Georgetown Hoyas at Louisville Cardinals Betting Odds

Opening Line: Georgetown +3 / Louisville -3 O/U 142.5

Time: 7 PM EST Tuesday February 23, 2010 on ESPN2

Tonight in a Big East match up of 2 teams heading in different directions the Louisville Cardinals host the 13th ranked Georgetown Hoyas. Sure, the Hoyas are ranked 13th in the nation, but they are one game behind the Cardinals in the Big East and they have lost 2 games in a row. The Cardinals have won 3 straight and 5 of their last 6 and it looks as if their invite to the Big Dance is in the mail. Or is it? They look good now, but the remainder schedule for them is killer playing Marquette and UCONN and finishing the season with #4 Syracuse.

Georgetown needs to stop the bleeding and win this game or they will not get a great seed in the NCAA tournament.

This season Louisville is 14-3 at home and 8-14 ATS and Georgetown is 5-4 on the road and 11-10 ATS.

In their last games Louisville beat DePaul 68-59 on Sunday while Georgetown lost to Syracuse 75-71 on Friday night.

Louisville has a very well balanced offense, as they only have 2 players that are averaging in double figures, led by F Samardo Samuels (16.1 ppg), but as a team average 78.3 ppg.

Georgetown is led by their 3 guards averaging in double figures, led by Austin Freeman (17 ppg), and their dominant C in Greg Monroe (15.7 ppg).

The forwards of the Cardinals have to work together to keep the 6'11" Monroe (9.4 rpg) off the boards. They also can't allow him to score easy buckets in the paint, but Monroe has been playing well lately averaging 18.7 ppg in his last 6 games.

The Georgetown guards have to shoot the rock well tonight to open up the lane for Monroe to operate.

Louisville is a very athletic team that can get out and run and the Hoyas need to try to slow them down and make this a half court game.

Georgetown is 3-7 ATS in their last 10 games as a road underdog of 0.5-6.5, 5-2 ATS in their last 7 games following a loss, and has an Under record of 6-2 in their last 8 road games.

Louisville is 1-4 ATS in their last 5 games, 1-5 ATS in their last 6 home games, and has an Over record of 8-3 in their last 11 home games.

In the last 5 games between these 2 teams the road team is 3-1-1 ATS.

Our Selection : Tough to pick a side in this match up with the hot and cold Hoyas who have knocked off top seeded teams such as Duke, Pittburgh and Villanova, but has lost to mediocre Rutgers and South Florida. Instead we'll be looking at the total. The Cardinals have held their last 4 home opponents to under 69 points per game (regulation time) and have gone under the total in 4 of their last 5 games. The only game that went over during the 5 game stretch was an overtime game versus N.D. that was well under the total in regulation time. It also doesn't hurt that the Hoyas are averaing only 68.6 points on the road. Take under 142.5 points.