West Virginia Mountaineers at Connecticut Huskies Betting Odds

Opening Line: WVU - 3 / UCONN +3 O/U 135

Time: 7 PM EST Monday February 22, 2010 on ESPN

Tonight in a Big East match up the Connecticut Huskies host the 8th ranked West Virginia Mountaineers. While WVU will be in the NCAA tournament UCONN is on the bubble big time, as they need to start winning to get an invite to the Big Dance. This importance of this game for the Mountaineers is that if they win out and maybe win the Big East tournament they may snag a precious #1 seed in the NCAA tournament.

This season UCONN is 14-3 at home and 10-14-1 ATS and WVU is 7-3 on the road and 11-14 ATS.

UCONN is bunched up with 4 other teams at 6-8 in the Big East and each has similar overall records so a win over a top 10 team will really look good on the Huskies' post-season resume.

WVU is back on track winning their last 2 games after dropping 2 in a row and UCONN has won 2 in a row, but have lost 5 of their last 8 games.

If UCONN loses this game the best they can do is .500 in the Big East with only 3 more conference games left.

UCONN is 14-4 all time against WVU including winning all 7 match ups at home.

The Mountaineers are led by their solid frontcourt, as they have 3 forwards that are averaging in double figures in Da'Sean Butler (17.5 ppg), Kevin Jones (13.7 ppg), and Devin Ebanks (12.1 ppg). These guys will be counted on for most of the offense in this game.

UCONN has a more well-balanced offense with 2 guards and 2 forwards averaging double figures led by G Jerome Dyson (18.7 ppg).

The Huskies really need to worry about Devin Ebanks, who has been on fire lately averaging 15.8 ppg and shooting 55.6% in his last 5 games.

The Huskies have to concentrate on keeping the WVU F trio off the glass, as each is averaging at least 6 rebounds per game.

The Huskies have the better backcourt and they have to shoot the rock well tonight to win this game. Dyson has to have a solid showing or the Huskies may be in trouble.

WVU is 1-5 ATS in their last 6 games as a favorite of 0.5-6.5, -5 ATS in their last 7 games following a ATS win, and has an Over record of 8-3 in their last 11 road games.

UCONN is 5-1 ATS in their last 6 games as an underdog, 4-1 ATS in their last 5 home games against teams with a winning road record, and has an Under record of 5-2 in their last 7 home games.

In 4 of the last 5 games between these 2 teams the total has gone Over.

Our Selection : Sure the Huskies have looked good recently with back to back wins on the road including an impressive win at Villanova. However, We're still not sold on their defense. UConn has kept moderately low scoring teams such as Depaul, St. John's, Cincinnati and Rutgers to 60 or under points, but did allow the more efficient offenses of Syracuse, VIllanova, Louisville and Providence to score an average of 77.5 PPG. The Mountaineers are ranked 8th in the nation in road scoring at 77.8 PPG and we no reason to think that they won't put up in that range tonight. The Huskies are putting up 73.5 points at home while the the Mountaineers are allowing 70.8 in road tilts, so we expect UConn to be around the 70 mark. The total on this game opened at 135 and our projection for this game is 143. Take Over 135 points.