{"id":3975,"date":"2009-03-24T11:47:00","date_gmt":"2009-03-24T16:47:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.joeduffy.net\/blog\/2009\/03\/sweet-16-betting-oklahoma-is-first-big-test-for-syracuse\/"},"modified":"2009-03-24T11:47:00","modified_gmt":"2009-03-24T16:47:00","slug":"sweet-16-betting-oklahoma-is-first-big-test-for-syracuse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.joeduffy.net\/blog\/2009\/03\/sweet-16-betting-oklahoma-is-first-big-test-for-syracuse\/","title":{"rendered":"Sweet 16 Betting: Oklahoma Is First Big Test For Syracuse"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=Section1>\n<p class=MsoBodyText><font size=3 face=\"Times New Roman\"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Those who <a href=\"http:\/\/www.betonline.com\/\" title=\"bet on March Madness\" id=azlr>bet on March Madness<\/a> have to hand it to <\/span><\/font><st1:City><st1:place>Syracuse<\/st1:place><\/st1:City>. Many <a href=\"http:\/\/www.betonline.com\/\" title=\"online betting\" id=s2-4>online betting<\/a> fans wrote them off as &#8220;tired&#8221; entering March Madness betting because of their potentially draining six-overtime win over UConn in the Big East tournament. But the <st1:City><st1:place>Orange<\/st1:place><\/st1:City> <span class=GramE>have<\/span> silenced those critics, winning each of their first round <span class=SpellE>matchups<\/span> relatively easily (by 10 or more points) and advancing to the Sweet 16 odds.<\/p>\n<p> Sports betting sharps have a few important questions for the <st1:City><st1:place>Orange<\/st1:place><\/st1:City> right now. First, were they tested enough in the first two rounds? The breezed past Stephen F. Austin and <st1:place><st1:PlaceName>Arizona<\/st1:PlaceName> <st1:PlaceType>State<\/st1:PlaceType><\/st1:place> on the strength of their high-octane, spread-out offense. Standout guard <span class=SpellE>Jonny<\/span> Flynn leads a group featuring five guys who averaged double-figures during the regular season. Even if Sweet 16 opponent <st1:State><st1:place>Oklahoma<\/st1:place><\/st1:State> keys on Flynn, the <st1:City><st1:place>Orange<\/st1:place><\/st1:City> can hurt the Sooners in other ways.<\/p>\n<p> The second big question is whether or not <st1:City><st1:place>Syracuse<\/st1:place><\/st1:City> can contain Blake Griffin. The powerful <st1:City><st1:place>Griffin<\/st1:place><\/st1:City>, who is the consensus top player in the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.betonline.com\/betting-edge\/March-Madness-odds-768.aspx\" title=\"March Madness odds\" id=tt0y>March Madness odds<\/a>, averaged 30.5 points and 15 boards in the first two rounds. The Sooners go as he <span class=GramE>go<\/span>, meaning <st1:City><st1:place>Syracuse<\/st1:place><\/st1:City> should prevail if they can slow <st1:City><st1:place>Griffin<\/st1:place><\/st1:City> down. Obviously, that&#8217;s a huge &#8220;if.&#8221; Based on what the <st1:City><st1:place>Orange<\/st1:place><\/st1:City> <span class=GramE>have<\/span> shown over the last several weeks, they have the toughness and size to get their noses dirty against <st1:City><st1:place>Griffin<\/st1:place><\/st1:City>. Bet on the deeper, more versatile <st1:City><st1:place>Syracuse<\/st1:place><\/st1:City> to beat <st1:State><st1:place>Oklahoma<\/st1:place><\/st1:State>. Even if <st1:City><st1:place>Griffin<\/st1:place><\/st1:City> goes off, <st1:City><st1:place>Syracuse<\/st1:place><\/st1:City>&#8216;s distributed offense can match whatever he does.<\/p>\n<p class=MsoBodyText><font size=3 face=\"Times New Roman\"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>The best winning sports picks are at <b style='mso-bidi-font-weight:normal'><font color=blue><span style='color:blue; font-weight:bold;mso-bidi-font-weight:normal'><a href=\"http:\/\/www.offshoreinsiders.com\/\">OffshoreInsiders.com<\/a><\/span><\/font><\/b> <span style='mso-spacerun:yes'>\u00a0<\/span><span style='mso-spacerun:yes'>\u00a0<\/span><o:p><\/o:p><\/span><\/font><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"blogger-post-footer\"><a\nhref=\"http:\/\/www.offshoreinsiders.com\/\"><b style='mso-bidi-font-weight:normal'>OffshoreInsiders.com<\/b><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Those who bet on March Madness have to hand it to Syracuse. Many online betting fans wrote them off as &#8220;tired&#8221; entering March Madness betting because of their potentially draining six-overtime win over UConn in the Big East tournament. But the Orange have silenced those critics, winning each of their first round matchups relatively easily &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.joeduffy.net\/blog\/2009\/03\/sweet-16-betting-oklahoma-is-first-big-test-for-syracuse\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Sweet 16 Betting: Oklahoma Is First Big Test For Syracuse<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3975","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.joeduffy.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3975","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.joeduffy.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.joeduffy.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.joeduffy.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.joeduffy.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3975"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.joeduffy.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3975\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.joeduffy.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3975"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.joeduffy.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3975"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.joeduffy.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3975"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}