Saint Mary's Gaels at Gonzaga Bulldogs Betting Odds

Opening Line: St. Mary's +6 / Gonzaga -6 O/U 152.5

Time: 11 PM EST Thursday February 11, 2010 on ESPN2

Tonight in an important West Coast Conference match up the 11th ranked Gonzaga Bulldogs host the St. Mary's Gaels. The winner of this game will be all-alone top the WCC, as St. Mary's leads Gonzaga by .5 in the conference. The Bulldogs have won 11 of their last 12 games including their last 2 and the Gaels are on a 6 game winning streak. The Gaels only have 1 conference loss and that was to the Bulldogs on January 14th.

This season the Bulldogs are 11-1 at home and 11-8-1 ATS and the Gaels are 8-0 on the road and 16-7 ATS.

In their last games St. Mary's beat San Francisco 73-57 on Saturday and Gonzaga beat Memphis 66-58 also on Saturday.

Since Randy Bennett became head coach of St. Mary's he has a 0-8 record when playing at Gonzaga.

The Gaels have yet to lose at home this season and they have won at least 20 games for the three straight years.

The Gaels are led by their dominant C Omar Samhan (21.7 ppg 11.1 rpg) and his backup, who plays alongside Samhan a lot, is also solid in Ben Allen (10.8 ppg 7.5 rpg). These 6'11" twin towers will make it hard for Gonzaga to score inside and they will give the Bulldogs trouble on the boards.

The Gaels also have a solid backcourt, as they have 3 guards that are averaging in double figures.

Gonzaga has a great inside-outside game with guards Matt Bouldin (16.7 ppg) and Steven Gray (13.4 ppg), F Elias Harris (15.6 ppg), and C Robert Sacre (10.1 ppg).

Bouldin is having a great senior season and he was recently named a finalist for the Bob Cousy Award given to college basketball's top point guard.

Harris (8.3 rpg) and Sacre (5.2 rpg) have a tall task tonight, as they have to keep the big Gaels' centers off the boards tonight.

The Gaels will have to play good perimeter defense tonight and not allow the Bulldogs to have open looks from deep, as Gonzaga can bury the 3 with the best of them.

St. Mary's is 8-2 ATS this season and Gonzaga is only 3-4 ATS at home.

St. Mary's has an Over record of 6-3 in their last 9 road games and Gonzaga has an Over record of 6-1 in their last 7 home games.

Our Selection : Zaga has won the last 5 games SU in this series and did beat the Gaels by 7 on the road in January. So an easy win for Gonzaga right? Not so fast. The Bulldogs shot a ridiculous 58.7% in that game, far exceeding their season average of 49%. The 89 points allowed by St. Mary's in that game was a a season high for a team that has been respectable on the defensive side of tha ball holding opponents to 66.7 PPG. The loss to Zaga was also the only belemish in conference play this year for the Gaels who have outscored conference opposition by 11.6 points per game. We think that it is big stretch to think that the Bulldogs will put up the shooting numbers from their previous match up. We feel that St Mary's can not only keep this close and cover the number, but we're expecting a straight up win. Take the Gaels +6