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UCONN at Providence
1/27/10
The UCONN Huskies take the short trip to Providence tonight to take on the Friars in a Big East Game that's pivotal for the Huskies. UCONN is a good team, make no mistake about it. At this level, there's not much room for error. A short slump can ruin a season. UCONN at one point was ranked in the top 10 before the wheels fell off.
UCONN lost 3 Big East games already and 6 overall on the year. While the Big East is a conference that gets more teams into the Big Dance than other conferences year after year, it's safe to say that every game that remains for UCONN is crucial. There are 8 teams in front of UCONN in the Big East currently. If the season were to end today, only winning the Big East Conference tournament would save them and get them in.
Some teams always give others fits. Happens in every sport. Providence is one such team to UCONN. A thorn in their side you might say. UCONN has been the superior team for years. But the results between these two in the past don't always reflect that. Providence has won 3 of the last 4 between these two and two of those wins were at UCONN!! Providence even beat UCONN the year UCONN won the National Championship in 2004!
As far as I'm concerned, the UCONN season hangs in the balance tonight. The Big East schedule is brutal. There isn't an easy game left on their schedule and they still have to play at Syracuse and at Villanova. After dropping 3 straight games UCONN now has some momentum after beating St Johns and then knocking off #1 Texas in their last game by completely dominating the 2nd half. That should tell you how good this team can be.
Now they have to keep that momentum by doing something they haven't been able to do all year, which is win on the road. They lost at Duke, Cinci, Georgetown and Michigan. This will be their "easiest" road game so far this year. UCONN made a non conference statement by whacking Texas, now they need to continue that momentum and send a message to the Big East with a dominating road win at Providence and they'll have to do it without head honcho Jim Calhoun who is still on medical leave.
We play hoops by the numbers. There are so many opportunities over the course of a season. If your numbers are good, and you play enough volume, you should be able to grind out a profit. We use a few different methods to come up with numbers and margins for college hoops. We put emphasis on strength of schedule and also put extra emphasis on how a team is playing right now, over the last 5 games, and less emphasis on what happened say, in November. We have UCONN winning this one by 13 points. FINAL SCORE - UCONN 86-73. So we'll lay the points here. UCONN -5
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