Pittsburgh visits the Queen City

The Pittsburgh Panthers drew the dreaded Saturday-Monday Big East slate to begin league play, both on the road. The first part of the process was no problem after upsetting previously undefeated Syracuse 82-72. Now it’s off to the Queen City for the Panthers (12-2, 5-4-2 ATS) who have won five in a row.

Pittsburgh has survived despite having its fewest number of returning starters in years. Brad Wanamaker has emerged as more of a scoring guard than expected and Nasir Robinson has added to the offense. Jermaine Dixon is finally healthy and making solid contributions and Ashton Gibbs has been dropping some three-point bombs.

Even with how good Pitt basketball has been for a number of years, highly-touted freshman Dante Taylor is their first McDonald’s All-American in 21 years. Pittsburgh comes into this game 10-1 ATS after four straight wins by 10 points or more over the last three seasons.

Cincinnati (10-3, 4-4-1 ATS) is a tweener team, they could be better or worse than preseason prognostications or just middle of the pack in the Big East. The potential is there for the Bearcats to be quite good as the backcourt Deonta Vaughn, redshirt freshman Cashmere Wright and true frosh Lance Stephenson could be second only to Villanova. For Cincy to be noticed, they must be unbeaten at home and close to .500 on the road.

The Bearcats have started strong in Big East play with wins over Connecticut and Rutgers and to move up on the next rung of the conference ladder, they must overcome 5-18 ATS record after playing a game as favorite.

DiamondSportsbook.com Cincinnati has 4.5-point favorites, with total of 126. The Bearcats are unsightly 0-10 ATS after playing consecutive games as favorite and 11-2 OVER in home games after three contests allowing a shooting percentage of 40 percent or less. Pittsburgh is well aware of Cincy’s failures vs. better clubs (2-9 ATS against teams with win percentage of 80 percent or higher the last two years) and will have to match their intensity on the road. The Panthers are 10-2 OVER when the total is 129.5 or less over the last three seasons.

ESPN has this telecast for the unofficial start of Big Monday and Pittsburgh has won five of last six encounters against Cincinnati with .500 spread mark.