The 2007 Big East Championship Presented by Aéropostale will be played at Madison Square Garden in New York City on March 7-10. It will be the 25th straight year that the Garden has hosted the championship event, the longest running conference tournament at one venue in the country. The entire 2007 championship will be televised by ESPN with the first game between Villanova and DePaul getting underway today at noon. In game one Villanova is a -4 ½ point favorite with a 126 ½ point total at most offshore sportsbooks. Syracuse is a -3 1/2 point favorite in its game with UCONN (136 pt. total) in the second afternoon game. Tonight the Mountaineers of West Virginia are favored by a – 3.0 chalk against Providence( total 139) and Marquette is a -7.0 favorite over St Johns in the nightcap with a 127 point total.
The tournament format continues as in previous years with 12 schools participating. The seeding is based on regular season finish, with the top four top seeds earning first-round byes into the quarterfinals. The winner of the Big East Championship earns the league's automatic bid to the 65-team NCAA Championship field.
The top four teams in the league standings this season – No. 1 seed Georgetown , No. 2 seed Louisville, No. 3 seed Pittsburgh and No. 4 seed Notre Dame – earned the first-round byes. The Hoyas won the conference regular season title outright on March 3 with their 59-46 win over Connecticut and the Panthers' 75-71 loss to Marquette.
The last time Georgetown earned the tournament's top seed was in 1989. That was also the year the Hoyas claimed their last tournament title – an 88-79 win over Syracuse.
Below is a list of Wednesday’s game lineup with betting lines.
Noon – No. 8 DePaul vs. No. 9 Villanova. -5.0 total 126
2:00 – No. 5 Syracuse, -3 ½, total 137 vs. No. 12 Connecticut
7:00 – No. 7 West Virginia vs. No. 10 Providence -3.0 total 142
9:00 – No. 6 Marquette -7.0, total 128 vs. No. 11 St. Johns.
Thursday’s quarterfinal games and times. (Lines will be posted on Thursday).
Noon – No. 1 Georgetown vs. 8/9 winner
2:00 – No. 4 Notre Dame vs. 5/12 winner
7:00 – No. 2 Louisville vs. 7/10 winner
9:00 – No. 3 Pittsburgh vs. 6/11 winner
All BIG EAST Tournament betting lines and totals can be found at BoDog.com.
