West Virginia Mountaineers vs. Kentucky Wildcats Betting Odds

Opening Line: Kentucky -4 / WVU +4 O/U 134

Time: 7 PM EST Saturday March 27, 2010 on CBS

In a West Region Elite 8 match up tonight the top-seed Kentucky Wildcats take on the West Virginia Mountaineers. The West region is the only #1 vs. #2 match up and one of a couple of very contrasting styles. Kentucky is a high scoring team with a dynamic offense and West Virginia is a tough and physical team that wins with defense.

If Kentucky wins tonight they will be heading to the Final 4 for their first time since they won the National Championship in 1998.

This season WVU is 16-19 ATS and Kentucky is 19-15 ATS.

In their Sweet 16 wins neither team really had a tough time advancing, as Kentucky beat Cornell 62-45 and WVU beat Washington 69-56.

The Wildcats have yet to have a close game in the Big Dance, as they have won their first 3 games by 29 points, 30 points, and 17 points respectively.

Kentucky is led by PG John Wall (16.6 ppg) and forwards DeMarcus Cousins (15.1 ppg 9.9 rpg) and Patrick Patterson (14.5 ppg 7.3 rpg). In their win over Cornell Peterson had 9 points and 12 rebounds and Cousins was the high scorer with 16 points and had 7 rebounds.

Kentucky scored 100 points and 90 points in their first 2 games, but they are not all about offense, as they held Cornell to only 45 points on 16/48 shooting for a FG% of only 33.3%.

WVU is led by their forward trio of Da'Sean Butler (17.4 ppg 6.3 rpg), Kevin Jones (13.7 ppg 7.2 rpg), and Devin Ebanks (12 ppg 8.3 rpg). These 3 combined for 44 points and 22 boards in their 3rd round win over Washington. These guys will have to provide most of the offense, especially since Mountaineers starting PG Darryl Bryant (9.3 ppg) is out after breaking his foot in practice on Tuesday.

Kentucky will have to hit the glass in this game, as West Virginia is a great rebounding team and out-rebounded Washington 41-25 including grabbing 19 offensive rebounds.

Kentucky only shot 2/16 from beyond the 3-point arc in their win over Cornell and they have to shoot better from deep in this game.

West Virginia will have to slow the pace of this game down and make this more of a half court game.

Betting Trends

WVU is 4-1 ATS in their last 5 games as an underdog of 0.5-6.5 and has an Under record of 7-0 in their last 7 games.

Kentucky is 4-1 ATS in their last 5 games as a favorite and has an Over record of 7-2 in their last 9 non-conference games.

Our Selection : The Mountaineers strength is defense, but they do rely on the 3 pointers to put teams away. That's not something that is easy to do against the Wildcats defense which is allowing opponents to shoot only 24.2% from 3 point land in last 5 games. Da'Sean Butler is expected back for West Virginia, but it would be a lot to expect him to light it up coming off of a hand injury. Bodog has Kentucky as a 4 point favorite and we think the Wildcats should have no problem covering that number. Take Kentucky -4.