{"id":4016,"date":"2009-03-27T10:26:00","date_gmt":"2009-03-27T15:26:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.joeduffy.net\/blog\/2009\/03\/march-madness-odds-pittsburgh-villanova-renew-big-east-rivalry\/"},"modified":"2009-03-27T10:26:00","modified_gmt":"2009-03-27T15:26:00","slug":"march-madness-odds-pittsburgh-villanova-renew-big-east-rivalry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.joeduffy.net\/blog\/2009\/03\/march-madness-odds-pittsburgh-villanova-renew-big-east-rivalry\/","title":{"rendered":"March Madness Odds &#8211; Pittsburgh, Villanova Renew Big East Rivalry"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=Section1>\n<p class=MsoBodyText><font size=3 face=\"Times New Roman\"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>If any <a href=\"http:\/\/www.betonline.com\/betting-edge\/March-Madness-odds-768.aspx\" title=\"March Madness odds\" id=acof>March Madness odds<\/a> followers doubted that the Big East was the nation&#8217;s best basketball betting conference, surely their opinions have changed now. Entering Friday&#8217;s Sweet 16 games, Five Big East teams are still alive and three have already advanced to the Elite Eight. Among them are No. 1 Pittsburgh and No. 3 Villanova, who clash Saturday. The winner gets a Final Four berth.<\/p>\n<p> While the <\/span><\/font><st1:City><st1:place>Pittsburgh<\/st1:place><\/st1:City> <span class=SpellE>vs<\/span> Villanova odds look like a dead even matchup, each team has followed a very different path to reach this point. <st1:City><st1:place>Pittsburgh<\/st1:place><\/st1:City> has fought tooth and nail to reach this round of the March Madness odds, struggling early against <st1:place><st1:PlaceName>Tennessee<\/st1:PlaceName> <st1:PlaceType>State<\/st1:PlaceType><\/st1:place> and pulling out a win against <st1:place><st1:PlaceName>Oklahoma<\/st1:PlaceName>  <st1:PlaceType>State<\/st1:PlaceType><\/st1:place> in the dying minutes. It&#8217;s scary to wonder where the Panthers would be without standout guard <span class=SpellE>Levance<\/span> Fields. He gave Pittsburgh the lead with five unanswered points against Oklahoma State and wowed online betting fans again by doing exactly the same thing in the final minute of Pittsburgh&#8217;s triumph over Xavier&#8212;a game in which the Panthers trailed by eight at the half.<\/p>\n<p> Whereas the Panthers have left it on the floor to survive each round, Villanova, save for a brief scare from American, has stomped on its competition at the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.betonline.com\/sportsbook\/default.aspx\" title=sportsbook id=a1ue>sportsbook<\/a>. Villanova&#8217;s victory margin is actually <i><span style='font-style:italic'>widening <\/span><\/i>the deeper it goes in the tournament; it obliterated<a href=\"http:\/\/www.betonline.com\/\" title=\"online betting\" id=qxw9> <\/a>higher-seeded Duke by 23 points in the Sweet 16. On paper, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.betonline.com\/\" title=\"online betting\" id=qxw9>online betting<\/a> fans have to seriously consider Villanova in this NCAA basketball betting matchup. The Wildcats beat the Panthers 67-57 on Jan. 28 and have distributed scoring, meaning <st1:City><st1:place>Pittsburgh<\/st1:place><\/st1:City> can&#8217;t key on one player defensively.<\/p>\n<p> In the end, I like the battle-hardened team to grind out a win over the untested team. <st1:City><st1:place>Pittsburgh<\/st1:place><\/st1:City> keeps coming out on top of close games, largely because of its clutch play from Fields and reliable inside scoring form <span class=SpellE>DeJuan<\/span> Blair and Sam Young. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.betonline.com\/\" title=\"Online betting\" id=bxl->Online betting<\/a> fans simply don&#8217;t know yet whether Villanova can battle through a tight contest. Bet on <st1:City><st1:place>Pittsburgh<\/st1:place><\/st1:City>, which as already proven itself, to reach the Final Four.<\/p>\n<p class=MsoBodyText><font size=3 face=\"Times New Roman\"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>March Madness <a href=\"http:\/\/www.offshoreinsiders.com\/\">college basketball picks<\/a> are up. <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>If any March Madness odds followers doubted that the Big East was the nation&#8217;s best basketball betting conference, surely their opinions have changed now. Entering Friday&#8217;s Sweet 16 games, Five Big East teams are still alive and three have already advanced to the Elite Eight. Among them are No. 1 Pittsburgh and No. 3 Villanova, &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.joeduffy.net\/blog\/2009\/03\/march-madness-odds-pittsburgh-villanova-renew-big-east-rivalry\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">March Madness Odds &#8211; Pittsburgh, Villanova Renew Big East Rivalry<\/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-4016","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.joeduffy.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4016","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=4016"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.joeduffy.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4016\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.joeduffy.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.joeduffy.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4016"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.joeduffy.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}