Winners of 11 in a row, No. 5 Georgetown heads to Villanova as slight underdogs Wednesday night.
Line: Villanova -1, Total: 122 (Line Movement)
While the Hoyas have been one of the hottest teams in college basketball lately with 11 straight wins, the Wildcats have struggled in their past couple. With an overtime loss to Pittsburgh Sunday, Villanova has now lost two in a row. But the ‘Cats have won five of their past six home games. These two teams met once last season, and the Hoyas cruised at home en route to a 67-46 win, holding ‘Nova to 14-of-50 (28%) shooting. Georgetown is 9-1-1 ATS during its 11-game winning streak, including 4-0 ATS as underdogs. Overall, the Hoyas are 6-1 ATS on the road. Although the Wildcats have also been a tremendous bet this year (18-9 ATS overall and 11-6 ATS in the Big East), Georgetown has also owned the series between the two teams, going 3-0 SU and ATS in the last three meetings.
Containing Georgetown begins with addressing PF Otto Porter (16.6 PPG, 7.6 RPG) who has quickly emerged into a National Player of the Year candidate with his hot play. He’s averaging 27.7 PPG (58% FG), 7.0 RPG and 3.3 SPG in his past three games, playing all but one minute of those three games, even though one of them went into double overtime. Despite his 6-foot-8 frame, he’s a deft shooter (47% threes) and that has only improved over his hot spell where he’s hit 9-of-16 from beyond the arc. Last year, Porter made just his second career start against Villanova and scored a team-high 15 points on 6-of-11 shooting, also adding six boards. G Markel Starks (12.2 PPG, 2.9 APG) paces the backcourt as the team’s only double-digit scorer with Greg Whittington (12.1 PPG, 7.0 RPG) still out, though they haven’t missed him much, as their entire hot streak has been without him.
Unlike the Hoyas, Villanova doesn’t have one dominating scorer. But sophomore PF JayVaughn Pinkston (12.7 PPG, 4.8 RPG) has consistently been there, scoring double-digits in eight consecutive games. He’s joined down low by C Mouphtaou Yarou (9.5 PPG, 7.6 RPG) who has a big 6-foot-10 frame and will be key to helping guard Porter across the court. Freshman PG Ryan Arcidiacono (12.2 PPG, 3.4 APG) paces the backcourt and is averaging 17.8 PPG over the team’s past five contests. He hit 5-of-8 threes in the team’s double OT loss to Pittsburgh and is making 2.2 threes per game this season. Lengthy 6-foot-6 SG Darrun Hilliard (11.4 PPG) joins him in the backcourt, though Hilliard has struggled in the team’s two recent losses with 8.5 PPG on 3-of-17 shooting.
Source: Statfox
