College Basketball Championship Week: Big East Conference Betting Odds and Pick

The Big East Tournament starts Tuesday afternoon from Madison Square Garden in New York and to no one’s surprise, the Pittsburgh Panthers are the +200 favorites to cut down the nets Saturday evening.

It’s obvious why the oddsmakers at online betting giant Bodog.com made Pitt the favorites. After all, they notched a 15-3 regular season record to win the Big East regular season crown. Additionally, coach Jamie Dixon is no stranger to Big East Tournament success; he won it all in 2008 and came in second place in 2004, 2006 and 2007.

Big East regular season champion runners-up, the Notre Dame Fighting Irish, clock in next at +250. Led by sharpshooting forwards Tim Abromaitis and Ben Hansbrough, the Irish were one of the biggest surprises in the highly competitive Big East this season. Whereas Pitt has tons of BET success over the years, Mike Brey’s team has very little. They have never even made it to Big East Finals, let alone won it.

The betting odds on the Syracuse Orange come in next at +400 which is pretty amazing considering how horrible they were just a few weeks ago. After starting the season 18-0, Jim Boeheim’s squad proceeded to drop six out of their next eight games. However, they righted the ship and are currently riding a five game winning streak.

Rick Pitino and the Louisville Cardinals finished the Big East regular season with a 12-6 record. Led by an extremely balanced attack, the Cardinals are +500 to win their second BET crown in three years.

Considering the location of the BET is from Madison Square Garden, it’s hard not to like the St. John’s Red Storm at +650. After all, they play their home games on this very court. The Red Storm were a great story this season as they will be making their first NCAA Tournament appearance since 2002. Coach Steve Lavin has the luxury of having nine seniors on the roster; something you can’t discount come tournament time.

The Villanova Wildcats have been absolutely brutal as of late going 2-6 over their last eight games. They easily could have lost those two victories as they needed the heroics of seldom used freshman James Bell to beat Seton Hall by three points then needed overtime to defeat the Big East doormats DePaul.

Even more pathetic, the Wildcats are 1-11 against the spread in their last 12 games. Word out of Philadelphia is that senior guard Corey Stokes (14.9 points per game) will be out of service with a bum hamstring.

Fade the Wildcats and take the South Florida Bulls at +10 points.