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Kentucky Seeks Revenge
The Kentucky Wildcats will be looking to avenge their only loss of the entire season when they play host to South Carolina on Thursday night. As this is a classic revenge situation, odds makers have the proper adjustments by installing Kentucky as 16½ point home favorites over the Gamecocks. South Carolina won by a final score of 68-62 on January 26th led by Devan Downey who scored 30 points in that game. The biggest problem he gave Kentucky was his ability to dribble penetrate into the lane and get to the free throw line where he scored 10 of his 30 points. Also, helping the cause was the fact that Kentucky turned the ball over 15 times and you simply cannot do that if you want to win on the road in the SEC.
South Carolina heads into this game with virtually no chance at making the NCAA Tournament unless they somehow win the SEC Tournament in a few weeks. They are 14-12 overall and two games under .500 in SEC play at 5-7. The Gamecocks have not been profitable as they are just 9-14 ATS and are 1-8 SU on the road this season. South Carolina has lost 4 of its last 5 games straight up and against the spread. Their most recent loss came at home where Tennessee took care of business by a final score of 63-55 as just 1½ point road favorites. The biggest problem over those five games has been poor defense as South Carolina has allowed opponents to score an average of over 74 points per game and hit nearly 50% of their shots from the field. They will have to tighten up big time on defense if they want to have any shot at beating Kentucky a second time.
What can you say about Kentucky? They are ranked 2nd in the nation and have ripped off seven straight wins since losing their only game of the season at South Carolina. They have great guards and great bigs and are extremely hard to stop on the offensive side of the floor. They are led by John Wall who is averaging 17.0 points a game and DeMarcus Cousins who is averaging over 10 rebounds per game. The only concern about this Kentucky team is their lack of veteran leadership. They definitely have the talent to win a national championship but when it comes to crunch time in late March or early April will their inexperience be their Achilles heel? As for tonight, they should be able to take care of business over a struggling South Carolina team but the real question is will they be able to cover the lofty point spread. Sixteen and a half points is a lot to spot a team in conference play but a motivated Kentucky team has the capability of blowing South Carolina out, but we all know that doesn’t mean that they will.
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