18.7 ppg) and Corey Fisher (13.1 ppg). Reynolds has stepped up lately averaging 21.4 ppg on 58.7% shooting in Big East play.

While the Wildcats are led by their backcourt the Irish are led by their frontcourt in the forwards of Luke Harangody (24.7 ppg), who is the Big East leading scorer, and Tim Abromaitis (16.7 ppg).

The Irish guard combo of Ben Hansbrough (11.7 ppg) and Tory Jackson (7.9 ppg) have to play solid perimeter defense tonight on Reynolds and Fisher and not let them shoots lights out and penetrate into the lane.

Villanova is averaging 84.9 ppg and they like to get out and run so if they can play an up-tempo game they will be in good shape.

Nova forwards Antonio Pena (7.5 rpg) and Taylor King (6.3 rpg) have to be solid on the glass tonight and not allow Luke Harangody (9.9 rpg) to dominate the boards tonight and give the Irish 2nd chance opportunities.

If the Irish can play well on the glass and play a slow-tempo half court game they have a good chance of pulling off the upset and if they do that they may be ranked in the top 25 when the next rankings come out.

Notre Dame is 4-10-1 ATS in their last 15 road games, 3-8 ATS in their last 11 games as a road underdog, and the total has gone Over in 8 of their last 11 games. Villanova is 7-1 ATS in their last 8 home games, 5-1 ATS in their last 6 games as a favorite of 7.0-12.5, and the total has gone Over in their last 5 games.

Our Selection : The Wildcats are a perfect 7-0 in the Big East Conference this season and have outscored their conference opponents by 11 points per game. However, when looking deeper into the numbers, you'll find that three of "Nova's games were versus teams with a losing record in conference play. The Wildcats devoured those teams, out scoring them by an average of 21 points. Nova has found things much tougher when facing better quality teams from the Big East While they did win all 4 games against Marquette(2) Louisville and Georgetown, the margin of victory was 4.25 points per game. The linesmaker has overvalued the Wildcats. Take the Fighting Irish +10.5.