Notre Dame at Pittsburgh


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The fifth-ranked Pittsburgh Panthers host No. 16 Notre Dame Monday in a Top 25 showdown between Big East rivals. Many feel Pitt is a squad that has the makeup of a Final Four team down the road, while the Fighting Irish continue to surprise folks when little was expected out of them this season. Notre Dame is still looking for it’s first road victory in league play, though, and odds makers don’t believe they’ll get it tonight. The spreads are posted for Monday with a line of Pittsburgh -10 over Notre Dame with a total set of 139 points.

Pittsburgh (19-1, 7-0) is off to their best conference start in school history. They sit two games ahead of the next closest team in the Big East thanks to impressive victories last week over No. 3 Syracuse and Depaul. The Panthers beat the Orange 74-66 at home followed by a dominant 80-50 road victory over the Blue Deamons. Gary McGhee has really been the unsung hero for this team of late, grabbing double-digit rebounds in three straight games. During this span, the Panthers are outrebounding their opponents by 17.7 boards per game.

Notre Dame (16-4, 5-3) has dropped three consecutive road games coming into this one. But the Fighting Irish continue defending their home court flawlessly. They picked up a pair of home wins last week over No. 25 Cincinnati 66-58 and against a pesky Marquette team 80-75. This is the same Golden Eagles team that the Irish lost to by 22 points earlier this month, so they were certainly out for revenge Saturday and got it. To give you a feel for how big off a difference home court is for Notre Dame, the Irish are scoring 72.6 points per game at home in Big East play while putting up only 56.3 points on the road. The Irish have lost all three of those road games by an average of 17.3 points.

It didn’t come easy for Notre Dame against Marquette, as they had to come back from 12 points down in the second half. Ben Hansbrough was the catalyst, scoring 28 points in the victory. He must bring that same kind of effort on the road, though. Hansbrough is scoring 18.3 points at home while connecting on 45.8 percent of his 3-point shots, but on the road he’s putting up only 13.0 points and shooting 26.7 percent from distance. Notre Dame has proven they can play with the best teams in the country, beating two opponents ranked inside the top-10. The Irish beat then-No. 9 Georgetown 69-55 on December 29 and then-No. 8 Connecticut 73-70 on January 4.

The Panthers are a very deep team that gets contributions from everywhere. They are led by the trio of Ashton Gibbs, Brad Wanamaker and Gilbert Brown. Gibbs is their leading scorer at 15.9 points per game, followed by Wannamaker at 12.7 points, 4.9 rebounds and 5.6 assists per contest. Brown scores 11.6 points and grabs 4.6 rebounds per game, while McGhee is putting up 7.0 points, 8.1 rebounds and 1.4 blocks. Notre Dame will have some confidence going into this one knowing they beat Pitt twice last season, including a victory in the Big East Tournament.

BetUS Projected Score: Pittsburgh 74 – Notre Dame 64

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