March Madness Betting Preview: Xavier Musketeers vs. Pittsburgh Panthers
 Xavier Musketeers (25-8, 21-11 ATS) |
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 Pittsburgh Panthers (25-8, 17-11-2 ATS) |
For the second straight season, the Xavier Musketeers will face the Pittsburgh Panthers in the NCAA Tournament. The Musketeers survived a bit of a rough start to their first round game with Minnesota by storming to a 65-54 win on Friday afternoon. The Panthers were one of the few top seeds that looked very good from start to finish against a clearly inferior opponent when they smacked #14 Oakland 89-66 to rebound from a quarterfinal loss in the Big East Tournament in their previous outing.
Simply put, G Jordan Crawford was the man for the X-Men on Friday. No one else on his team scored in double digits, but he stepped up and went 11/21 from the field and 5/11 from downtown, totaling 28 points to go with his six rebounds and five assists in the ‘W’. F Jamel McLean cleaned up the glass with 14 boards. Xavier overcame a 34.3 percent shooting day from the floor by playing stellar defense against the Golden Gophers, who only shot 30.6 percent.
You can’t do it much better than the Panthers did on Friday afternoon against the Summit League champs. Oakland only shot 33.3 percent from the floor and turned the ball over 17 times (against 19 made shots). Pittsburgh won the rebounding battle against a relatively largely set of Golden Grizzlies 36-29. The Panthers shot 53.6 percentage in the game, led by 17 points from both Gs Gilbert Brown and Jermaine Dixon. Brown’s point total was made all the more impressive by the fact that he only played 19 minutes. Only eight Panthers reached the score sheet, but seven of the eight scored in double digits in the dominating ‘W’.
Last year, the X-Men proved that they can play with this Pittsburgh team. They led 37-29 at halftime and were tied up with less than a minute to play before G Levance Fields showed up to cripple them. It’s payback time for the Musketeers, who will make yet another trip to the Sweet 16 with an upset over the #3 Panthers.
Selection: Xavier Musketeers
The Musketeers are a wild 13-3-1 ATS in their L/17 NCAA Tournament games and are 36-17-2 ATS in their L/55 overall. Bookmaker Sportsbook currently has this college basketball betting battle lined at a pick ‘em. Boost your bankroll for the remainder of March Madness there right now!
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