As the March Madness NCAA Annual 2015 Tournament continues and we move into the Sweet 16 Round we have the No. 2 Arizona Wildcats 33-3 who are playing the No. 6 Xavier Musketeers 23-13 and the game tips-off at 3 PM ET on Thursday the 26th of March 2015 and is played at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, California.
The opening Vegas odds have the Wildcats of Arizona favored over the Musketeers of Xavier at -11 with the Over/under at 136 and Arizona is -600 on the Money Line with the comeback Money Line for Xavier at +450.
If you’re a Wildcats fan and Bet on College basketball at an Online sportsbook, then yes this turned out to be very sweet for the No. 2 Wildcats, as they beat the Buckeyes of Ohio State to earn their ticket to this Sweet 16 match-up, and this makes it 5 out of 7 times that Arizona has made this far in the annual NCAA Tournaments under their present Coach Miller. Then now if the care to join the Elite Eight which is the next Round after the Sweet 16 they will are required to win this game against a familiar rival and very good team, in the Musketeers of Xavier.
If you’re from Arizona or other parts of the country, the fans had to enjoy the rout of the Buckeyes of OSU in the win for Arizona n the Round of 32. That win for Arizona was their 13th consecutive win this 2014-15 seasons, and to top that off it was the 11th time they beat their opponents by more than 15 points.
But the real star in this game was the play of the Wildcats defensive tactics as they kept their opponents star from not scoring more than 9 points in the game and as a team they only allowed them to shoot for a completion rate of 28% on 3-pointers and 37.5% on their field goals.
The Wildcats claim they will continue with their same defensive plan against the Musketeers that they used against Ohio State, and they will go all out to stop Xavier’s guard Davis who leads the team with assists at 6.1 each game. Plus Arizona’s key defensive man McConnell that led the nation in steals this season and had 5 against the Buckeyes will use his talent against the Musketeers offense.
If you’re a Xavier fan then you know that in the Round of 64 and the Round of 32 that your teams offense played some very efficient basketball as they had a completion rate on field goals of 45.8% as the beat the Rebels of Ole Miss and then beat Georgia State as they shot 66.7% in Round 32.
You should also know that as mentioned earlier in articles on this tournament regarding the 3-pointers, the Musketeers in their last 2 games in this tournament are shooting at 46.8% completion while during the season they shot a 35.5% on 3-pointers. Also offensively Xavier had 2 forwards are scoring 20 plus points lately and they will face some difficulty with the Wildcats talented and high reaching defense that will force the Musketeers to shoot more 3-pointer if they want to play to victory against the Wildcats.
The experts pick the Wildcats of Arizona to win this game, but they think it will be closer than most anticipate, because of the talented shooters and the height of the Musketeers team, so make your pick and make it a winner!