NCAAB: Big East semis full of surprises

[Qbins Missile Crisis]

Georgetown’s scoring barrage against the Villanova Wildcats didn’t impress oddsmakers enough to make them a heavy favorite in today’s semifinals.

The Georgetown Hoyas are slim three-point favorites for tonight’s semifinal matchup against the West Virginia Mountaineers.

Catch both of tonight’s Big East Semifinals on ESPN with the action getting underway at 7 pm ET. Don’t forget to register for our $40,000.00 March Madness Handicapping Challenge where every winning wager on the NCAA from now through the end of the NCAA Tournament earns you points towards our weekly and grand prize pools.

West Virginia Mountaineers vs. Georgetown Hoyas

The Hoyas went into West Virginia and won the matchup earlier this season, 58-57, but it was Mountaineers’ backers earning the payday as their team covered the 3 ½-point spread.

Both teams enter off surprising quarterfinal wins. West Virginia upset the 15th-ranked Connecticut Huskies 78-72 yesterday. The Mountaineers were in the driver’s seat, controlling much of the game and easily covering the 2 ½ points the oddsmakers gave them.

For Georgetown, the surprise isn’t that they beat Villanova, but how they did it. The Hoyas rolled out to a 15-point lead in the first half and after the Wildcats closed the gap in the second, they dropped three pointer after three pointer to win 82-63.

Known for its impressive defense and often stagnant offense, Georgetown tied a Big East tournament record with 17 three pointers in the game and the 82 points they scored was one of their highest outputs of the season. Even more surprising, they did it all without any contribution from their leading scorer, Roy Hibbert.

Hibbert spent most of the game on the bench with foul trouble and only played a handful of minutes in the second half before fouling out.

Neither team has been able to gain a significant advantage in this series. Georgetown has won and covered the last two meetings while West Virginia owned the two meetings prior to that. The Under, however, has hit in each of the last four meetings.

Pittsburgh Panthers vs. Marquette Golden Eagles

The second semifinal features a pair of surprises as the lower seed won each of the two evening quarterfinals yesterday.

The Panthers needed overtime, but in the end they downed the #13 Louisville Cardinals 76-69. It was a shocking loss for a Louisville team that could’ve notched the top seed in the tournament with a win over Georgetown last weekend. Instead of getting a chance to revenge that loss, they’re one and done and Pittsburgh has now beaten them in Big East tournament play three years in a row.

Pittsburgh now gets a crack at #25 Marquette. The Golden Eagles, 2 ½-point favorites today, easily handled the Panthers, 72-54 as five-point home favorites in their only meeting this season.

While Marquette’s appearance in today’s semifinal may not be as surprising as Pittsburgh’s, they still had to beat a higher seed in #14 Notre Dame. The Golden Eagles won yesterday’s game 89-79 to advance to today’s semifinals to play a Pittsburgh team they’ve had a lot of success against.

In the last seven meetings between these two teams, Marquette won five straight up and covered the spread in six of those games. The Over has also been a good bet in this series as the game earlier this year is the only one of those seven meetings to go Under.

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