No. 12 Cornell Big Red (29-4) vs No. 1 Kentucky Wildcats (34-2)NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament East Regional Round ThreeThursday March 25, 2010 Syracuse, NY 9:55 PM ESTThe Line: Kentucky - 9The first night of round three closes out with an interesting but solid match up as Kentucky faces of against Cornell in the East Regional. Kentucky has been a force all season and even more so since they arrived at the NCAA Tournament. As well as the Wildcats played all season and they have managed to elevate their game to another level as they won by 29 points in their opening game against East Tennessee State and followed that up with a 30 point win over Wake Forest in the second round. At this point UK has to be one of the favorites if not the favorite to win it all but that doesn't mean teams are just going to lay down for them. No Wildcat starters played more than 29 minutes in the win over Wake as 13 players took the floor for at least two minutes and most for much more than that. Four of the Cats five starters still managed to get double digit scoring, something that has been common all season long for the team that has been ranked near the top for many weeks. John Wall, DeMarcus Cousins, Patrick Patterson, Eric Bledsoe,a nd Darius Miller are becoming household names and with Kentucky shooting over 60 percent from the floor last game, they absolutely deserve it. For the season UK shot 48.4 percent, were fifth in offensive rebounding and averaged a 10th best 80.1 points per game. Defensively Kentucky had the third best shooting percentage against at 37.9 percent and teams scored just 65.3 points per game when playing the Cats. This team looks to be on a mission but they haven't reached anywhere near what their goal is, to win it all. While Cornell's play may be surprising to some, it isn't all that surprising to those who have been following them all year. The Big Red have knocked off two solid teams in Temple and Wisconsin to get to this point and they did it pretty easily. In both games Cornell got out to nice leads and then did nothing but extend them as the game went on. Louis Dale scored 26 and Ryan Wittman had 24 to pace Cornell over the Badgers. The 87 points netted by the Big Red was about 11 points better than their season average of 75.8 points per game and their shooting percentage of 61.1 exceeded their 12th best in the nation 48.6 percent they shot this year. Defensively Wisconsin was able to manage 49 percent shooting and 69 points, both over the 41.9 percent and 63.4 points that Cornell opponents averaged this year. Cornell also did a nice job on the boards out rebounding the Badgers by nearly 25 percent, something they did well on the defensive end all season long. I don't see this team backing down from anyone. Kentucky is 5-0 against the spread in their last five NCAA Tournament games as a favorite, 4-0 against the spread in their last four non-conference games, but they are just 8-17 against the spread following their last 25 covers. Cornell is 5-1 against the spread in their last six neutral site games, 7-2 against the spread following a cover but just 1-6-1 against the spread as an underdog of seven to 12 1/2 points. This is going to be like a home game for Cornell but the Kentucky faithful are just that, faithful so expect them to be well represented as well in this gigantic arena. I think Kentucky is the better overall team but I never think giving a team that averages in the mid seventies almost 10 points is a great idea. Mitch's Pick: Cornell + 9 Check out all of our free NCAA Tournament Picks Agaisnt The Spread for 3/25/10
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